"3- Mark"

In grade school there was a number evaluation system for our writing that was almost forever engraved in my self-perception. I’m not sure at what number the system started or ended, but I am confident that a 4 indicated we were writing at the level “they” wanted us to be. In fourth grade, I distinctly remember the disappointment of not getting 4s. I’d write what I was convinced were kick-ass stories about aliens on the moon with broken arms and memory altering machines who wanted to invade Earth but were stopped by some space hero, but these stories almost always received a 3, maybe a 3+ or 4- if I was lucky. This led me to believe that my writing was forever stunted. (The things that affect little kids and stay with them for decades are so mysterious, aren’t they?) By the seventh grade my self-perceived failure in writing led to such frustration that I turned in plagiarized biographies to salvage my grade. (Sorry Mrs. Loveless!) Writing so petrified me that I refused to risk it, refused to risk the failure.

In 2002, when I met Carmen Roebke and John Jerek at the Kent Newman Center, a journey in the opposite direction began. They so clearly preached the power and importance of story to faith and life. Carmen was the first to introduce me to the phrase “all stories are true and some even happened” (from Megan McKenna?) and Fr. John’s homilies weekly weaved together the mysteries of life, death, and resurrection in such a seemingly effortless manner that I could not help but be mesmerized by the power of his storytelling.

A short essay given to me by Fr. John – Credo by Brian Doyle – so deeply resonated with my experience of faith, clearly and gracefully articulating what I felt was the Truth beyond truth that I couldn’t help but desire to write like Doyle. I couldn’t help but want to express myself/my beliefs/my creed/my being, so simply and yet so profoundly. Unfortunately, “3- Mark” was still alive and well. Never, I believed, could I write like that, could I speak of such Truths.

Last August, at the same time I was embarking on the 80-page-journey that came to be my already-out-of-date thesis, I began quite a different journey in writing, what has been affectionately dubbed a “pen-pal-ship.” I am not sure how many pages Chelsey and I have exchanged, let alone written, but I am certain of what they have done to me. I am a man in love (….dramatic pause…) with writing. Our letters have made it quite clear to me that even I, “3- Mark”, can draw love from the deep well that is the human heart with a pen, paper, envelope, stamp, and cup of tea in hand. My words can do to another what Doyle’s did to me – they can help us see clearer the mystery in which we were formed, presently surrounds us, lives within us, and regularly calls more from us, beckoning us beyond a 3- evaluation system to a daily acknowledgment of the dignity we do, and will always, carry.

There were other things I was planning on writing about this week that actually had something to do with El Salvador, and I may tell those stories later in the week, but tonight is tonight and yesterday was yesterday, and yesterday I randomly happened upon (in El Salvador nonetheless!) a book edited by the my-life-changing-author-friend Brian Doyle. In the introduction he writes, among other wonderful things:

"I think about how I would be a lot less of a man if I didn’t have ways to wake up to what I can be if I harness mercy and humor and wisdom and attention and prayer and humility and courage and grace…This is what all true stories about, which is what we are, really, at our best – true stories. And true stories, stories with love and power in them, can save your life and save your soul and bring you, if only for a flickering instant, face-to-face with the unimaginable creative force that once, a very long time ago, explained itself to Moses as, simply and confusingly, I AM WHO AM. That force is in you, in every moment, in every story. Here are some of the stories…"

Many thanks to all of you who have read the stories I’ve told. To those that have commented so positively, whether on the blog or through email, with every bit of positive reinforcement you’re quickly creating a man who loves to write. I am honored you read these words, that you find them of meaning and value, and the you return to them each Sunday. Peace and grace to you.