Living the Comma #13

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Words. Change. MLK.

Dear Writer Friends,

A friend, and fellow VHC member, recently shared that something she wrote was widely read and halted funding for a harmful scientific study. Her experience reminds me of the power of our words. Our words can change the world. Her words will save lives. It is not lost on me that each of us — our writing — can change the world, too. One word. One interaction. One piece of writing. There is a ripple effect. Our words matter. Our actions matter. Our love matters.

Our next face-to-face writing session will be Sunday, February 1st at VHC after snack time. We are scheduled to meet from 12:15 to 1:30 in March, April, and May, too. To virtually connect with the group during our meetings, use this link — https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85095318186.

As the next few months of writing group approach, I have been talking individually with group members. These conversations are meant to inform our group process, to connect more deeply with group members, and to continue building the VHC writing community. Thank you to those who have participated in those conversations. I truly appreciate your time and insight. For those with whom I have not yet spoken, please feel free to reach out. What I am learning is tremendously valuable to the group’s today and tomorrow.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words changed the world.

In my essay, Wisdom Through Awful Grace, I describe the Landmark for Peace — a memorial sculpture at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Indianapolis. Place can evoke big emotions and deep memory. MONDAYS ARE FREE, EXERCISE 182: WHERE IT HAPPENED, asks us to write a narrative poem that depicts a series of events. Every line (or almost all the lines) must begin with the phrase, “This is where…” Rebecca Solnit discusses the power of writing and how our words can change the world in a CCCB conversation, Stories of the Imperceptible.

I want to leave this message focused on the power of our words with an excerpt from Rev. Dr Martin Luther King’s 1967 talk at Riverside Church “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence“

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response.

Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost?/ The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”

From the heart of the comma.

Katie

Thank you for Living the Comma with me. This community is truly love and light. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project and share your light. It has never been more important.