sewn paper
e-mail the Author
Essays/Spirituality
March 2001
152 pages
ISBN 0-88984-221-1
$17.95
Holy Writ
K.D. MillerAccording to my diary, I began work on Holy Writ in July of
1998. Since I finished the last essay in July of 2000, it might
be fair to say the book was my millennium project. Except I
didn't think of it that way. In fact, aside from collecting a few
token canned goods and bottles of water, I didn't think much
about the millennium at all. On December 31, 1999, I went to bed
at my usual (early) time, then woke up at 12:01 to a racket that
was nothing compared to what went on in this same Toronto
neighbourhood the first year the Blue Jays won the World Series.
I noticed my digital clock was still running, turned on a couple
of lights to make sure life as I knew it would continue, then
went back to sleep.
But I don't want to suggest that the dawning of the
two-thousandth year since the alleged birth of Jesus had no effect on
me whatsoever. The whole millennial decade, in fact, was marked
with significant developments for me on both the spiritual and
creative fronts.
In 1990, I joined a church. In 1994, then again in 1999, I
contracted with a publisher to produce a book. However amused (or
perhaps alarmed) each of those establishments might be by the
suggestion that they have anything in common, in fact they have
much. Each has a mission to the world. Each has a carefully
refined idea of what constitutes `good'. Each formalizes and
brings out into the open what is initially impulsive and private.
And each introduces the individual to a community of like-minded
souls.
I've made good friends through both my church and my
publisher. Over the years, my calendar has been dotted more or
less equally with parish and PQL events. I have an ongoing
relationship with both, and am grateful to both for their care
and support.
But just as I did not begin to write when the senior editor
of the Porcupine's Quill phoned me in 1993, neither did I
suddenly acquire a religious faith in 1990 when an Anglican
bishop put his hand on my head. In fact, I remember having brunch
with a fellow writer in Guelph in the early eighties and
confessing to him that I had just realized I was a default
Christian. What I meant was, as a child of the fifties, I had
been taken to church and subjected to daily Bible readings and
the Lord's Prayer at school. As a result, whether I liked it or
not, my world-view, my sociological makeup, a lot of my
psychological baggage, were essentially Judaeo-Christian. Though
it wasn't as fixed a factor as my race or sexual orientation, it
was there, and it was bound to affect my writing. I was still an
atheist, I hastened to reassure my friend, who had started to
recoil. But a Christian atheist. Sort of. Did that make any sense?
It didn't, and I'm no longer any kind of atheist. I never
really was, truth to tell, though at one time I did take
non-belief in God to be a prerequisite for intellectual maturity. As
for the Christian part, well, at some point things get
particular. I speak a particular language and live in a
particular place. By the same token, whenever I've felt the need
to give shape and voice to my spiritual leanings, I've fallen
back on my own Judaeo-Christian particulars.
This is not to say that I regard my religion as better,
truer, wiser or inherently more valid than any other. As for
those of my baptized brethren who do take the exclusionary view,
all I can say is I'd rather be marooned on a desert island with a
broad-minded atheist than a Christian fundamentalist any day.
So yes, I have been baptized and confirmed and I do have the
certificates to prove it. But what I remember about both events
is how utterly human they were. After my United Church baptism at
age fifteen (which had more to do with a crush on a young
minister and an urge to embarrass my Presbyterian parents than
anything else) I floated around the house moony-faced for a
couple of weeks before having to admit that life, and I, were
essentially unchanged. My faith faded like a cut flower after
that, and I began the long slouch toward atheism. I was almost
there when I had that revelatory brunch in Guelph -- about as
close to an epiphany as I ever come. Shortly thereafter I began
slouching the other way until, at thirty-nine, I ended up being
confirmed on Easter Eve, 1990, in the Anglican Church of Canada.
There were about a dozen or so of us spiritual late bloomers
that night. We were each given a white placard with our name
printed on it, and told to walk, two by two, toward the sanctuary
steps where the bishop sat enthroned. Each pair in turn was to
kneel on the step right in front of him, holding our placards so
he could say our names while placing his hands on our heads and
reciting the rite of confirmation from the Book of Common Prayer.
It was every bit as simple as it sounds, and that was what
worried me. I'm one of those people who can carry out
complicated, even terrifying tasks with some degree of success;
but give me one numbingly easy thing to do and I'll screw it up
every time.
It didn't help that I was wearing a longish dress with an
overlay of chiffon. I was convinced that when I tried to rise
from the required kneeling position, my high heels would hook
into the chiffon and I would roll backwards down the steps. I
shared my fears with my partner, a woman named Valerie. She
confessed to me that sometimes, when she knelt, her knees locked
and she couldn't get back up.
Our turn came. Clutching our placards, we rose from our pew
and approached the bishop's throne. Whether we would glide
gracefully back from our episcopal blessing, or creep, scrunched
and crab-like, was in the hands of God.
We knelt. And immediately heard a Voice. Up one step, it said
in an urgent whisper. Was it the Voice of God, exhorting us to
greater spiritual heights? No. It was the voice of the bishop. We
had landed too low down for him to reach our heads. Unless we
came up a little higher, he was going to have to tilt so far
forward that he would likely fall out of his throne. And so,
bunching up our dresses and juggling our placards, we clumped up
one step on our knees.
`Defend, O Lord, this thy Servant (Valerie, Kathleen) with
thy heavenly grace, that she may continue thine forever; and
daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, more and more, until she come
unto thy everlasting kingdom. Amen.'
My heels did not snag my dress. Valerie's knees did not lock.
We made it back to our pew without incident, perhaps a little
different than before, more likely much the same, but, as we
agreed over sherry and goodies in the church hall afterwards,
glad we did it.
Ten years later, I'm still glad I did it. I'm glad I was
baptized at fifteen, too, whatever my immediate motive may have
been. I don't for a minute think there was anything magical or
permanently transforming about either experience. I don't assume
they give me a special `in' with God, and I know for a fact that
they don't make me any nicer, kinder, gentler or more charitable
than anybody else.
But both my baptism and my confirmation were a way of saying
to the world, This is who and what I am. Or perhaps more
accurately, This is who and what I think I should be. And I must
confess that I feel an affinity for other people who have made a
similar kind of statement. I sit up and take notice if someone is
wearing a Star of David or turban or hijab. I'm intrigued by
crucifixes hanging from rear-view mirrors, and was once delighted
to look down out of a bus window into a convertible whose
dashboard had a sticker on it proclaiming, `I [red heart] Allah.'
I may be wrong, but I believe we are by nature worshipful
creatures. We sense in our bones that there is something bigger
and better than our immediate circumstances, and we want to know
and be known by it. I believe the creative impulse, the desire to
make beautiful things, is a desire to be at one with our own
Creator.
I remember the first time it occurred to me that writing
fiction might be the way I pray. I don't remember the
circumstances -- where I was, whether I was alone or talking to
somebody -- but the sensation of several pennies dropping at once
is one I'll never forget: So that's what compels me to write. So
that's why traditional forms of prayer never work for me. I had
suspected for a long time that the creative and spiritual sides
of my nature were at least related to each other. But with that
realization, I began to wonder seriously if one in fact was the
other. Typically, I put the wondering in writing.
Holy Writ is neither a theological treatise nor an ad for
Jesus. I lack the mental muscle for the former, and as for the
latter, haven't an evangelical bone in my body. It was never my
intention to act as an apologist for my particular religion. If
anything, I think I set out to discover just how I manage to live
with that religion, and whether I can continue to do so.
At times it felt like marriage counselling, which does on occasion
end in divorce.
Holy Writ is a neither a self-help book nor a writer's
manual. It doesn't tell a prospective writer how to do it or
where to sell it. I'm still working those things out for myself.
Just as baptism didn't automatically render me Christ-like,
publication has done nothing to solve the eternal problem of the
blank page.
Holy Writ is one writer's exploration of how, in her own
experience, creativity and spirituality relate to each other. Its
approach is entirely intuitive, and I do not presume to speak for
anyone besides myself. It is my hope, however, that the book will
appeal not just to writers but to anyone who has an interest in
the writing life. By the same token, while its reader does not
have to be at all `religious', I hope that what I have written
here might resonate with any faith to which they do subscribe.
For their interest and support, as well as a fascinating ongoing dialogue about art and the sacred, I wish to thank Leah D. Wallace and V. Jane Gordon. I am grateful to Chris Ambidge, editor of Integrator, for permission to quote from articles published therein; and to Sr. Thelma Anne, SSJD, whose essays about prayer, one of which I cite, have been a steady source of inspiration.
My thanks to the Porcupine's Quill for recommending Holy Writ for two Ontario Arts Council grants, and, on a more personal note, to Tim and Elke for always being there in so many ways.
Finally, I am grateful to John Metcalf, minister's-son-cum-reluctant-atheist, not only for doing double duty as editor and contributor, but also for convincing me that, yes, people just might want to read a book like Holy Writ. Thank you, my friend.
K.D. Miller, August 2000.