What I Know

“Write about what you know.” Anyone with an interest in writing has heard this, read this, more times than we can count – and with good reason.

Although most of us grew up within a family setting and many of us as adults work and/or live with others, no two lives are the same. We may share a similar environment, facing the same joys and predicaments. Yet we interpret each meeting, each moment, with a mindset shaped by past experiences of other people and other situations. And each day of living adds further input for a constellation of insights that expand and contract, refine and hold fast, tear down and rebuild our knowledge, opinions and beliefs. It’s truly amazing that our minds can keep up with this.

But I digress. I was talking about why it makes sense to write about what we know.

We tend to dive deeply into those topics that capture our interest – studying, researching and generally keeping our radar active so we can notice new tidbits about the objects of our passion. The longer we have been living with our interests, the more time our hearts and minds have had to refine our thoughts. What we were passionate about last year may not have stood the test of time while other concerns that we didn’t think were exciting may have surprised us, worming their way into our psyche. (This one particularly happens with experiences of failure, illness and other losses.)

What do I know? I know about . . .

• The joy of making music – alone and in ensembles.

• Teaching, as a band & choir teacher, as a homeschooling parent and as a substitute teacher.

• Parenting two wonderful people. Shepherding them through childhood and adolescence, I made plenty of mistakes. Now that they have grown, I learn that parenting really is a lifelong venture.

• My rocky marriage. Having divorced after 25 years, I don’t call the marriage a failure. A lot of it was painful and hard but I am who I am today partly because of that relationship.

• Living with undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome. While I learned of my AS only six years ago, looking back I realize that it touched every aspect of my life for as long as I can remember.

• Following a call to pastoral ministry that led to seminary and a long road to ordination, both while serving churches.

• Chronic Lyme disease that led to deteriorating health, the blindness of a medical system that does not acknowledge this disease has a chronic form, and my ongoing battle toward remission.

• Transitions – from marriage to single life, from health to illness, from employment to medical leave...

Of course, I could add more points to this experience list but, in short, I know – really know – only those things that are or have been a part of my life. The list of things I don’t know about is much, much longer. While I understand this intellectually, I sometimes get caught talking like I know more than I do. (But then don’t we all?)

I write all of this as an introduction into a new chapter in the Fierce Joy & Hope blog. I hadn’t intended to stop two years ago. It just happened. I lamented the loss but with the long hours at church and the growing fatigue caused by the Lyme disease I couldn’t do differently. I’ve been wanting to reboot for a long time but that fatigue left me with no energy to put toward that endeavor for almost as long.

At long last I am ready to try.

I’ve changed in the interim. Even without a pandemic, we all have. Some of my topics will be familiar to those of you who have read this blog in the past. Some will be new, reflecting the person that I am now.

If you used to find truth in my words, I invite you to join me in this journey to see where it takes us. If this is your first time reading my words and you find the reading worth your energy (all things take energy!) you might like to venture with us also, at least for a time. Either way, maybe you’d like to click the blue “Follow” button.

After hearing Dory say “Just keep swimming” in Disney’s Finding Nemo, I adapted the line and made it my own. (I'm sure I’m not the only one!) Whenever I’m facing a challenge, when I have a chore to do or a call to make but not the stamina, I tell myself, “Just keep breathing, Jayneann.”

Until we meet again, through all that may come your way, “Just keep breathing.”

    

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