Why It Matters

I'm nearing the end of my rewrite, the last rewrite before the end. Sometimes I feel like I'm rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic ... or on a gorgeous cruise ship to Alaska. The chairs are all gonna sink or they'll all get there. So why rearrange? Larry told me to fight against ennui. Well he didn't say ennui or weltschmerz or blasé-faire. I think he said fatigue. Fight fatigue. I'm trying. I've got Red Bulls in the fridge.

My friend Traci applied for a job she really, really wants. We talked about it yesterday: the enormous desire that threatens to dash our hopes if we don't get it ... 'hope deferred makes the heart sick.' There's an urge to go buddhist and kill off our desire. But I thought of what Henri Nouwen said: "Desire is the atomic energy of the soul." Desire for change motivates the political landscape. Desire to help the poor sends us to the inner cities and Africa and even Myanmar -- where other desires try to stop the help from reaching those who need it. Yes, desire creates unhappiness and evil. But it also motivates the best in us.

Traci sent me this quote of Frederick Buechner: "We must be careful with our lives, for Christ's sake, because it would seem that they are the only lives we are going to have in this puzzling and perilous world, and so they are very precious and what we do with them matters enormously."

So maybe I'm not rearranging deck chairs as much as I'm actually steering the ship. Or leading the charge. Okay then. Once more into the breach...