Keeping the flame alive

Cónal Creedon is a critically acclaimed novelist, playwright and documentary filmmaker. Many readers will already be familiar with him. I was not, until a writer friend, Norma, shared with me a CBC Radio Ideas special event from McGill University in Montreal. Writing in USA Review Of Books, Kate Robinson describes Creedon’s work this way:

“Creedon’s well-honed, multi-dimensional cast of characters, his vividly portrayed settings and interiors of 1970s and contemporary Cork, and his measured but lyrical prose nail every nuance of the story arc. The author has ripped open his Irish heart to spill this marvellous pastiche, a real-life creed that must be absorbed with one’s heart open wide to the pathos and poignancy of love lost and found, life lived and unlived, and spirituality bound to blind faith or soaring on the wings of perception.”

Clearly Creedon is a writer I need to read. Norma was kind enough to share her notes from the event where she drew inspiration for her own writing, and by extension, me for mine.

Creedon says he writes just because he’s a storyteller, and storytelling can manifest itself as writing; he measures his success as being able to do what he loves to do.

Now in retirement with flexible time on my hands, I find that writing is what I want to do. Earlier in life, my focus—even obsession—was classical organ music; later jazz; often photography. My profession and vocation has been and remains Christian ministry as an ordained Anglican priest. Since 2001 ecological justice study and advocacy has been my passion. As one seminary professor and many spiritual directors have suggested to me over th years, perhaps I could narrow my focus. Well, that doesn’t work; I just can’t do it. I am a life-long learner and constant intellectual and experiential explorer. And yes, with Creedon, I am a story-teller.

For Creedon, another great aspect of writing is that you really don’t need resources other than a pen and a piece of paper.

This is true for most folks but not for me. My handwriting is impossible to read even for experienced pharmacists. I need my computer, not my phone or tablet. Coping with my vision challenges, I need my desktop with a large, high resolution screen. Otherwise I just need time, freedom from distractions, and life’s duties and delights to feed my imagination. I know that I publish a little too often on this blog. But I swear to you, if I sit down, the ideas for blogs just keep coming. I don’t try to produce material; I manage what at times is a fountain flow of ideas.

Here’s something I did not expect: True creativity comes from embracing ridicule.

If you want to see my face and ears go red, humiliate me. Tell me I am being ridiculous. I am extremely sensitive to criticism. I have worked on this, for years, and failed. {Ears red even thinking about this.) I remember a retreat leader, an Episcopal bishop from the US, introducing himself as someone “who really needed to be liked.” Bad approach; believe me, I have tried it. Doesn’t work. Simply means that the truth scampers out of the room.

I can sometimes learn from my mistakes, and I suppose one test of living is that the learning continues.

To Norma’s list of insights I will add one final Creedon quote: The storyteller is the keeper of the flame.

I really like this, the storyteller who keeps life alive. The Irish have taught us how to do this, in spades for centuries. Storytelling writers help capture, for posterity or just plain fun, the spirit of an age. The things people do or have done or might do as individuals, families, communities, or nations are written in such a way as to enliven others. It’s a bit like the theological concept of Anamnesis, where an ancient story becomes real in the present moment. Write ‘em down. Do it now; while the characters or those who inspire the characters are still with us.

Norma is working on her own memories of growing up in our little Town of Summerland. Why? Well, why not? I am curious to see the final collection. My own story emerges through my blogs. I wonder then, how you shape and tell your own story. Comments most welcome.

Keep the flame alive folks.