Category Archives: commuting

commuting, creativity, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Searching For A Metaphor

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It’s approaching 6:00 p.m. on Sunday as I’m writing this, taking a moment away from working on my novel to work on this post. It’s been a busy weekend. My wife is still away, in Oklahoma City, on grand-baby #4 arrival watch. Due date is still more than a week away, but his brothers and sister all came early, so she went up early, and will be there a while after the birth. My mother-in-law is also away, visiting her relatives and friends in southwest Kansas. She won’t be back till around Oct. 3 or 4. So it’s just me in the house.

I’m in The Dungeon, which is where most of my serious writing takes place. After Life Group, church, buying a sandwich and fries from Arby’s, making a quick stop at the Neighborhood Market for something I forgot yesterday, and dropping recyclables off, I got home to the empty house. I ate my lunch while channel jumping between NFL football games that really didn’t interest me and one of the Star Wars movies, which some channel is showing over and over again this weekend. Then I went to The Dungeon to write. I could tell, however, as I started, that I would have difficulty adding coherent words to Preserve The Revelation, so I decided to go to the couch in the nearby family room and take a nap.

My nap lasted a little less than an hour, but I woke up with greater powers of concentration. I guess I was wiped out from Saturday’s labors. While I was working on Saturday it didn’t seem like I was working very hard. Oh, I was getting things done. I went to Wal-Mart early for groceries and building project materials. I removed cut branches and pulled vines from the front and back yard to the forest; worked on the flower garden project in the front yard, getting the edging blocks in place (I think; I may yet modify the layout a little, but it will be minor). Then I came inside and set up a new shelf unit in the storage room, to replace the old, old computer table which took up a lot of room but didn’t have all that much storage capacity. I’m not looking for more room to store more stuff we’ll just have to get rid of some day, but I want a neat storeroom, and the computer desk was frustrating those effort.

All that done, I fixed a salad for lunch, then went to The Dungeon to write. But, I was so exhausted from the work I’d done, I couldn’t write. I added a few words to the novel, but knew I wasn’t going to make major production as I’d hoped. So I searched YouTube for a medley of my favorite oldies, and spent a few afternoon hours just listening to some girl group songs and doo-wop. Then it was drive to town to the church to set up stairs for today’s worship service, then home to cook supper, then to study to teach Life Group lesson, while doing laundry, then to drop into bed and sleep the sleep of the dead for seven hours.

What, you ask, does all of this have to do with the title of the post, “Searching for a Metaphor”? Perhaps it’s a weak connection, but I have been searching for a metaphor for my writing for a while. As I read other people’s writing, such as Mark Twain’s short stories, or Thomas Carlyle’s non-fiction, I find them to be rich in metaphor. As I look back on my own writing, especially my poems, I know the ones that are best are those which are rich in metaphor. My poems of late, alas, have been more focused around imagery, not metaphor. Images are important too, but I think metaphor is a higher use of language.

I look out The Dungeon windows. The tall oaks are swaying, so it much be windy outside. Now they’ve stopped, so obviously it’s intermittent wind. There they go again. Dusk has come upon us, plus, it’s cloudy. We were supposed to have rain this afternoon, but it has never come.  I find no metaphor in the trees, however; nor in the lack of rain, the busyness of the weekend, the usefulness of a nap, or the significance of writing with good, solid production.

I wrote a poem on Friday. It started out as a haiku, based on the eastern sky during my morning commute. This is often a time that inspires a haiku. However, I wanted to make a little more out of the poem. The tanka poetic form takes a haiku and expands it by two lines. It’s supposed to have only more information on images already presented, not present new images. Friday evening I worked on it, being just a few words short of the complete tanka. In the evening I was able to add those lines. But the tanka, while probably not too bad, is not a metaphor.

Alas, I will keep searching. Perhaps by the time winter comes, I’ll have much less work to do around the house and property, and will be able to quiet my mind for a while, and train myself to think in metaphors, instead of, at best images, or at worse to-do and to-purchase lists. One can always hope.

commuting, Engineering, Suite 101, Writing

The Joyous Sound of…Plotters

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I arrived at the office this morning, not knowing what to expect as to IT issues. When I left last night: e-mail was down; Internet access was down; our intranet was down; and all copiers and plotters were inaccessible. All the way home, through especially horrendous traffic, I kept thinking this would be a good time to launch my dream magazine, Technophobia.

This morning, I got to work about 7:30 AM after a stop at the bank and the gas station. Rounding the corner and entering the long, narrow corridor to my office, I saw a beautiful sight: an engineering drawing sitting on the out-put tray of a plotter. They must be working! I thought. Then, after getting coffee and completing my short devotional, the joyous sound came: the whine of the back-and-forth of a plotter head, producing a drawing. I about cheered these two sensory experiences.

So I took a chance. Calling up MS Word, I opened my daily diary sheet, chose the printer that’s supposed to be closest to me, and clicked . For five seconds nothing happened, then came the joyous sound: the printer/copier spitting out my document after it’s morning warm-up. Everything’s working; all’s right with the world.

So it’s back to the routines of the last nine years. Only difference is the route to work, and that only for the last mile and a half. I don’t have a key to the office yet (because the electronic entry is not yet installed), so I’ll come in a little later and fight heavier traffic on the commute. Before work I’ll have devotions then check writing web sites. On noon hours I’ll walk and write and eat simple fare at my desk. After work I’ll spend a half-hour or so waiting on traffic to clear by doing something else for writing. Hopefully, in between these, I’ll return to my past love of civil engineering and find meaning in flood plains and drainage ditches and sewer lines and streets, etc. At least I can write about some of those things at Suite101.

commuting, trials, Wesley

Spiritual Guidance From John Wesley

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As I continue to spend a few minutes most workday mornings in the letters of John Wesley, I find them a curious mixture. Some of them are for business, about houses rented for chapels and where preachers should be assigned. Some of them are for doctrine and church practices. These tend to be very long and difficult to unravel. Often they take the form of: “You wrote ‘this’, to which I replied ‘this’; then you wrote ‘this’, and I now say this. You would have to have the letters of the other correspondent to truly understand.

But letters of spiritual guidance have, thus far in my reading, been mostly lacking. Until yesterday, when I read a letter Wesley wrote to John Haime, who was either in the army or recently discharged and was a Methodist lay preacher. Here’s what Wesley wrote on June 21, 1748.

Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which God hath seen good to try you with. Indeed, the chastisement for the present is not joyous, but grievous; nevertheless it will by-and-by bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness. It is good for you to be in the fiery furnace; though the flesh be weary to bear it, you shall be purified therein, but not consumed; for there is one with you whose form is as the Son of God. O look up! Take knowledge of Him who spreads underneath you His everlasting arms! Lean upon Him with the whole weight of your soul. He is yours; lay hold upon Him.

No one likes to undergo trials, certainly not trials of enough severity they can be called “fiery”. But fire purifies, so if one approaches the trial with the right attitude and fortitude, the result will be beneficial.

I suppose this also applies to the trials that cannot be described as fiery, the everyday trials that seem bad for a moment but which really aren’t. Such as the driver of the black Kia in front of me, like me poised to turn right at the red light, but who was so timid he/she didn’t take advantage of three or four good gaps to pull out onto Walton Boulevard. Thus my commute was 20 or 30 seconds longer this morning. I called that driver a couple of names (fairly mild; nothing I couldn’t say in front of the wife). It made me feel good for a moment, but bad afterward.

I missed a refining moment this morning. Perhaps it will return today. O look up! Take knowledge of Him who spreads underneath me His everlasting arms! Lean upon Him with the whole weight of my soul. He is mine; lay hold upon Him.