Veneration

I commend anyone who has ever written a book about people and done it respectfully. The things that touch you so deeply - how do you publish them? I push the line between my journal and my blog farther and farther back, but at a certain point, the line must stop. Decorum has pressed its thumb into my Adam's apple, and I know I must stop.

Just beyond the line is where the important part is, though. It's where the story gets good. It's the defining Aha moment.

Maybe I can write about it in 20 years. Or maybe the experience will help me write more meaningfully about things I am free to disclose. Not that I have anything particularly significant to hide - I'm making it sound like I do. No. All I have is my human experience: skeletons and all, lunar eclipses and all. And see? I'm not talking about hiding only suffering and sin. Lot's of times, maybe even more often, it's the beautiful things that I can't record. Maybe the line between the two is easily blurred...

Mary gets it. Mary treasured up her experience, and that experience included getting pierced through the soul with a blade. 

My Catholic tendencies come out at Christmastime. More than ever I wonder about Mary, and esteem her. In darker moments I get frustrated with the Bible because of broadly sexist language and themes - but it makes up for it with female leads like Mary. This year, I wonder why did she go live with John after Jesus died? What about her family - Joseph and her other kids?

Maybe her life was messed up. If it was, why didn't Jesus have any better solution to her problem than to go live with his best friend?

Mysteries, mysteries all.

Maybe it's not about my secrets, or writing about them. Maybe they never have to be told. Maybe I'm just supposed to have them so I know what they look like, and so I can see them in other people. So I can look into someone's eyes and know they have mysteries too and love them and understand them that much more deeply. Even if I never know the content, the genre is enough.