Dear Mary Angel

Happy New Year,
  
      A lot has happened in the past year, most of them realizations I've made; not things you can hold in your hand, but nonetheless significant in terms of what I've managed to accomplish. For one, I've discovered who I am. This may sound crazy-- fifty-five years old and finally understanding this basic truism, but...

     Most everyone tends to identify themselves with their job-title, "I'm a doctor, I'm a janitor," and that's fine if that's all they aspire to be. If the purpose of their lives-- the great driving force and motivation, was to become a janitor? Okay. But I believe very few people, if they were honest with themselves, sees their occupation as the great driving force of their lives; their reason to be.

     Take me, for instance. I've been a cook, a dishwasher, an X-ray supply tech. I've worked on the crew boats off the Texas and Louisiana coasts, I've strung cable for a cable company in Arkansas, I've managed a restaurant, I've produced the five, six, and ten o'clock news at a local station, I've worked on the web, built advertising, edited and made commercials. I've managed to squeeze in a lot of  jobs in thirty-nine years, and yet, not a single one of them told the story of WHO I was at any given time. Who I am is a much larger story. It has taken the whole of my life tell. And it is not defined by any time-clock I've ever punched.

     I am an Artist, broadly speaking, but more specifically, a writer, and a poet. Whether or not I ever earn a living as a poet and writer is irrelevant, because these are the driving forces that propel me forward. They are my reasons to be. These are the gifts God has given me; my talents. And I dare not bury them in the sand.

     I believe that if everyone in the world were allowed and encouraged to nurture and grow that seed of "Being" within them, this would be a much calmer, more peaceful planet. Within everyone is a desire to create. We can't but help desire the art of creation; this desire was forged into every cell of our bodies from conception. This is the closest we get to being like Him, in this life.

     I wish you all the best in this coming year. I wish you peace, love, and a greater, deeper longing for the You God created you to be.

All my love


E