In the beginning

Posted on February 23, 2012 by doradueck

Water & Wilderness (Week 1): Mark 1:9-11

In the beginning… God’s spirit hovered over the water (Genesis 1:1). Now, too, at the beginning of Jesus’ journey, the Spirit hovers over the water and descends. No sooner had he come up out of the water than he saw…the Spirit, like a dove… There is a voice: You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you.

How significant, to begin with blessing, with affirmation. Given before the wilderness, before the work. Not earned for doing well, in other words, but because of love and relationship. It’s foundational, pre-everything. — I enter the story to see, feel, and hear. How personal it is, this blessing, not offered in a secondhand way by saying to those roundabout, he is…, but letting them hear, you are… Continue reading →

Soon, time to journey

Posted on February 20, 2012 by doradueck

Yesterday, someone reminded me that I haven’t posted here for a while. I know.

I said that I have no opinions at the moment. Which isn’t quite true, of course. If there’s anything many of us have too much of, it’s opinions — and many opportunities to express them, from a simple “like” to a 140-character tweet to a post at a blog. Sometimes there are a lot of us talking.

But the real reason for the relative silence is that I’ve been pressed with other kinds of writing — a round of revision on my current novel project and preparing a talk I’m giving to a breakfast meeting tomorrow morning.

I’m hoping to pick up the pace at my blog, however, during the next six weeks…. Continue reading →

The origin of ideas

Posted on January 28, 2012 by doradueck

I was the guest of a book club this week, the tenth I’ve visited on behalf of This Hidden Thing. Like the nine previous, it was a very enjoyable and stimulating experience. It’s one of the easier tasks of a writer’s life: you show up, answer questions, listen with appreciation and sometimes surprise to what your work has loosed in others, eat great food, and return to your work encouraged.

One of the questions I get most often is “What’s the origin of this book?” or its variation, “Where do you get your ideas?” I really should have a more fluent and coherent answer figured out by now, but I usually fumble around with a whole bunch of things that threw themselves into the mix — like a wish to feature Winnipeg (my home city), an interest in the notion of secrets, and my research in Mennonite history. Continue reading →