Writing prompts
Memento Vivere
Remember that you must die, (Memento Mori)
But also and more importantly
Remember that this compels you
That you must LIVE also (Memento Vivere)
A manifesto for you and your future self
A few years ago, I attended a writing session with the esteemed JLS who gave us these statements, and challenged us to turn into a personal manifesto. Take 15 minutes to finish these sentences. E.g. “I will tell the world you can be silly and serious"
I will live
I will connect
I will heal
I will fight
I will disrupt
I will end
I will tell
I will declare
I will announce
I will become
Our Shared Story - Buechner
And my story and your story are all part of each other too if only because we have sung together and prayed together and seen each other's faces so that we are at least a footnote at the bottom of each other's stories. In other words, all our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here. Does the story point beyond itself? Does it mean something? What is the truth of this interminable, sprawling story we all of us are? Or is it as absurd to ask about the truth of it as it is to ask about the truth of the wind howling through a crack under the door? Either life is holy with meaning, or life doesn't mean a damn thing.
— Buechner, Secrets in the Dark (2006)
Write in response to this text. What stands out to you? What do you feel?
Listening To Your Life - Buechner
[I]f I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
— Buechner, Now and Then (1983)
Write in response to this text. What stands out to you? What do you feel?