I would like to write these blog posts ahead of time. When I
have a few uninterrupted hours on a plane or even thirty minutes while waiting
for an appointment, I’d like to write, write, write, and get a cushiony blog backlog
so I’d never have to think about deadlines or if I’ve missed a day.

 And although I need to do this for times when I’m traveling,
or to keep tucked away for a day that I might be sick or otherwise indisposed,
I can’t “write ahead” and count on the liveliness inherent in present-moment
thoughts.

In the early 80s, my first husband and I regularly attended the Friends Meeting in Downers Grove, Illinois. I got two great gifts from this experience.
First, it was by being part of the Friends (Quakers) that we decided to have a
baby, and our indescribably precious daughter, Adair, is here as a result (that’s Adair today, with Aspen). The
other gift was an appreciation of, and the ability to recognize, the magic of
the present moment.

I once asked a longtime member why the Friends had no
clergy. He said they liked to think of it as having no laity, that
everyone has a direct line to God.
“Besides,” he went on, “We figure that if someone writes a sermon on Thursday
night, it may well be direct revelation—for Thursday night. Come Sunday
morning, it might not be. So we prefer to sit in silence and wait for
revelation, which could come to any of us.”

I see this so clearly as a writer. I can write something
that uses my head—knowledge, memory, research, interviews, and so forth—or
I can write what is revealed. That doesn’t happen every day. If you’re a
regular reader of this blog, you know that. Every once in a while, a post is
kissed with that spark. Other times, it’s just me, writing from my head.

That’s why I can’t “pound out” fifty blogs and feel
comfortable, like the guy with a mountain of cash in his sock drawer.
Revelation comes when it wants to in the amount it chooses. Every time I sit
down at the computer—and every time you do (if you write), or every time you
pick up a paintbrush in your studio or a piece of chalk in your classroom—you
invite it. It may come at that very moment. It may come at some other moment.
It always comes in the moment, in the now. And when it does, there’s nothing
like it. 

Note: Wanna watch a little movie? There’s a 3-minute YouTube up about one of my upcoming books, The Love-Powered Diet: Eating for Freedom, Health, and Joy. Thanks for taking a look.