Tag: dailyprompt

Daily writing prompt

What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

View all responses

I have reflected on the ” risk ” question in the last week or so. I feel stuck at the moment. Knowing where to go from here is easy; actually, doing it is different. The risk is in the doing, and, to be honest, I am not in an emotional state to take risks.

So I am stuck, down on myself, irritable, and argumentative (it is better to stay in solitude). I am struggling with prayer. All my hope is in the medication I am on, but that has not worked as well as at other times. I am having really strange vivid dreams.

The biggest risk is doing the thing that will unstuck me. But there are no magical solutions and maybe I am simply the problem.

Daily writing prompt

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

View all responses

Where is the satisfaction if there is no risk (“guaranteed not to fail”)? And where is the motivation if there is no risk?

While there may be many things I would like to attempt, the risk is what makes them meaningful to me.

Daily writing prompt

What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

View all responses

I am not sure if it is a “goal” or simply a way of living. The book of Psalms says, “Wait in hope for the Lord.” That is my goal – to wait. I desire closer communion with Jesus. Yet, there is nothing I can do to merit such a gift – absolutely nothing. So I wait in hope. In other words, “for God all things are possible.” I desire the possibility of God.

It seems paradoxical that I do nothing (in hope) to achieve the goal I desire. Maybe one day!

Daily writing prompt

Who are your favorite artists?

View all responses

I have a whole collection of favourite writers. And they change. At the moment, I am happy with anything by or about Soren Kierkegaard. A love affair that has been going on for some time. I find new things in his writing. Rabbit-holes!

Who else? Nietzsche at the moment, but I have had a major crush on Kafka. Reading The Metamorphosis (Verwandlung) was a major event.

I like journals or diaries. Kierkegaard or Kafka are good examples. Thomas Merton’s 7-volume set is good but, to be honest, can be a little on the pompous side. There was a time when I swallowed Merton’s books whole.

I have been on a little existentialist journey in theology, especially with John Macquarie.

Did I forget anyone? Most certainly.

Daily writing prompt

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

View all responses

I have changed my mind about changing my mind. I was confident that it was a sign of weakness – a personal intellectual shortcoming. So, I was stuck in the mud of my own certainty. ‘Answers’? I have them all.

However, life changes. Yesterday’s certainties may no longer be so certain, and my view of the world may no longer be so neat. Changing your mind is a way of living outside of abstractions. Do not put people in boxes and then become angry when they do not act according to your abstration! Try to live outside of right and wrong, in or outside my boxes.

So, I really changed my mind about myself. I do not have the answers, and I need to allow people space to be themselves. And honour people’s choices even when they hurt me.

Daily writing prompt

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

View all responses

I have put off going to the dentist. It makes me anxious and very stressed. Yes, there is pain, but I remember the negativity from the dentists of my youth. I guess my doctor constantly reminds me I need to take my medication to stay balanced, which is sort of the same. But a numb face, an aching jaw, and someone telling you what you do wrong simply do not make a pleasant experience. I have found one that is not too bad. Hasn’t said anything about my “brushing habits” yet but has mentioned it as a future discussion. But, to be honest, I would do just about anything than go to a dentist.

Anyway…

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

View all responses

Can a vocation be a hobby? I like reading. I especially like things that make me think. Maybe that should be broader: things that make me think and feel. I try (very hard) not to rest in one area. I am reading, among other things, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus which is as far away from my natural “feel” as possible. (But I am reading the parallel German-English version!)

So I read fiction (Daniel Silva’s The Order), literature (I love a good short story), philosophy (some I would not naturally read), theology, spirituality, history, and random things I find online. I do have areas which I use to relax. At the moment it is Nietschze. Otherwise Kierkegaard or any item related to anchorites in medieval England. Or anything related to religious life within Anglicanism. I do like Michael Yelton”s Anglican Papalism as a general distraction from life. I have gone through an Oscar Wilde stage. I really enjoyed The Picture of Dorian Gray. And Virginia Woolf (her short stories), Albert Camus (The Stranger), Kafka (the diaries and The Metamorphosis), Merton (especially the Journals), Desert Fathers and Mothers, and various random topics. All now add to the mix of my interests.

Oh wow that all sounds so pompous!

Daily writing prompt

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

View all responses

To be honest, I feel “out of place” all the time. I should have been born 100 years ago in a country far far away. But I doubt that would be the answer. No change of circumstances, culture, or religious group will magically fix my sense of alienation. Trust me, I have tried!

Experience has taught me that every person, no matter how kind and loving, has their own baggage. We have within each of us a point of privacy we call “me” – no connection to the outside, completely cut off. And this point of “me” is always alone, “out of place”, an alien. (Or, as Augustine says, is out of place until it finds a place in Jesus.) Maybe I simply profoundly feel that “me”!

Daily writing prompt

What skill would you like to learn?

View all responses

I would like to learn real silence. Not the absence of noise. But the single focus on the Other. Not my option or view, not my “answer, but simply to listen to Jesus in the moment. I am not sure that is a skill or a divine grace but I can start by being less involved. That is, less involved in my misguided world and open to the holy in the other person.

Most of all I need to learn to not want to be listened to. To become irrelevant. To be the person with the answers and knowledge. I want to learn how to be forgotten!

Sorry if that sounds a little airy-fairy, self-indulgent, or even a “backhanded” boast.

Daily writing prompt

What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

View all responses

Solitude and prayer!

I could pay more attention, become more intentional, concerning my periods of prayer. In the past, Anchorites had a book of people they prayed for daily. In some monasteries, it is part of the liturgy to read these names everyday. I could have more time for mental prayer during the day.

And maybe be a little more protective of my solitude. To be open to periods of silence and simply “be” in the moment. Not to worry about being “productive”. Not to chase the next “book high”.

To wait for the Lord in hope. Not to rush or seek to do it myself. To listen to myself and do what I preach.

Anyway, I have a doctor’s appointment so …