Jo Ind

I’m a writer. I write books. I write for newspapers. I write  for the web. I’m a writer. I am – honestly.

Just look in my loft. There are boxes packed with all the pages I have written.

Look on Amazon. You can find my books there.

Look at my home. Apart from gifts, everything I own has been paid for through my hours of labour putting one word in front of the other.

I am a writer – it must be true.

So why is it that all these years (decades), there is nothing that is as hard as writing? All the other things – training adults, filing my accounts, managing a team, teaching children, making websites – none of that is as difficult as the blank page,

the empty brain,

the silent room.

You know that feeling of relief around 21 December, when from now on, the evenings are going to get lighter?  Today I have a similar feeling as the nights start to draw in.

Don’t get me wrong, I love summer evenings – sitting with friends as the barbeque cools and the scents of the impending darkness fill the air, calling the children in from the far ends of the camp site as it approaches ten o’clock, coming home all nice ‘n’ lazy because it’s light and it will stay that way for – oooh – hours and hours. I luxuriate in the ease of summer.

But there’s another side (should I say a shadow side?) to the gloriously long evenings of June.

What about the times when I’m tired or sad and all I want is to get home, have a bath and get into my pyjamas?  It’s just not the same doing that in daylight.

What about the moments when I long to create a womb-like space in which to curl up, light a candle and pray?  I need to do that all the year round but in summer there is often a dissonance between the callings of my inner world and the long, glaring hours of light.

I’m not complaining. One of the many things I enjoy about living in England is its climate and the contrast between its winter nights and summer days.

But as the year is poised on this, the summer solstice, I salute and welcome the start of the hemisphere’s descent into darkness,  just as, in six months’ time, I will welcome its ascent into light.

Image @ Jean Carneiro

“Spirituality is when the inside of things is bigger than the outside” – Richard Rohr.

I came across that quote while I was taking a look at the new website of  St Saviour’s, Bridge of Allan where my brother is rector.

It just happened to catch my eye because I was about to write a post on why I was finding it hard to post at the moment.

There are many times in life when I find my inner world more vivid and enticing than the outer world: I can’t read on the bus because I want to stare out of the window, I’m late for an appointment because I have been day-dreaming in the bath, I don’t switch the telly on because lying on my back looking at the ceiling is far more entertaining than anything being offered to me on a screen.

I’m going through a time like this at the moment – a time when I am being beckoned by my soul rather than wooed through the web. The outer world is small and thin. My inner world is rich and deep.

I don’t know if this is “spirituality.”  I don’t know if this is the way of being to which Richard Rohr was alluding. But it is good to name this place and it a good place to be.

I get heartily sick of the challenge of raising a family being characterised in terms of work/life balance.

Who thought of that phrase?

It makes it sound as though the only things we need are to earn a living and spend time with our families.  The implication is that so long as we’ve risen to the  challenge of getting work and childcare covered, we’re sorted.

Well, I’ve got news – we’re not.

I have another need and that need is for solitude.  I’ll say it again, but louder: “SOLITUDE.”

I need time to be alone/pray/write. (I use forward slashes rather than commas because I’m not sure if they are different things.)

It is that need for solitude that too often goes unrecognised and therefore gets squeezed and therefore needs naming in capital letters.

Earlier this year I agreed to give a talk on revelation, identity and social media at the Greenbelt Festival. I rashly took this on in January when I had just taken redundancy and therefore anticipated I might be twiddling my thumbs around the August Bank Holiday (ho, ho).

As a result I have  had to clear the time (three whole days so far) to be by myself and do a bit of reading and thinking and praying and writing – whatever name you give to what I do in my study.

Do you know? It has made me feel so good…. I was able to pay attention to random thoughts that had surfaced and been left hanging around like odd socks for far too many years.  I felt peaceful, deeper, ‘gathered-in.’

I must do this more often. I WILL do it more often. Prayer/writing/solitude might not get named in “having it all” features in glossy magazines but I’m naming it and I’m doing it now.

There is no solitude like that of being at home alone

It is deeper than the prayer of monastery or retreat

Softer than the quietude of chapels and libraries

Rarer than holidays

More silent than the night

More nourishing than the freshly baked bread that I devour

On my own