The Hermitage
April 8, 2018
5:30 a.m. CDT
Last night I discovered I’m old!
Now that may not be much of a shocker since you probably know I’m 81 years of age.
But the way I discovered it wasn’t because somebody counted up my years and made a logical conclusion. No, I read a book on writing
.
And guess what it told me? Old people use elipses! That’s right. It said old people use ellipses.
So what’s an ellipse? Well…It’s those three dots I just used. And, yes, I use them a lot when I’m writing.
Now I didn’t get to being told I’m old directly. The book itself (which I’m not going to name) was actually about writing poetry. And the author, talking to poets, said ellipses were lazy writing. And I had to agree, leaving out words is lazy writing. A poet really needed to find the right word(s) to use instead of leaving them to the reader’s imagination.
However, the implication intrigued me, since I thought an ellipse was a perfectly good punctuation mark. So to prove I might be old but wasn’t a total luddite I looked up the definition of “ellipse” online.
Amazingly enough, as I looked at multiple definitions, they said an ellipse was used to show that words had been removed or left out. The way they said it was much more stuffy, but that was it in a nutshell.
And one website I found actually made...fun...of...old...people...who...used...ellipses. Seems like some unscientific research showed ellipses are a product of a generation past...us old folks.
And, yep, a little digging around showed it’s pretty much a generational thing. Writing styles are changing and the ellipse is one of the things that’s no longer in vogue.
So, it seems they’re going out of style, and if you use them you’re bucking a social headwind.
Reflection
I can see you now, scratching your head and saying, “What does this have to do with anything, much less spirituality?”
While I was poking around, I found a website where the author was claiming, unabashedly, he loved to use ellipses. In his style of writing it didn’t indicate leaving out words. It wasn’t lazy. It was the pause he used while he pondered a point...to show the passage of time while he thought. Now, according to all the experts I found, that’s a perfectly acceptable use of the ellipse.
I’d love to give you the reference, but this was just an interesting exercise in grammar and punctuation until the Lord woke me up in the middle of the night to link a bunch of thoughts together.
Here’s what I think He was saying…(yes, I used them.) “Sometimes you have to go against the crowd and stand your ground.”
“Sometimes you have to go against the crowd and stand your ground!”
A silly little thing like an ellipse led back to something the Lord has been trying to teach me for many years.
Turmoil hit the Episcopal Church way back in the 70’s. Remember Prayer Book Revision—among other things? And, from my perspective, it just continued to get worse as the culture became more and more liberal. I began to study the lives of the saints and martyrs. For an entire year I followed the calendar of the Lesser Feasts and Fasts and Fox’s “Book of Martyrs.”
I also began to read the history of patristics. Not the writings of the apostolic fathers, but the history of why they wrote. And do you know what I discovered?
The people we call “saints” stood against the crowd and held fast to the truth! No, not just ‘truth.” But “TRUTH!”
Some got martyred for it. Think of the apostles who stood against all the “wisdom” and “truth” of the then current religious establishment.
Some were ostracized for it. During the debates over the creeds several bishops were “deposed” because they opposed the “truth.” We wouldn’t have the Nicene Creed if some of the bishops had “caved.”
And what I learned most of all? Sometimes it took years--decades--before the world came back to its senses.
Epilogue
Now this has been focused on church politics, which I usually avoid. The issues are far more complex than a few facile and simplistic lines in a blog can resolve.
However, there is another issue, perhaps more mundane, but—in my mind—equally important.
Are I being who God created me to be? Am I standing my ground, doing what He created me to do?
Or am I allowing peer pressure,
or the world,
or circumstances,
or a multitude other things,
to “condition” me to not be who God truly created me to be?
Each of us is absolutely unique. Oh, I know there are broad similarities. But when God created me--and you--it wasn’t a random act. He didn’t want “somebody.” He wanted me. And you! Then, endowing each of us with a unique combination of charisms, talents and skills, He gave us a mission only we can accomplish.
I really don’t think I’ve been called to fight the Episcopal Church establishment. Maybe I have or I wouldn’t be writing this particular meditation. But I think my real “calling” lies elsewhere.
I’m slowly realizing this blog is my way of trying to find that elusive “elsewhere”--my unique ministry for this stage of my life.
What’s your way of finding yours? And how will you live it out when you do.
I know. I’ve gone from sharing to meddling.
I’ll probably write more about this. It’s really a burning issue for me. But I’ve been pondering and writing for over two hours. So both of us probably need me to stop.
Till then…
Thanks for Journeying with me.
—————-
Addendum:
Ponder this marvelous poem which says the above much better than I…
“Foxe's Book of Martyrs.” Find in a Library with WorldCat, 12 Nov. 2018, www.worldcat.org/title/foxes-book-of-martyrs/oclc/1106209.
John 18 especially verses 37-38