Praying With a Pen
Writing as an Act of Perception, Not Performance
This morning I woke up paralyzed by second-guessing.
I’ve been writing here on Substack for five months now and greatly enjoying the weekly practice of noticing what I’m thinking about—and then writing it down.
But this morning? The army of internal critics had arrived, and they were loudly tsking and tapping their feet. Why are you doing this? Who cares? Do you think your readers really want another newsletter clogging their inbox?
The critics haven’t visited me in months, and when they have chimed in, their comments have been relatively easy to move past.
Not today. Today, I began to question everything I was writing, and the essay I’d planned to revise suddenly appeared stupid and pointless. I could blame the lack of sleep, or last night’s gin and tonic. Instead, some part of me chose to pay attention. To dig into what the critics might be trying to tell me.
After pages of messy and fast handwritten journaling, I’m beginning to remember why writing these essays is so important to me.
Writing allows me to look at what life is trying to teach me through my own experiences. When a thought draws me to the page, I’m essentially embarking on a personal archeological dig where my goal is to unearth and dust off the meaning buried underneath.
Writing is a creative act that helps me trust and strengthen my own inner knowing—a practice that enriches every aspect of my life. After all, the only gauge I have as to whether or not something “works” is my own feeling about it.
The more I write about my experiences, the more I feel my life has been carefully curated by some larger entity for the benefit of my growth here on earth. When you write about and examine life as often as I do, it’s impossible not to see patterns, coincidences, and synchronicities that seem to have been designed just for you.
I’ve heard it said that spirituality is not faith or religious affiliation, it’s perception. It’s the ability to look at life and feel connected to something greater than oneself. Writing gives me that gift.
Which, now that I’m thinking about it, was exactly the reason I started writing this newsletter several months ago. I wanted a container, a place to hold my words as I explore where my writing—and by that, I mean my life—is leading me next.
This Substack had no other goal than that.
But there’s something about being on a social media platform that begins to chip away at pure intent and insist you focus on gaining more followers, more likes, more shares. What began as a place to notice becomes a place to perform. You start to measure instead of pay attention. Writing for oneself? Pure folly! Or so say the critics.
But what if all I’m really doing is praying with a pen? Paying attention? Noticing—and learning from—this magnificent life I’ve been given?
I happen to think that’s way more than enough.
Please keep praying with your pen. It’s my weekly joy to read your thoughts which always provoke thoughts of my own!
Shari, perhaps my most favorite word is "perspicacity". Here's what Wikipedia says:
Perspicacity (also called perspicaciousness) is a penetrating discernment (from the Latin perspicācitās, meaning throughsightedness, discrimination)—a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight.[1] It extends the concept of wisdom by denoting a keenness of sense and intelligence applied to insight. It has been described as a deeper level of internalization.[2] Another definition refers to it as the "ability to recognize subtle differences between similar objects or ideas".[3]
The artist René Magritte illustrated the quality in his 1936 painting La Clairvoyance, which is sometimes referred to in the English speaking world as Perspicacity. The picture shows an artist at work who studies his subject intently: it is an egg. But the painting he is creating is not of an egg; it is an adult bird in flight.[4]
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