ream of paper

I went to hear Donald Miller speak on Monday.  I arrived a few minutes late, but really just in time.  As I was approaching the doors of the gargantuan church someone was moving toward the same destination from an opposite parking lot.  He beat me to the door by a second or two, so he held it open for me.  Donald Miller was a few minutes late too, and playing the role of my personal doorman, though when he entered the building they did not ask him for $15.  I said, “Hey, nice to see ya,” as if we were estranged and uncomfortable friends.  Don didn’t say, “You too, I read your crumby blog all the time.  How ya been?”  He looked at me in silence, the way the credit guy at a car lot looks at a loan applicant.

During his talk he didn’t say anything new, but rather he threw all of his books into a blender and produced something like Blue Like a Thousand Dragons in the Desert.  There was one odd reference to his “wang,” which proved to be hilarious; it was worth at least half the price of admission to watch the church squirm.  The other half was recouped when he talked about the crappy story of building a large church based on internal motivation from the stage of a large church.  The chairs were very comfortable and ironic (no incriminating intentions toward said church, I know very little about them).  Miller’s candor was on display and I left a greater fan for it.

Mostly he talked about story, as one might expect.  This got me thinking about my November challenge.  Is it worth it?  Does it matter?  Will completing a novel help me craft a better story for Ryan and his family?  I can only answer, “I don’t know; I hope so.”  But yesterday I felt incredibly selfish.  Yesterday I felt like a fool.  Yesterday I was also ahead of my scheduled goal by a long shot; I suspect I will continue to work ahead of the mark as long as I don’t stop for too long and wonder if my life really matters.

I am incredulous to be realizing that life’s meaning has more to do with adding beauty than reversing the dreadful.  In terms of faith, the resurrection is not a reversal of death, but beauty and hope and grace added to death.  This, I believe, is always the process of redemption.  “This terrible thing happened, and then…”  And then someone did something completely unexpected, making the end more like a beginning.  Since life on earth is deciduous by nature, it is important to do something (be something) redemptive in our season.

So thanks, Don, for the challenge to tell a better story and for signing my book.  Maybe one day I’ll return the favor.  I have decided that it is okay to try to tell my story while making up stories for other people who don’t exist, at least for the month of November.

(Before I begin writing on November 6th, I am at 13,114 words.  Most of them are juvenile, but I am told by people who do this kind of thing for a living, one should allow themselves “shitty first drafts,” to quote Anne Lamott.  I just wish it weren’t so obvious while it is happening.  Here’s to metamorphosis in December!)  Grace.