05 May 2006

Salvation through writing

Novels are all populated by people you've actually met. Your own novels by the people you've loved or hated, laughed with our shouted at, cried on or because of, seen on street corners or out of the corner of your eye, at checkouts and stoplights, passing you walking or running, people who have made your heart burst or collapse, who you have judged or have judged you, who have contributed to your birth and your life and your death.

All your life is soil and the seeds from the discarded fruit, the dead plant, the shriveled pod, germinate in the refuse--the dung--and your art--your life--is composed of all that has died in you or around you, yet rises up cleaner and stronger and more fragrant because of the death, out from the death. Every piece of you has a purpose, even if that purpose is simply in the discipline of sacrifice. And in the work of the novelist who captures true life, whose characters you recognize, the recognition comes because they have truly lived and you understand because so have you.

This is the consolation of the existentialist: any experience can be hammered into art.

This is the consolation of the redeemed: every facet of existence can be transformed into praise.

This is your sacred role: reappropriation. Truth is a scalpel and sometimes it cuts away more of you than it gives, but the cycle of loss yields to a new understanding that will release your altered perspective into a new vision. Everything that has happened to you belongs to you, even in its death, as raw material.

2 comments:

jules said...

hannah, there is so much hope in that.

a lot of death this semester, no? and it's become...deeper friendships, music, poetry, humility, truth, all of it simultaneously frustrating and necessary.

i love you so much! thanks be, i am recovering well with lots of ibuprofen and prescription painkiller as back-up. i wanted to go running; i think i'm going to settle for sit-ups ;)

jesse is home, and we are just hanging out.

things are better with my family. God truly answers prayer, and He is working even when we cannot see Him.

chris said...

"This is the consolation of the existentialist: any experience can be hammered into art.
This is the consolation of the redeemed: every facet of existence can be transformed into praise."

gnarly. thank you for that. (hope all is well in virginia town!!)