Writing in the Shade of Trees – The Three-Year Anniversary, Milestones Along the Way & The Path Ahead

The three-year anniversary of Writing in the Shade of Trees is soon coming up.  At first, I thought it was the second anniversary, and that is how I started the first draft of this posting, but when I checked the dates on my website, I saw I that I had first published on September 26, 2020 – three years ago – time marred by the pandemic, that also blurred other aspects of my life, unaccounted days and months it seemed, speeding by fast with erased travel, missed birthdays of grandchildren, and a delayed funeral of a well-loved sister.

From the first postings until now, I have published 189 posts, now 190 counting this one.  Friends have commented on this numerical accomplishment, describing it as quite an accomplishment, even as a milestone of sorts.  And, yes, in my mind, this is a significant body of work, and one spurred on by the fact that early on, I decided that I needed to post at least six times a month to force and form the discipline of daily writing and an inner pressure to produce. I knew this was essential in order for me to become a writer factually and in my own mind.  I now think, act, and live, as a writer – as best as I am able to arrange my life – and I do not now hesitate to tell others I am a writer and even introduce myself as such.

This production goal, as a way of creating forward moving discipline, was also a way of making my writing public – exposing to view what I had kept quiet and privately hidden – was also an effective tool in better crafting and focusing my writing.  For initially with my website, I was not entirely clear or sure where I was headed with my writing, a continuing tension and lack of absolute vision that I now accept as a given and still evolving aspect of my writing, of my life.

Also, initially I lacked a complete confidence that I could sustain the effort to effectively write, and also whether I even possessed the skill to write with the clarity and beauty that to me are now absolutely essential to the success of my craft.  And, of course, clarity and beauty are still evolving and developing within my writing, which now from experience, take considerable work, effort, and time to even approach. 

Even now with everything I write, I cannot say I have arrived at always producing beauty, but I accept that the pursuit of these aspects – my definition of excellence – will also be a lifelong pursuit.  But I believe that I am at least upon the path towards this excellence – this belief a product of the discipline in my life as a writer I have been able to achieve – a continuing discipline, yes, which I accept for my life as long as I desire to consider myself a writer.

Readers subscribing to my website provided a second milestone for my website.  And of the subscribers, there is a small coterie of truly faithful readers who read everything I post, who are, for the most part, friends and family who already have a relationship with me, and who like what I write.  However, there are also a few people I do not know who have subscribed to my website, which, honestly, for me, was very encouraging and satisfying, a mini-milestone all its own. 

But whether a subscriber reads everything I write or only occasionally, or whether I know them or not, I write for all of them, and also for the number of others who have not subscribed but who have made their way to my pages more than once, for there is at least something within my writing that appeals to them.  For those who venture onto my website once or just occasionally, or who subscribe and remain, they are all “those who read what I write because they like, or at least tolerate, how I write and appreciate what I write about”. And the only way I know how to honor them, is to write with as much excellence as I am able.

A third milestone of sorts is that since the inception of my website, I have to my knowledge lost at least four friends – perhaps there are more. This was because either I posted the letters I wrote over eight years to my former church, or I would not take them or any other content down from my website, or because I resigned my membership from the church I had been a member of for about forty years.  A few of these friends, and other friends and acquaintances from church, have also questioned whether I was ever truly even a Christian, a believer, or, more generously, one just labeled me as a “backslider”.  

This milestone of losing friends, or suffering estrangement from others, was understandable to a certain extent within the context of the overlaid political environment of the church, but was still hurtful to various degrees with some.  However, on the other hand, through the withstanding and careful answering of these demands/requests and all other forms of peer pressure and spiritual intimidation, I was strengthened, and I learned emotional and spiritual endurance – and a deepened compassion for those still overtaken within a Christ and gospel minimizing religious system.

This growth was definitely not always a happy process, but was one whose results within me were life and thought changing.  If anything, this milestone also proved the validity of what I wrote, and also that I wrote clearly and with factually accuracy sufficient to create strong and focused responses in some, and deliberate and purposed silence in others.  

And, now, looking beyond just my own experience, I encourage others who have – or should have – intellectual, emotional, and spiritual struggles with all the complex issues involving truth, justice, and kindness that constantly swirl around us, to critically and independently think and question, to pray, and speak and write, and to openly converse with others upon these issues. 

For even though initially one may be beaten down and emotionally battered and hurt – the rewards of a developed strength and effectiveness, and an increase in knowledge and understanding, and a deepened wisdom and compassion – are, as the Bible says, better than the profit of silver, their gain better than fine gold, and more precious than jewels, providing pleasant ways of life and paths of peace (Proverbs 3:1-8, 3:13-18, 8:1-21). 

For these teachings of Proverbs provide a much different way of thinking and valuing than what our culture, and many of the currently trafficked political ideologies and pseudo-theologies have enjoined upon us, all of which attempt to chain and enslave our minds and souls.  These ideologies, carefully and purposely crafted to control, are cynical attempts to convince us that the atmosphere being created out of distrust, divisiveness, and resentment, is the only pure and true air in which to breathe and live. But they all are in fact lies and deceptions, and only provide an oxygen polluted with anger, prejudice, and fear, which only poison and sicken the individual soul, and trouble and rot whole communities, entire churches.

And a fourth milestone, a conscious goal since the beginning of my website, is that soon I will be able to pick up again my lengthier writings – a book of non-fiction and a novel. Both are almost completely written, but need a more critical review and rewriting as I now know more about writing since I paused them years/almost a decade ago to begin concentrating on shorter pieces and then my website.

And the going forward…the path ahead…  Well, I now have more confidence in my writing, and I understand, and accept, and plan for the labor and effort it takes me to create anything that I feel approaches excellence.  I have received validation on the worth and value to others of what I write, and friends and others encourage me to continue. 

So, I will continue to write for others, my readers, though now I understand that I also write because it is more clearly my way of living, the given way of my life.  My soul-life, formed from multiple sources from my beginning, and sustained in multiple ways from my earliest years on, is the breath and beating heart of my writing, and what I produce is now the fruit of both my mind and my soul.

I also deeply know and accept that not everything I write is always profound.  I face this fact every weekend when I prepare my “Sunday Message” for my six older grandchildren, ages 23–15.  I try to write things of substance and value to them, and, maybe, I occasionally write something of greater or deeper insight, but not always, and certainly not every week.  

However, I believe my Sunday messages in some ways nourish my older grandchildren. Perhaps this just by reminding them weekly that they have a grandfather who, imperfect as he is, loves them, and prays and thinks about them during the week, and cares for them enough to take time each week to write and send them a message with photos.

So each Sunday a message is sent, even if the message just describes what most people would consider just a nothing sort of week – living quietly with their grandma and our semi-rescued cat, Molly, and then inquiring about their week, work, and schooling, and ending by informing them again that I continue to pray for them and their good, and telling them when we hope to see them next.  That’s my life and an expression of our shared life together.

And from this same sharing of life and soul, I write for my website readers, our shared human and soul life just applied through various genres to different situations, issues, and needs.  And this is what and how I will continue to write going forward. For the formation and application of this greater understanding and vision of writing, a fifth milestone, is a signpost for my journey forward. A signpost for me, and for those who appreciate what I write about and how I write, and who gather something of value and worth from the words I write – words originally scribbled in pencil in a school notebook of white paper with writing lines of blue.

I have always treasured books, and the letters and words upon their pages. I safekeep the notebooks within which I write, for they record and carry much of my mind and soul. And I love a set of freshly sharpened pencils in front of me, awaiting my hand, for they are the tools of my trade and life, which will carry me towards the fourth anniversary of my website and hopefully even beyond.

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