Literary Joe Died Today in an Irish Coffee Shop

This is very
pleasant, to sit here in this popular coffee shop filled with the
sounds of locals talking in their Irish accents. Through the window
is a sort of indoor bazaar. Booths sell jewelry and clothes, and
tourists and locals alike walk by, peeking at the goods. I watch
them, and I dream about the future and drink coffee until my knee
bounces up and down.

 

God is changing me.
I dream of a literary life where I can sit in coffee shops around
the world and write and dream and listen to conversations just like
I’m doing now. But my dreams make me feel so insignificant. I have
done nothing truly literary, published nothing, written nothing of
importance. I don’t even have my foot in any doors. It’s
depressing.

 

But God is changing
me. In the past my imagination would have created a literary Joe,
and judged the real Joe, the Joe that is sitting here in this Irish
coffee shop on George Street, by that imaginary image. Trust me when
I say the comparison would not have been flattering. The literary
Joe has been published twice, has written 20 or so short stories, and
is in the middle of his 5^th novel. He knows how to write,
how to interview, how to craft characters, and how to collect
information from everything that’s going on around him to craft a
beautiful and terrible fictional world which inspires thousands.  He is bold and confident.  He has the success to bolster that confidence.

 

But the real Joe
hasn’t been published and doesn’t have those skills. The real Joe is
not prolific. He is distracted, unfocused, and maybe even lazy. The
real Joe is floundering in a sea of words and barely knows how to
swim.

 

God is changing me.
He says, “You, Joe, are mine. Literary Joe is not mine because
literary Joe does not exist. He is shadow, and I do not know him.
Nothing I do not know can exist for long. But I know you and I love
you and you will be good. I assure you, you will be good.”

 

Only a week and a
half ago, I prayed over a friend that her imagination of herself
would be changed. That God would give her an image of herself as He
sees her, as she actually is, and that he would teach her how
terrible and beautiful that image is. I think God is doing that a
little bit in me, today. Thank God I didn’t go to Giant’s Causeway with the rest of my team
because I am here. I am here. I am finding myself, being
shown myself, and being told that I am okay as myself.

 

It’s a very
exciting moment for Joe.

 

And freeing,
because the dryness is going away and the inspiration is flooding all
over me, soaking me through.