“Disburb us, Lord, when.…”

You want to entertain your memoir’s readers, but you also want to change your readers.

You want to write stories that show God’s everyday involvement in your life and your readers’ lives, stories that illustrate “everything is revealed to be in the hands of God.…” (Lawrence Kushner, Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred stories of the ordinary)

Within that context, make sure your memoir’s stories—at least some of them—challenge your readers to think, to ponder, to mull over issues below the surface. Challenge readers to turn from worldly trinkets and distractions so they can consider their lives’ substance and purpose.

The following prayer teems with ideas for your memoir’s vignettes:

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrive safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our effort to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show Your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Attributed to Sir Francis Drake, 1577

Did Drake’s prayer give you ideas for vignettes? I hope so!

For example, take the first couple of lines: “Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves.…” What does “too well pleased with ourselves” mean? What stories can you write about being too pleased with yourself or about someone else who was too pleased with himself? What were the results of that mindset? Why would/should we pray for God to disturb us over it?

Look at the next couple of lines: “Disturb us, Lord, when … our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little.…” What does dreaming “too little” mean to you? What results from dreaming too little? Why would/should we pray for God to disturb us over it? What stories can you write to illustrate that?

Sift through your memories for stories that illuminate “Disturb us, Lord, when … we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.” What does “sailing too close to shore” mean to you? When did you sail too close to shore? What were the results? Why would/should we pray for God to disturb us over sailing too close to shore?

On the other hand, look over the third stanza: When did you dare more boldly and venture on wider seas where, as a result, storms showed you God’s mastery? Write a vignette about a time you lost sight of land, and as a result, you discovered stars. You’ll want to examine and explain what the following mean: “wider seas,” “storms,” “God’s mastery,” “losing sight of land,” and finding “stars.”

Stories matter. Stories make a difference.

Stories guide, inspire, encourage, influence, motivate, and empower.

Stories shape lives.

“Sometimes a particular story, or version of a story, is so potent,” says Ayd Instone, “that it becomes so interwoven in our lives that it defines the direction our life story takes and modifies behavior.… I’ve seen teenagers who changed the direction of their lives to become teachers after seeing the film, The Dead Poets Society.…”  

Your stories are important. Write them!

How an HGTV program demonstrated Jeremiah 29:11

A couple of evenings ago, HGTV’s House Hunters featured James, his wife Mindy, and their four children in their search for a house in southern California—but James was no ordinary man.

Born in Da Nang, Vietnam, during the war, James contracted polio in his infancy and inadequate medical help left him crippled in both legs.

James’ mother made the heart-wrenching decision to put him in an orphanage, no doubt hoping and praying he would find the help he needed.

Then, during the fall of Saigon, U.S. President Gerald R. Ford arranged emergency evacuation flights for some 110,000 Vietnamese, including two-year-old James.

James praised the American family that adopted and raised him and—then came the best moment, for me, of the program: James explained how thankful he was for his polio and for being given to the orphanage because, he explained, if he had remained in Vietnam, his life would have held bleak prospects and many hardships.

And isn’t that what Jeremiah 29:11 is all about?

“For I know the plans I have for you,”

declares the Lord,

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.”

James recognized, and told HGTV viewers about, the blessings that resulted from what appeared, at first, to be disasters. Based on his words and his wife’s necklace, I’m sure James saw God’s fingerprints all over his life.

If you’ve been part of the SM 101 tribe for a while, you know where I’m going with this:

Think back on events that seemed all wrong, that threatened to destroy your dreams and hopes, that left you in despair.

Take a few days to take a long look at those events and search for God’s fingerprints all over them.

We often miss the most important Holy Fingerprints because we don’t take time to dig deeply and examine and think and pray.

Invest time in this until you can declare, like Elisabeth Elliot:

“The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be.

It may seem to be worse,

but in the end

it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.”

Write a vignette for your memoir showing ways that, despite seeming setbacks, God had plans to prosper* you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

You’ll find additional inspiration from these earlier blog posts:

Connect Your Dots, and my friend Barb’s cry, “Lord, You’ve said you’d make my path straight, so why is my path so crooked?”

You’re the bridge between generations past and generations yet to come.

Write your stories!

Your children, grandchildren and other readers

need to know they can trust God with their lives,

that He has plans to prosper* them

and not to harm them,

plans to give them hope and a future.

*The word prosper is, in Hebrew, shalom, meaning peace, completeness, tranquility, soundness, safety, and well-being. Here’s how Cornelius Plantinga describes shalom:

“The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight—a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be” (from Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be).

“One of the great challenges of the writer is to produce a text that will …”

Donald M. Murray tells about reading a World War II story and interpreting it through his own experience as a paratrooper in that war.

His wife worked in the Pentagon during World War II and when she reads the same book, “she will read a different book,” says Murray in The Craft of Revision.

Murray continues, “When my daughters, who were … raised during the Vietnam era, read it, they will each read a still different text.”

In the same way, your memoir’s readers will interpret your stories through their own experiences and historical eras.

Murray says:

“One of the great challenges of the writer is to produce a text that will cause readers to draw on their different experiences and still understand what we have to say.”

How can you write stories from your past that will resonate with readers growing up in a different epoch? Perhaps some of your readers have not yet been born!

“The first step,” Murray says, “is to recognize that our world may be different from the reader’s.”

In addition to recognizing readers will live in a different historical setting, he says, “We must recognize that our readers may not share our religion; our political party; [or] our economic perspective.…”

In writing a book about World War II, Murray says, “I must remember that my readers may not know what an M-1—our rifle—was, or a C-45—the two-engine troop-carrier plane from which we jumped. They may never have heard of the Maginot Line … or the SS …; may not even know of the Holocaust.…”

Imagine the year is 2040 and your great-grandson, age twenty-five, is reading your memoir.

Will he understand that when your house caught fire in 1962, you could not run outside with your phone to call the fire department because phones were attached to the wall with a cord? And that’s why you had to stay inside to call for help, and that’s why your pajamas caught fire? And that’s why your legs have scars?

If you came of age during the Vietnam era, especially if you or a loved one was drafted into the military, you’ll want readers to understand the political, social, and religious factors that divided and rocked our nation during those years. (You’ll probably need to explain what the draft was, too.)

Charlie Hale has compiled several brilliant pieces about both World War II and the war in Vietnam, including I Remember: Viet Nam, my friends, and Memorial Day.

Over at Diana Trautwein’s blog, she writes “It was the mid 1960’s and the escalating war in Vietnam brought deep soul-searching for many men of draft-able age. My husband had a unique up-bringing which led to an unusual choice, a choice which took him far away from the jungles of [Vietnam].… A saving grace in the draft process was to register as a 1-W—a ‘person opposed to bearing arms by reason of personal religious conviction.’ And that’s exactly what my husband had done.… He had registered as a conscientious objector (CO) … [and] that meant two years of service offered in lieu of joining the military. My husband wanted to do those two years somewhere far from home.…” (from An African Journal—Post One: Beneath the Surface)

If you want to witness a master craftsman make history come alive, take seven minutes at Charlie Hale’s blog for his video, The Images, Stories, and Songs of War. He uses black and white photos, songs of the era, and his concise narrative to capture both World War II and Vietnam—and their stark differences. It is a riveting piece.

Learn from Donald M. Murray, Charlie Hale, and Diana Trautwein. Capture the social, political, religious, and economic milieu of your life stories. Your history and your world are different from those of your readers but with a bit of effort, you can do what Murray says: “produce a text that will cause readers to draw on their different experiences and still understand what [you] have to say.” 

Will they know your favorite things?

My husband, Dave, and I just returned from a whale of a great family visit with four generations (ages 1 through 94) on both sides of the family. We shared lots of hugs and laughter and stories, and we ate too much, but we strengthened loving bonds and created memories galore.

Many of us have known each other for decades (for our entire lives in some cases), but we’re still surprised when we discover something new: My mother-in-law loves orange sherbet mixed with vanilla ice cream. Spencer’s passion is screenwriting. Stacy’s favorite color is red. Craig and Jonathan love playing rowdy games with the little kids. My granddaughters adore their Great-aunt Sandra. Glennyce showed her gentle humor when she surprised six-year-old Claire by wiggling her wig (the last time they saw each other, Claire was too young to understand Glennyce had cancer). I treasure listening to my husband and his brothers play cards late into the night and their frequent bursts of laughter.

That got me to thinking. You and I know our favorite things but do our loved ones know? If not, would they be surprised to find out? Shocked? Tickled?

Some of our likes might not make for important family history but they can provide interest and give our readers ways to know us better.

They might even help future generations identify with us and feel a connection to the family. For example, did my grandson, Kade, inherit my passion for collecting seashells?

What are your favorite things? After you’re gone, will your family and other readers know?

These are a few of my favorite things:

a rose’s perfume

a grandchild’s hug

my husband’s pranks

salmon grilled just right

dark chocolate
butterflies

sound sleep

Clare de Lune

Mt. Rainier
sunflowers

African smiles

banana muffins

ripe nectarines

Asiago cheese on hot buttered pasta

bookstores

maps
hot Kenya tea
ferry rides

my old photos

1812 Overture

tomatoes and basil fresh from our garden 
gathering seashells from Puget Sound's beaches 
cardinals basking, crimson, in early morning sunbeams

What are your favorite things?

Make a list and look over your rough drafts for places to add interesting tidbits. Beyond letting your readers know you better, those details will add richness, texture, and enjoyment for them.

William Zinsser on writing about your life

“… Writing about one’s life is a powerful human need. Who doesn’t want to leave behind some record of his or her accomplishments and thoughts and emotions?” asks William Zinsser, revered as a master teacher, a writer’s writer.

“If it’s a family history it will have the further value of telling your children and your grandchildren who they are and what heritage they come from. Writers are the custodians of memory, and memories have a way of dying with their owner. One of the saddest sentences I know is ‘I wish I had asked my mother about that.’

“… Beware of deciding in advance how your memoir or your family history will be organized and what it will say,” he says.

“Don’t visualize the finished product at the end of your journey; it will look different when you get there. Be ready to be surprised by the crazy, wonderful events that will come dancing out of your past when you stir the pot of memory. Embrace those long-lost visitors. If they shove aside some events you originally thought you wanted to write about, it’s because they have more vitality. Go with what interests and amuses you. Trust the process, and the product will take care of itself.

“… Think small.… Only a thousand words … tells you much of what you need to know about me and my family and my values.… Don’t rummage around in your past for ‘important’ events.… Write about small, self-contained incidents.… If you remember them it’s because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you’ll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga.” (William Zinsser, Writing About Life; emphasis mine)

If you haven’t invested in any of Zinsser’s books, do so. He is a dear, wise, old man—witty, encouraging, experienced, a brilliant writing instructor, and a storyteller through and through. 

Stories are …

Stories are our prayers.

Write and edit them with due reverence,

even when the stories themselves are irreverent.

Stories are parables.

Write and edit and tell yours with meaning,

so each tale stands in for a larger message,

each story a guidepost on our collective journey.

Stories are history.

Write and edit and tell yours with accuracy

and understanding and context

and with unwavering devotion to the truth.

Stories are music.

Write and edit and tell yours with pace

and rhythm and flow.

Throw in the dips and twirls that make them exciting,

but stay true to the core beat.

Readers hear stories with their inner ear.

Stories are our soul.

Write and edit and tell yours

with your whole selves.

Tell them as if they are all that matter.

It matters that you do it as if that’s all there is.

(Jacqui Banaszyski, “Stories Matter,” from Telling True Stories)

Minimize using “I” vs. Don’t be ashamed to use “I”

Recently I heard that a some experts urge Some experts urge writers to minimize the use of “I” and “me” and “my” in their memoirs.

I can see their point. Who wants to read about someone else’s navel-gazing and narcissism?

Because of that advice, in my rough drafts I’ve been looking for ways to remove references to myself, crossing out phrases or sentences the way I did in the first and second paragraphs above.

But did you notice? In the third paragraph, I used personal pronouns four times. Instead, I could have made this revision  here’s a potential revision: “Writers can often remove references to themselves without diminishing a sentence’s meaning and message.”

I encourage you to Look over your rough drafts and, if you find yourself too much in the spotlight, make changes. I think You’ll like the end result. But—

But don’t stop there! Because—

Phillip Lopate makes a strong case in favor of referring to ourselves: “Nothing is more common in a personal essay than the letter I. It is a perfectly good word, one no writer should be ashamed to use.…”

Lopate is a pro: an essayist, film critic, editor, and novelist (author of eight books). His advice comes from Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University (Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, editors).

Memoirists need to pay attention to such folks.

So which advice is correct? Should we minimize using “I” or, instead, take Lopate’s advice?  

Both bits of advice can be appropriate.

Here’s how it works:

Lopate comes to the discussion from a different viewpoint than the group at the top of this post.

He writes: “The problem with I is not that it is in bad taste but that fledgling personal essayists and memoirists may think they have conveyed more than they actually have with that one syllable.”

Read that again.

He explains what he means: “In [the writers’] minds, that I swarms with a lush, sticky past and an almost fatal specificity, whereas the reader encountering it for the first time in a new piece of writing sees only a slender telephone pole standing in the sentence, trying to catch a few signals to send on.”

In other words, you, the writer, are a stranger to your readers, so let them get to know you. Introduce them to a well-developed individual rather than to a dull, distant, shadowy type. Lopate applauds writers “whose teeming inner lives readers come to know.”

Think back to your favorite books or stories. You probably felt you knew—felt a connection with—the main character, and that’s one reason you kept turning pages and didn’t want the story to end.

To let readers know and connect with you, Lopate says, “You must be able to pick yourself apart. The first step is to acquire some distance from yourself.… See yourself from the ceiling, know how you are coming across in social situations,… [know] when you charm and when you seem pushy, mousy, or ridiculous. You must begin to take inventory of yourself so that you can present that self to the reader as a specific, legible character.

“Start with your quirks,” he recommends, “the idiosyncrasies, stubborn tics, and antisocial mannerisms that set you apart from others. To establish credibility, resist coming across as absolutely average. Who wants to read about the regular Joe?”

Include details about yourself that pertain to, and advance, your story’s message; leave out irrelevant traits and quirks: If you are charming, pushy, mousy, or ridiculous but those details have no relevance to your vignette’s meaning, leave them out. (Save them. They might be just what you need for a different vignette.)

Bottom line: Avoid self-absorption and conceit, but also avoid being a stranger to your readers. Leave out unnecessary personal pronouns, but do let your readers get acquainted with you. 

Readers want and need to know you in order to hear your message.