“Pictures of Flowers”
The internet has gotten to be a mean place.
I have a Facebook author page (CarrieClassonAuthor), but folks looking for insightful comments on current events will be disap- pointed. I post pictures of flowers most of the time and occasional photos of my cat, Felix. It is not the place to go for cutting-edge news. Other than my photos of flowers, I don't do much on Face book, but I am a member of a few groups, and most of them have to do with writing.
As of this week, I think that might change.
'Is anyone writing today really addressing the important subjects?' Someone wanted to know in one of these writers' groups.
'No. The only writers saying anything important are dead,' someone else replied, and a whole lot of people agreed.
I couldn't let this sit unan swered. Of course, in retrospect, I should have. But there are so many people writing today whom I admire.
'Of course there are!' I wrote. 'Like who?' The poster wanted to know.
Oh, dear. Now I was on the spot. But this person seemed to want to know, so I felt I owed them an answer.
I wrote down Anne Lamott, just because I happened to be reading right now her book on faith. And then I thought of how happy Louise Penny made me feel every time I visited her community in Three Pines. I thought of how every one of Elizabeth Strout's books has made me tear up because they are just so true and so close to the heart. I kept writing down more authors' names as I thought of them. I wanted to assure this person that important and beautiful and true things were being written by living authors every day. It was quite a list by the time I was through.
'So, has any of them actually said anything important?' this person asked.
Oh, my. Now I felt that all of contemporary literature was resting on my shoulders.
Since I was at my computer, and I knew Anne Lamott posted something nearly every day, I simply took the last words she wrote on Facebook and pasted them into my reply: 'I have no answers but do know one last thing that is true ... Life is much wilder, complex, heartbreaking, weirder, richer, more insane, awful, beautiful and profound than we were prepared for as children, or that I am comfortable with. The paradox is that in the face of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of taking in beauty, in actively being people of goodness and mercy, we are saved.'
A moment later, a reply appeared. 'So, she sold you on the idea to accept being ignorant, but if we see pretty things, we're good to go?'
And I felt so unreasonably sad. I somehow thought this person really wanted to know if there were important things being written about today. Instead, they were looking for more fuel for an argument that had finished long ago in their head.
I went for a walk. I walked into a church that keeps the little chapel open for meditation. I sat with a handful of people in the candlelight. I wondered if all of them had just gotten beaten up on the internet.
And I realized it didn't matter.
Wonderful things are being written every day. My writing down a few writers' names had simply
reminded me of some I had neglected.
When I got home, I went back to my book by Anne Lamott. I'll stick to posting pictures of flow ers from now on.
Till next time, Carrie
