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Writing from the heart

Soul Survivor, the latest book by Philip Yancey, is a trbiute to mentors who helped transform his life. The book is so much better than I thought it would be, but I should have known it would be soul searching. I bought it and had Yancey sign it to give to Terry, our Bible teacher, but of course, I had to read it first. 🙂 Here’s a quote from Heni Nouwen, the last mentor discussed. It’s about writing.

Most students think that writing mean writing down ideas, insights, visions. They feel that they must first have something to say before they can put it down on paper. For them writing is little more than recording a pre-existent thought. But with this approach true writing is impossible. Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive . . . The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.

(From Reflections on Theological Education by Henri Nouwen)

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