Fighting Having Nothing To Say.

by Chris Kamalski

I have been silent for far too long. Stuck in my head, chaotic thoughts swirling around, transitional moments experienced and then lost again and again. A fleeting second of inspiration wasted away as I chose to watch more TV. An irregular rhythm at best, flailing self-absorbption at worst. I know I am more than this, that my better self dwells within this shell that seems to be meaninglessly passing the days away.

Of course: Critical things were happening. I moved to the bottom of the world semi-permanently. I was raising full-time support to pursue missional endeavors of great importance and high value. I had to remember how to drive manually on the left side of the road, for goodness sakes!

And yet: Something is missing. A Large Something (Christ in me?) is obscured. I am not myself, for He is not Himself in my self. It’s time for change.

“I’m not writing a book. I’m not talking about a book. I’m talking about me. I don’t think I’m telling a good story.”

“I think you tell good stories. Lots of people think so.”

“I tell good stories in books. I don’t live good stories.”

Jordan poured more milk in his cereal. He was looking at me while pouring the milk. He was squinting his eyes a little and furrowing his brow. He stopped pouring the milk. He kept looking at me for ten seconds or more, like he was studying me.

“You’re right,” he finally said. “You aren’t living a good story.”

“That’s what I was saying.”

“I see,” he said.

“What do I do about that?”

“You’re a writer. You know what to do.”

“No, I don’t.”

Jordan looked at me with his furrowed brow again. “You put something on the page,” he said. “Your life is a blank page. You write on it.”

[Block quote from Donald Miller’s masterpiece, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years, pp. 92-93].