a place just right

A few years ago, i had a brief involvement with the Yellow Ribbon Project, and after that, with Prison Fellowship Singapore. i was trying to find a place to use my writing, and the bleeding-heart-wimpy-liberal in me felt that the rehabilitation of ex-inmates was something i both believed in and wanted to contribute to. The Yellow Ribbon volunteerism didn't last very long - it felt to me like they didn't really need writers as they already had their own publicity / media people, and there was nothing i could contribute that they really lacked. The PFI thing didn't work out either - for other reasons. They did need writers - but at the time things were crazy-busy for me at work and my students needed my attention far more than PFI needed writers, there were other things going on in my life, the friend i'd wanted to work with on the project changed her mind before we even started and i was left to venture into it alone, i felt that it would demand more energy and time than i could give at that point... etc etc. In other words, it just felt like it was not my calling to be working with them at the time.
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i've always wanted to use my writing for something bigger than writing, for something bigger than myself. Anything less than that seemed, still seems, self-serving, self-indulgent. So i tried doing that for a while - writing for church and parachurch organsations, NGOs, social service agencies. i avoided literary writing. Even at the time, the whole thing felt like a desperate, flailing attempt to make my writing count, to make my life count, in a way that i judged to be valuable. In other words - to justify my existence in terms dictated by conventions of church and society that i had adopted without any honest and genuine assessment of where my gifts and aptitudes lay. But after some time, i realised that that kind of writing could be done easily and probably far better by other people. i encountered obstacle after obstacle - it felt as if i was always butting my head against some brick wall or other - and the sense of being totally alone in the effort didn't help either. And to be totally honest, that kind of writing bored and frustrated me - i wasn't as sold on the whole project as i wanted to be. Eventually, the combination of life circumstances and personal exhaustion made me give up altogether. So i hunkered down and tried to concentrate on teaching.
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How i eventually came (back) to literary writing - i guess can only be called grace. At the risk of... mythologising... the whole thing, i can say in all honesty that the whole process seems to me to have been gift, something given that i didn't need to chase after in the way i had tried (unsuccessfully) to chase after other things. It started with a decision to attend a literary launch in November 2010 - the first such event i'd attended for a long time - and the buzz i felt while hearing our local writers talk about their work made me feel alive for the first time in years. After that i thought - Anything that makes you feel alive has to be a good thing. So i started writing, got feedback from people who told me how my writing spoke to them, wrote some more, signed up for an online course, received encouragement and constructive critical comments, found good mentors, got more responses, signed up for an Arvon...
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And so here i am. Writing. Trying to write. Caring about words - the way i have always cared but for a long time didn't want to acknowledge. Coming to terms with the power of literature, as well as its limitations. Trying to keep alive the conviction that literary writing has value that cannot be measured in terms of tangible benefits. Trying to make work that is true and beautiful. Trying to stay faithful to the task, and to the One who has given it.
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