If you've seen me around in congregations, at workshops, wherever, you might have noticed I'm pretty well always carrying a notebook. Usually a little spiral journal with a nice cover and a really good gel pen tucked in the spine.
I started carrying a journal a few years ago and can't really be without one now. I do not write daily entries--although that' s not a bad thing to do; I just never got into that practice.
My journal practice is more like this. I write notes there if I'm listening to a speaker, or the radio, or even just eaves-dropping at Timmy's or eating lunch alone in a restaurant. I record bits that I may later incorporate in sermons or classes or a poem or short story I'm writing.
But a big way I use my journals is long after the fact. If I'm off on an assignment Iusually pluck an old journal off the shelf and bring it along. Because I go back and search for treasure in those journals.
This morning I've been reading from a book I started in April, 2001! In there I've found quotations from Grant McMurray, Danny Belrose and Brian Wren (from a Worship seminar).
There are notes for the wedding ceremony of nephew Dave and his bride Erin--some wonderful insights about stones. Today I can picture the great little family established on that solid stone foundation.
I find the past casts insight over the present; words recorded long ago are somehow even more relevant today. I don't claim anything magical about it. It's just interesting and helps my focus
I love my journals. I mine them for wisdom and ideas. I expect you'll be reading from them here in this blog.
What about you? Anything to share about your journal practice?
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I remember your journal well, and our conversation that contributed to it...
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to keep a journal, and have tried many times. I have stacks and stacks of notebooks I have used for work that I wouldn't consider journals.
Every now and again, I buy myself a nice notebook and dedicate it as a journal. I have several nice notebooks with 3 or four pages of writing and notes in the front, and lots of kid doodles filling the rest of the pages.
I thought blogging would be like a journal, but one tends to write differently when you expect others to read it.
Oh yes WW, I did that for years as well. Then I just stopped "constraining" myself. I don't differentiate what gets written in there. I write work stuff, non work stuff -- whatever that means, since my life doesn't separate well into those categories. I stopped worrying about "spoiling" this pretty notebook and wrote any old thing in there.
ReplyDeleteAnd now, years later, I have all these wonderful resources I go back to for ideas, inspiration, and even a chuckle over a grocery list or set of directions to someplace I'd forgotten I went.
I had a friend in high school whose journal was nothing more than just the bare points of what he did that day.
ReplyDelete-alarm 6am.
-breakfast cheerios.
-skipped shower (running late)
Most days were identical but for one or two points. I always found it amazing how he could look back and have near complete recall of any day because he had kept track of life so well.
Similarly I know of a gentleman who every day records the weather in his small personal planner. He has years of them; fine weather detail recorded meticulously in his tiny writing to fit into the little spaces.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting "meditation"!