Here’s the thing: I hate my voice.
Sometimes at Christmas, we watch old home videos. There’s this one where I am six or seven years old, and I’m showing my sister Katie, who’s three or four, how to play piano. She’s just having a grand old time banging away on the keys, loving the drama and the noise. I smile sweetly and say, “No, no, Katie. That’s not the way. You put your fingers like this. Here is middle C.”
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| and this is how you hold a baby |
The first time I saw this video as an adult, I cringed. And with good reason. Why was I trying to teach a three year old to play piano? Why was I such a stereotypical firstborn? Why was I such a damn goody-two-shoes? Why couldn’t I just dance to the chaos?
Recently I’ve started reading through my ten-year old journals. It was my first year out of college, and I was living in Southeast Asia, writing sometimes for myself and sometimes for my blog. Much of my writing has the same tone I had as a seven year old piano teacher: it’s sweetly didactic, and very sure of itself. I can’t stand it.
From the distance of a decade, my naivete shines. The truisms I trumpeted (sweetly, (falsley) humbly) lacked depth or substance. They were sincere, yes, and usually true; but they were also awfully churchy and idealistic.Now, they just sound hokey, and ridiculous coming from someone my age, writing about things I really knew nothing about, railing against the materialism of the western church, coming up with bad metaphors about fireworks and stars and young nations and old nations.
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| Me, as writer and director of "A Cambodian Christmas Carol" at age 23 |
I don’t write much now, and in part that’s because I’m afraid of that voice coming out. I’m a teacher, after all; I often sound teacherly. Even if I tell stories, I can't get away from the lesson in them.
But who am I to speak? Who am I to say what’s right or wrong, with my youth and inexperience? Even if I’m right about what I say, isn’t it already obvious to everyone?
Won’t I be embarrassed, a decade from now, of anything I say with sincerity today?
“Not many of you should become teachers,” James warned. He was talking about Bible teachers. Sometimes I wish he had written that not many of us should be bloggers, or tweeters, or preachers with national platforms. (I really think not many of us should be teachers with national platforms.)
But sometimes I can’t tell if my silence is born more of humility (I don't want to be wrong, who am I to speak?), prudent caution (I don’t want to be wrong), perfectionism (I don’t want to be wrong), or fear (I don’t want to be wrong). Sometimes I want to add my voice to the cacophony, and sometimes I want to stay safe. Sometimes I think that of the making of many books (and blog posts), there is no end, so I’m just going to quietly fear God in my own little place.
When your heart burns within you, is that a time to speak, or a time to stay silent?
A question for you: How do you know when to speak, and when to stay silent?
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12 comments:
right???? prudence can be people-pleasing in disguise. exactly what i was thinking about this morning.
I think I only know retrospectively: I should have spoken or I shouldn't have. Sometimes I get it right. It's possible that the tension of whether or not to speak provides some of the energy when I write, as though I'm both writing and striving to justify the writing at the same time. It's also possible that the tension and justification together bring out (in my stuff) the type of sure-of-itself-sounding voice you mentioned. And it's also-also possible that I think too much before and during writing, and afterwards as well. This is a stream-of-consciousness answer. It's miraculous that any of us write at all.
I wrote a poem about the embarrassment of looking back on old writing in 2009. Though I thought I would, I still don't hate it. And when I re-read journals from a year ago, six months ago, last week, they sound melodramatic and silly to me. But I'm glad I wrote them. And I think the process of forming and verbalizing those thoughts is part of what enables you to grow to the point where your perspective ends up different. http://ptbruiser.tumblr.com/post/101485978/untitled-4-26-09
This makes me afraid for my future self to read what I'm writing now. To answer your question, though, I tend to write about the things I can't get off my mind and heart. There's a feeling of "I can't *not* write about this." Sometimes I'm brave enough to listen to that nudge. Other days, not so much.
i feel the same way every other day. sometimes i quit and stay quiet. but then i wonder where i would be without buechner and annie and yancey and l'engle and so many other writers for they have reminded me that i am not alone, that the way i see right in front of me may not be the only way, and that there are others who follow in my footsteps that might need to step in them just like i stepped in those before me.
the one time i quit completely was when i was angry and bitter. i figured those feelings weren't helpful to spew on anyone, so i needed to sit quietly for awhile until i'd sorted them through enough to not write from that place.
i don't yet know what to make of this accessible, unfiltered writing called blogs. sometimes i love them and other times i hate them. it's new territory for sure, one that we're all sorting out, and i think it's good to ask these kind of questions. we need to think about the implications of all this technology in our lives. so, thanks for asking.
I'm glad to hear someone else has this experience and these questions. If it helps, I've never caught that "voice" in your blog. :)
Well, the Lord Himself also famously said unto whomsoever much is given. Those who ought to know better invite a stricter punishment for wrongdoing, and those who take it upon themselves to teach—really, whatever they have chosen to teach—take on a greater burden relative to whatever their subject is. The reality of much of Internet use is that many people go here and there in search of answers to some pretty hard questions, and so the import of this responsibility for bloggers and the like really does have some gravity.
To answer your concluding question. I try to speak when I am knowledgeable and really think that I have a tested and proven insight, and even then in most cases I choose not to speak if it's on the Internet. In my job (law), remaining silent on a critical matter could constitute malpractice, so I try to exercise the same kind of foundational care and do what I owe to those I have taken on the responsibility for. In everything else, where a relationship does not dictate that I must say something, I generally keep quiet: if someone wants an answer or counsel, they'll make it known one way or another (and I try to be attentive enough to notice), and otherwise my experience is that folk don't want to be schooled, even in the most delicate of ways. People ask, directly or indirectly, for help, and they will receive it. If they don't, they likely wouldn't welcome it.
This was a major problem for me in college (especially Rhetoric class) when I was supposed to write papers with opinions.
I don't have much to add other than agree with John, natch.
Interesting perspective! Thank you.
If you've never read this quote from Ira Glass, go read it immediately :-)
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to-people-who-are-beginners-i-wish
Thank you, Aaron.
Oooooh. No, I hadn't seen that. It's excellent-thanks!
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