Passions

Merav creates a didgeridoo our of an old branch she hollows out and lacquers in her spare time. Ryan uploads video of goats and landscape and sound. Sally and Ian raise animals and create massive globes in the style they were made before North America had tried and true boundaries which could be sketched. Others have passions here too, from the dogs chewing on the leftovers from the pig matanza to Blackie the cat dashing into the house like an unwelcome, over-cuddly shadow. The sun goes up and down with regularity.

For me, I poke my lip out a little because I am a writer. I don't know what that means half of the time, and sometimes I wish I wanted to be a doctor, saving lives, and sitting here in Spain, deciding about future, I would know, regardless of what kind of medicine I wanted to do, that I needed to go to medical school. Of course, for a doctor, there are tons of decisions about future, but I'm not talking about those. I'm saying that, right now, instead of one logical path, there are several different question marks on the horizon, hidden like a prize you're not sure you want to receive behind a game show curtain. A writer is a ship that manufactures its own wind.

So, after tottering for a while, I am applying to a film school. This is not opposed to Divinity School; in fact, I feel it's more a completion of it. Frederick Buechner said, "The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet," and I believe one of my areas of deep gladness, which is unique to me, is to bring lessons I have learned through my faith into film and other storytelling. Though, like a good David Mamet fan, I have tried to avoid film school and its formalized systems of education in favor of cutting my teeth on film jobs, with the DC filmmakers, the real McCoy. But after months of pestering my contacts, there were no jobs for me, and no benefactors to step forward and say, "Let me encourage and develop your craft." All that I have is the incredible blessing of you, my readers, family and friends and fellow travelers, all of you that make me feel on top of the world, reminding me that God has given us gifts for a reason, and how some of the best art comes out of catharsis.

I can't remember where I heard it, perhaps at a Christian leadership conference, but someone told me that a person should do "whatever makes them pound the table." If I do not do this film thing, I fear I will slide into apathy, which I have no time for anymore. The world is hungry, and I, like you, have deep gladnesses to meet its hunger. And where hunger is fed, I like to think there is reason to dance in the streets.