Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Faith

Faith is next, you know... says my husband the other day.

 Uh uh I say, absentmindedly.

 We are sitting in our home office, backs to each other...he working on lofty projects...the third edition of his mass media textbook, a very readable tome that utilizes a wonderful narrative style.

 He is the smart one. I am the cute one...well I used to be 30 years ago....

 But I digress. Which is what this post is all about.

 Digressing. And focusing. And, eventually, faith.

 DH (dear husband, a phrase coined by somebody somewhere I really like...along with losing one's girlish looks, one also loses brain cells) continues, pointing out I've touched on the topics of family and fat (my two favorite subjects). It's time to tackle FAITH.

 When I decided to blog, I wanted to be focused. I'm all about focus. For the ten years I taught beat reporting at a large mid-Atlantic university, 'lecture' number two was all about 'finding the focus.' What was the story about? What's the tag/gist/hook? Lingo like that.

 During that time, I also had a little slip of paper pinned to a cluttered bulletin board in that home office (there my husband and I sat parallel...still exchanged lots of 'uh uh's') with the word FOCUS printed on it. 

As I said, I'm all about focus. 

 Together with my mom/writing partner, I currently write faith-based women's fiction.  Overall, we've had 27 novels published, with two more upcoming. 

 Over the years, I've taught Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, served on committees galore, and one very fractious church vestry. Currently, I'm the 'assistant' to  a wonderful man who leads a sixth grade 'faith formation' Wednesday night class. And I just accepted a call to serve on a committee at this new church in a new denomination (for us) in a new (year and half) town in a familiar part of the country once more.

 What does all this have to do with faith? Not a thing. No focus at all. But lots of digression.

 I can't write about my personal faith. I can lay bare my soul re weight loss and gain and the bittersweetness of watching children grow up. But I can't find the words, despite being a 'professional' writer, to express how I feel about my faith. 

 This much I can say: I have faith the sun will rise in the morning and set at night. I also have faith in something I can't see but can feel: God’s presence in my life.

 That’s where my focus is.

2 comments:

  1. Pam, you are smart as well as cute, and so, of course, is Ralph both of those things, and you are also very cute together, there is no doubt.

    It seems funny to me that you say that all of your family, church and community work has nothing to do with faith. It's faith in action, right? To me, that is the important part of faith, what you do with it.

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  2. Sounds perfect to me. In matters of faith, your focus is on others. Which of course, is where it should be. Instead of thinking (or writing) about it, you're just acting on it.

    If the big guy has a cluttered bulletin board up there, his pinned-on word is probably "act."

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