Beginning Can Take A While
R.H.Swift
12/10/90
When I was thirty, I thought I knew just about everything there was to know, and I decided I'd become a writer. I said, "God, show me--how should I begin?"
And God said, "Well, start first as a reporter--that's a good way to begin."
And so I did. I wrote about Grange meetings and court trials, and criminals and victims, and children and senior citizens, and fires and floods and storms. I wrote about politics and politicians. I wrote about wars and who started them, and about peace and who was working on it. I wrote about business and consumers, about people who cheated and about people who didn't. I wrote about dying and I wrote about living, and I reached a point where I figured I knew just about everything there was to know, so I spoke to God again.
"God," I said. "I think I'm ready now. How should I begin?"
And God said, "Well, if you're serious about being a writer I think you'd benefit from learning what it means to really work at it--get a job in advertising."
And so I did. I wrote about new cars and used cars, and old folks and young folks. I wrote about travel trailers and travel clubs, about high finances and about low interests, about where to go to get well and where to go to get buried. I wrote about the lust for adventure and, how to be "the first on your block" to acquire the latest object to make your life perfect. If it was for sale, and if somebody asked me, I'd tell them how to sell it and tell everyone else where to buy it. And I thought, "Well, I know just about everything there is to know about this," so I spoke to God again.
"God," I said, "I think I'm ready now. I really do want to be a writer, and I think I'm ready to begin."
I heard a kind of fatherly chuckle, which indicated he was pleased--somewhat--but not quite ready to tell me what I wanted to know.
"Son," he said, "you haven't written any sermons yet."
And I said, "Well...right, God! But that's what ministers do!"
Again that chuckle, "Well then, you'd better become one."
And so I did. I studied theology and psychology, cosmology and ontology...philsophy and science and, of course, the Bible. I read it through several times. Once straight through, and then, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse, as I wrote--and talked--about eternal love and eternal life, and about the goodness of God and the purpose of Jesus' life and teaching and death and resurrection. I married and baptised and christened and buried. I counseled and encouraged, and I tried to get people to understand that dying is just another part of living. I watched and prayed while some people died and others got well--and I never quite understood why it worked out one way for some and the other way for someone else.
Several people have said they've benefitted from my sermons, and even from some of the poems I've written over the years. And a while back, as I sat and talked with God I said, "You know, God, I've always wanted to be a writer, really a writer--and put on paper the kind of words that would change people's lives for the better, but I'm just not sure I know enough yet even to start."
And you know how it is when someone's smiling when they talk? You can hear it in their voice. It was like that then when God said, "Well, Son, I think you're closer to your goal than you may realise. If you really want to be a writer, I think it's time now for you to begin."
And so I did.