Don’t start writing your memoir until. . .

 “Do you love?” asks Beth Kephart. “Are you still learning to love?”

 

“It’s a question . . . we must repeatedly ask ourselves, especially when we’re writing memoir.” (Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir)

 

Beth, award-winning author of 23 books, including several memoirs, says:

• if we don’t know what we love,
• if we’re not capable of loving,
• if we’re focused too much on self (“if we’re stuck in a stingy, fisted-up place”),
• if we’re too angry,
• if we haven’t allowed grace to take the edge off disappointments,
• if “we haven’t stopped hurting long enough to look up and see the others who hurt with us,”
• if we “only have words . . . for our mighty wounds and our percolating scars,”
• . . . then it’s likely too soon to begin writing a memoir.

 

Beth says, “No memoir is worth reading if it is not leavened with beauty and love. And no memoirist should start her work until she can, with authority, write about the things she loves.”

 

She offers this starting point:

 

Make a list of little things that bring you happiness, those things that embrace beauty and goodness and love.

 

Beth’s not suggesting

you cover up your sorrows and wounds.

 

She says,

 

“Rest assured

you’ll be given a chance to tell the whole story soon.

But start, for now, with love.”

 

Read that again:

 

Beth’s not suggesting you cover up

your sorrows and wounds.

 

“Rest assured you’ll be given a chance

to tell the whole story. . . .

But start, for now, with love.”

 

Beth’s suggestion reminds me of Philippians 4:8, “Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about.” (The Living Bible)

 

The Message says it this way: “You’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

 

Eventually, you’ll likely include many types of vignettes/anecdotes in your memoir—adventure stories, sad stories, funny stories, heartbreaking stories, heartwarming stories.

 

By incorporating Beth’s suggestions,

by including love and gratitude,

writing your God-and-you stories

is a way to extend grace and mercy to others,

as well as to thank Him for all He has done for you.

 

Beth’s Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir is a rich resource for you. Consider adding it to your library.

 

Come back next week: We’ll look at how to write about baggage-carrying people. 

Don’t start writing your memoir until. . . .

“Do you love?” asks Beth Kephart in Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir. “Are you still learning to love?”

“It’s a question . . . we must repeatedly ask ourselves, especially when we’re writing memoir.”

Beth, an award-winning author of 23 books, including several memoirs, says that if we don’t know what we love,

if we’re not capable of loving,

if we’re focused too much on self (“if we’re stuck in a stingy, fisted-up place”),

if we’re too angry,

if we haven’t allowed grace to take the edge off disappointments,

if “we haven’t stopped hurting long enough to look up and see the others who hurt with us,”

if we “only have words . . . for our mighty wounds and our percolating scars,”

then it’s likely too soon to begin writing a memoir.

Instead, Beth offers this starting point:

Make a list of little things that bring you happiness, those things that embrace beauty and goodness and love.

Beth’s not suggesting you cover up your sorrows and wounds.

She advises, “Rest assured you’ll be given a chance to tell the whole story soon. But start, for now, with love.”

Her suggestion reminds me of Philippians 4:8, “Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about.” (The Living Bible)

The Message says it this way: “. . . You’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

You’ll no doubt include many kinds of stories in your memoir—adventure stories, sad stories, funny stories, heartbreaking stories, heartwarming stories.

By incorporating Beth’s suggestions in each of them,

by including love and gratitude,

writing your God-and-you stories

is a way to thank Him for all He has done for you.

Beth’s Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir is an excellent, rich resource for you. Consider adding it to your library. And check out her new website, Beth Kephart Books. 

Your hiraeth person: Love and longing after someone has gone away

Hiraeth. You might not recognize the word but you’ve most likely experienced it.

It’s a Welsh word pronounced HEER-eyeth (roll the r).

A couple of years ago we looked at hiraeth as it pertains to a place. Today we’ll consider hiraeth as it pertains to a person.

The English language doesn’t have an apt word to describe hiraeth so we describe it in a round-about way. Think person as you read the following.

Hiraeth can include “a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness….” (University of Wales)

“The Portuguese have a word, ‘suadade,’ which is the only true cognate for hiraeth,” writes Pamela Petro.  “[One meaning is] ‘the love that stays’ after someone…has gone away.”

Hiraeth has to do with a strong attachment you once had—but time, distance, death, or circumstance caused a separation and you’re keenly aware of that loss, and you yearn to reestablish that former intimacy.

A hiraeth person is a soul mate, a kindred spirit. A hiraeth companionship is something sacred God orchestrated. For reasons you can't possibly understand, His hand engraved that person's name onto your heart.

He used your hiraeth person to nurture your soul and spirit, to mysteriously shape you and define you and anchor you.

You and your hireath person touched a place inside that others couldn’t or wouldn’t. You shared secrets no one else could fathom. You were safe with each other. You handled each other with care. You never gave up on one another.

But keep in mind that hiraeth “…incorporates an aspect of impossibility: the pining for a home, a person, [or] a figure….” (Smith College)

Why impossibility? Perhaps because despite your fierce attachment to each other, the hand of God pointed you in different directions.

And because of that, the impossible distance between the two of you causes an ache,

a longing,

a restlessness,

a keening. 

You feel a pull, an insistent vacuum that demands to be filled.

But perhaps it will never be filled—certainly not if your hiraeth person has died.

And for those still alive?  Well, sometimes God moves in mysterious ways.

In 1993, God moved two families away from a lovely town on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula: He sent one of my dearest friends, Gayle, and her husband to Papua New Guinea, and He sent my husband and me to East Africa. Yes, Gayle and I could keep in touch with email, but that would never really satisfy. When we said goodbye, I believed we’d never see each other again. For years I grieved the loss of Gayle’s close friendship.

However—

“Sometimes you think a story is completed and all wrapped up,” writes Lawrence Kushner. “But then, decades later, something happens and you realize it’s not all done yet, it’s still in process.” (Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary)

I never could have imagined that 15 years later, both Gayle’s family and ours would move to Missouri—Missouri, of all places!—within a week of each other! For seven years we lived only two hours apart and had many opportunities to get together. What a gift!

Yes, sometimes, on rare occasions, God reunites two hiraeth friends.

But for the most part, I don’t think we can count on it. Finding one another again won’t likely happen.

In that case, you are left with hiraeth, 

that yearning that buzzes and tingles, 

it whispers to you, it nags at you—

and sometimes even shouts at you. 

It insists that you must always hope 

and wait 

for one more conversation, 

one more day together.

What are you to do if your separation is apparently permanent or your hiraeth person has died? Accept the impossible hiraeth-ness of your situation. Believe that God has a good plan for you. 

Live each day confident that 

you and your special person have 

"invisible lines of connection,"

an enduring fellowship 

known to only the two of you. 

It’s real, maybe more real and true 

than anything you’ve ever know to be real and true. 

Years later, maybe decades later, you still call each other’s names in the silence, and you recognize each other’s voices, and you call back.

You still sing in perfect harmony, yet only the two of you hear the tune and know the words.

Despite the distance between you, you’re inseparable: Your togetherness remains strong and sure.

Who is your hiraeth person?

Maybe a grandparent, parent, or sibling;

your uncle, your aunt, or your child;

a teacher, church youth group leader, or high school sweetheart;

a childhood friend, classmate, or college roommate;

a Boy Scout leader, teammate, or coach;

a colleague, mentor, or professor;

a surfing buddy, nanny, or neighbor;

a spouse, a first love, or the one who got away.

Hiraeth is something bigger than the two of you.

Despite the distance, time, death, or circumstance

that separates you from your hiraeth person,

you are never far from each other’s thoughts.

You’re still in each other’s dreams.

You are still each other’s heartbeats,

the blood that pulses through your veins,

the oxygen you breathe.

You still hold each other close,

and there you are complete,

you are at home.

"It well may be,

That we will never meet again,

In this lifetime.

So let me say before we part,

So much of me,

Is made of what I learned from you.

You'll be with me,

Like a handprint on my heart.

And now whatever way our stories end,

I know you have re-written mine,

By being my friend....

Because I knew you,

I have been changed for good.

"For Good," Stephen Schwartz

“We need honest, true-to-life stories to show us how”

Courage. Joy. Integrity.

We all want to possess those attributes.

We want to teach our children and grandchildren to live with courage, joy, and integrity—and your memoir can help do that.

“If we are going to live with courage

and joy

and integrity,

we need honest,

true-to-life stories

to show us how.…

What excites me are stories

with all the grit

and beauty

and squalor

of human beings

attempting to live in service to God

and loving their neighbor.”

Peter Mommsen, author of Homage to a Broken Man:

The Life of Heinrich Arnold—

A True Story of Faith, Forgiveness, Sacrifice,

and Community

Your memoir can do that! Your stories can offer others courage, joy, and integrity—and so much more.

Sure, your stories might include grit and squalor, but beauty can blossom in them, too:

Dig deep and peel back layers—because when you do, you’ll discover the ways that common people living everyday lives serve God and love their families and their neighbors, because the Good Book says:

“The most important [commandment] is this,” said Jesus.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul

and with all your mind

and with all your strength.’

The second is this:

‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

There is no commandment greater than these.”

(Mark 12:29-31, Matthew 22:37-39)

Your stories can inspire readers to live like that.

Do you doubt the power of your stories? If so, think again:

“For such a long time, I felt my story wasn’t important,” wrote Mick Silva.

“I didn’t know who my story had made me. It’d been too buried. But exhuming it, the healing had been profound, pulling from the ashes of charred memories.… And the things I’ve discovered have been treasures.…”

Mick continues, “[T]hrough writing I’ve discovered that…protecting and preserving our stories is about discovering God’s story.  What he did through us, with us, in spite of us, continually pursuing that story is a matter of faithfulness and obedience, to become aware and invest in this life he’s given. To speak its life-affirming power in proper words and context, it can be the delight of our lives, an endless source of inspiration.”

Read that paragraph again, and maybe even again.

Take it in. Ponder that message.

And then, write your stories!

Write your stories as a celebratory offering to God.

“No memoirist should start … until.…”

“Do you love?” asks Beth Kephart. “Are you still learning to love?”

“It’s a question for all of us, and it’s a question we must repeatedly ask ourselves, especially when we’re writing memoir.” (Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir)

Beth, author of five memoirs, says that if we don’t know what we love,

if we’re not capable of loving,

if we’re focused too much on self (“if we’re stuck in a stingy, fisted-up place”),

if we’re too angry,

if we haven’t allowed grace to take the edge off disappointments,

if “we haven’t stopped hurting long enough to look up and see the others who hurt with us,”

if we “only have words … for our mighty wounds and our percolating scars,”

then it’s likely too soon to begin writing memoir.

Instead, Beth offers this starting point: Make a list of little things that bring you happiness, those things that embrace beauty and goodness and love.

Her suggestion reminds me of Philippians 4:8, “Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about” (The Living Bible).

The Message says it this way: “… You’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

Beth advises, “Practice gratitude. Rest assured you’ll be given a chance to tell the whole story soon. But start, for now, with love.” (from Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir; emphasis mine)

Beth is speaking at the Memoir Summit at Rosemont College in Philadelphia on Sunday, October 20, 2013. For info about how you can participate in four free workshops with experts in the craft of writing memoir, click on the link above.

Click here for Jerry Waxler's informative post about the Memoir Summit.  

Critically acclaimed young adult fiction writer and author of five memoirs, Beth is also a writing instructor at University of Pennsylvania and a National Book Award finalist. Check out her blog, Beth Kephart Books.

Remember to participate in the book giveaway.

Click here for info.