Mourning Pages Intro

 A Shut Up and Write! participant mentioned Morning Pages.

Morning Pages are a daily ritual popularized by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way: three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing, longhand, written first thing in the morning. No editing, no rereading, no audience. It’s not a diary entry or a polished essay—it’s brain drain. You empty the mental junk drawer so your attention is free for the good stuff. (reference)

Ignorant of Morning Pages, writing momentum has nevertheless been created by the Holy Spirit.  What the Lord has done and what Julia Cameron suggests differ.  Reading The Artist's Way is a hope but writing Mourning Pages is a have to.

Online writing community has exposed the book that the chaplaincy has already written.  Of all interventions to overcome the trauma of ride alongs, writing is ultimate.  Even in prayer, the Lord asks Moses' question of me, "What is that in your hand?" (Exodus 4:2)  Pain, disappointment and stress are input and writing is the relieving output.

Instead of Morning Pages, the chaplaincy produces Mourning Pages.

Mourning Pages are the downloads and dumps of the chaplaincy.  Unwittingly, content has been stacking like empty pizza boxes.  Residue of the work is just as valuable as the refuse so fastidiously gathered at curbsides.  Recycled trash might save planet but recycled truth will be the book.

Opening the hurt locker and healing balm of writing is a form of generosity.  Dave Ramsey says, "The most fun you can have with money is to give it away."  More helpfully, Ecclesiastes 7:12 teaches, "Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it."

Many have given toward the chaplaincy but money fails buy twelve years of shelter.  Protection has come from the Lord God Almighty.  Wisdom persuades that released content is a preservative.  Asking an aging preacher to do what has already been done is fair; another twelve years may remain.  If however there are fewer eggs for ride alongs to scramble that anticipated, publishing will preserve.  

Wisdom is personified in Proverbs 8.

I was formed long ages ago,

at the very beginning, when the world came to be.

24When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,

when there were no springs overflowing with water;

25before the mountains were settled in place,

before the hills, I was given birth,

26before he made the world or its fields

or any of the dust of the earth.

27I was there when he set the heavens in place,

when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,

28when he established the clouds above

and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,

29when he gave the sea its boundary

so the waters would not overstep his command,

and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

Sprinkled into wisdom's monologue is 'when'.  Perhaps wisdom is knowing when to act.

Dying with an unpublished book inside is unwise.  Elizabeth Elliott testified that her martyred husband said, "Make sure when it's time to die, that's all you have left to do."  Plenty remains before the grave, but publishing Mourning Pages shortens the list.

May the joy, humiliation and wonder of the Holy Spirit's work among first responders serve you.  A Red Sea crossing was unique, but crossing on dry ground was common.  Joshua, Elijah and Elijah walked where water once whirled.  A lower-peninsular chaplaincy is unique, but God's movement in people is common.  

Read in the confidence that God is still at work in the world.  Whatever seems impossible to you can be rebuked by the One Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.  A Shut Up and Write! mention of Morning Pages spurred the book you're holding.

If Jesus can use online community to turn empty pizza boxes into a book, your circumstance is a synch.

     Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ~ Romans 12:15

Bums won't work but HOBO's will.