daily java

Daily Java:

“There’s typing to say something, and there’s typing to make noise because there’s someone in the next cubicle and you want to sound busy, and there’s typing just to type and prime the pump, which is what this last sentence was. The only cure to looking at the page and not knowing what to say is to start saying something.”  James Lileks, Oct 11, 2011

I am rapidly coming up to 1000 posts on my blog. I have written over 500,000 words since January of 2009 when I started this blog.

The funny things is that what Mr Lileks says in his article quoted above is exactly what I do.

Sometimes I do not have the slightest idea what I will say and will just begin writing. When I do the words begin to organize themselves and sometimes even a scripture will come in to fit what I am writing about.

In fact, the apostle Paul’s comments in Romans 15:14-15 comes to mind:

I am fully convinced, my dear brothers and sisters, that you are full of goodness. You know these things so well you can teach each other all about them. Even so, I have been bold enough to write about some of these points, knowing that all you need is this reminder.

There. Now I have a scripture to go on. I really don’t necessarily need one, but almost everything I have written in the past year and more than a half has had a scripture attached to it. What I usually do is take it and put it at the front, but I am not going to this time, just for fun.

This is, after all, a blog that unashamedly says “java soaked theological philosophy and kind of associated blather” so I have to do something that is basically scripture oriented.

And besides that, my life is the Lord and his word and things around it, so it makes sense I would have a scripture.

But it is interesting how many times I just sit down and begin to noodle on the keyboard. And I always – I repeat, always – come up with something.

There is within me a burning desire to write that I did not fully realize until I got this blog. And 500,000 words later, I am still writing, I still have something to say.

Or at least I think I do. I am not sure anybody reads this. It is probably mostly drivel, and if printed out would make great kitty litter (it would have to be shredded, of course).

But write I do. And keep on writing. Sylvia Plath said: “I write only because There is a voice within me That will not be still”

It was John Keats who said: “When I have fears that I may cease to be, Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain.” He was afraid that he would die before he got everything he was thinking about written down. I am not sure he did and probably everything he was thinking about was not worth writing down.

But still.

I have found that writing fills a need that I did not know I had. I have always liked to write. And quite frankly (although why I would lie to you I am not sure) (whoever you are) I did as well as I did (which was not very well) in high school English simply because I could write. Essays never bothered me as I tend to think in outlines and put words together easily.

Preaching and teaching always came easily too for that reason. I could just always put words together on the fly.

And really that is how I write: just kind of a free association kind of thing.

It seems to work.