The Vocation of Writing

… and Grinding the Beans!

Years ago I was blessed to spend a week with Eugene Peterson, at the Collegeville Institute in Minnesota, in a writer’s workshop. He was finishing his autobiography, and he shared some of that with us. He read some of our writing, and we also worked with a professor from the University of Minnesota in the afternoons. I love Collegeville and the Abbey, and there I also met a Benedictine monk, Father Killian, who was poet. If you can find a copy of his book God Drops and Loses Things, I recommend it.

Which is to say that writing is a very important aspect of my calling. I don’t reflect directly on it often enough. I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who read my Saturday morning reflections. I will continue with those, which began during COVID as a way of finding some structure for myself and others, even as I am migrating the content to Substack. Substack is a more dependable way of developing a community, without the unusual algorithms of FB. I am delighted that approximately 520 persons have subscribed in a just a few weeks. That is a wonderful weekly congregation! I will continue to post the content on FB, but am very grateful to those who subscribe on Substack, and recommend me on that platform.

One question that has arisen has been in the financial gifts/pledges of several people. First, I want to say that all of the content will always be at no cost. There is no paywall. And yet a number of persons have pledged a significant sum—thank you!—and so here is where I have been led. As long as I am employed by the church, I will place any financial gifts to my writing on Substack in a donor advised fund that Pam and I give through the United Methodist Foundation of Western North Carolina. I will give to United Methodist causes (in the foreseeable future that will be toward Helene Relief and those supporting that work) and to two public radio stations in North Carolina, WDAV (Davidson) and WNCW (Western North Carolina).

I have been very blessed and don’t need to financially profit from these reflections. At the same time your gifts can be a blessing to others. So thank you, for all of the above reasons and beyond.

This week I remembered a saying of Thomas Merton. He said, “I never did want to give anyone spiritual advice. I just wanted to work on my own spiritual life.”

I am just working on my own spiritual life. And grinding the beans.

Thanks again, and I look forward to our continuing connection here. Thanks for reading, for your gifts and spreading the word!