On Beginnings...

Demon Copperhead's and those beginnings of our own.

Beginnings are complex things.

This week The Reader & the Writer launched its first podcast episode and started this Substack. We are officially at our beginning.

Sort of. The real beginning of The Reader & the Writer goes back to another podcast I started a year ago called Beauty & the Arts. That podcast was directly connected to an arts ministry I was the head of at the church where I formally worked and was a member. (Yes, there is a story inside that sentence) The idea for R&W came from a series I did on the B&A’s podcast with my friend, Rhea Forney. Together, we dialogued over several of the books in the Narnia series, doing what is called in literary circles, close reading. (You can hear us talk about our ideas and method of close reading in Episode 12 from Beauty & the Arts.) Rhea and I loved our podcasting time and committed to making it happen on a more regular basis. I don’t know that we imagined having an entire podcast devoted to such conversations… at least maybe not so soon. But then, that’s the funny thing about beginnings: oftentimes they take us by surprise.

The opening line of Demon Copperhead is a perfect example of the complexity of beginnings:

“First, I got myself born.”

Demon, the main character and narrator of his own story, tells us straight away: his birth was somehow his own doing, at least it was his responsibility to make happen, his mother being “let’s just say, out of it.” This line, like my sentence about my former job and church only better, is fat with Demon’s story inside it. It’s also fabulous insight into Demon’s character that plays out over and over again: Demon takes responsibility for everything and everyone. In this opening line we recognize an entire host of stories with their own beginnings preceding and culminating in Demon’s beginning and continuing on with him now at the center leading the way and causing all those other stories to become more bright and filled out, more deep, more complex, certainly more tragic, but more redemptive, too.

Beginnings really are fascinating things. Think of any “beginning” in your life: a new job, new home, new baby, new move, new season, new school…. We call these things these beginnings, and yet none of them are purely new beginnings. Like Demon’s story, or The Reader & the Writer, all of our beginnings—yes, even the very beginning of our lives—find their “first lines” nestled within some greater story preceding, wrapping around, and continuing beyond them. Furthermore, as much as we’d like to imagine we control the various “beginnings” of our lives, more often than not, beginnings happen to us and in spite of our best efforts at controlling their entrance. Other times, they are our way of trying to take control of what feels—or actually is—out of control to us… our job, our family, our church… our lives.

Thinking about beginnings in this way helps me relax a little about my own beginnings, from the dreaded beginning of any writing effort, to the entirety of my life. Somehow, I’m able to see it all through a more generative lens.

First, there is the reality that our time on this earth inhabiting and living out our various beginnings is nothing more than a single note in a great symphony… or a tiny grain of sand. And yet, it exists! For the symphony, it is an irreducible, irreplaceable note… inside an oyster, that tiny grain of sand is turned into a pearl of great price. It’s the whole It’s a Wonderful Life theme: George receives the gift of recognizing just how impactful his life is to his family, his community, and even the success of WWII! (If George hadn’t been born, his brother Harry would have drown in the frozen pond, thus not being alive to take part in some instrumental air raid operation in the war). “Before you were born I knew you…” says the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5). We come into this world already being known. And if we are already known, then our beginning is no accident. Furthermore, all our subsequent beginnings have the purpose and potential of being this beautiful conspiracy, working for our good and the good of those around us. So, when it comes to taking risks, starting something new, stepping into a beginning… Send it.

Following directly from this is: who is narrating our beginnings and how they are narrated to us, and by us, matters. Demon went his entire childhood with a particular understanding of his beginning. It wasn’t inaccurate necessarily, but it was incomplete, especially where his father was concerned (his father died before Demon was born). A more accurate and generous understanding of his beginning may not have changed his tragic spiral. But then again, it may have. Bottom line: how our beginnings are narrated to us has a great impact on how we see ourselves, the significance of our lives, and our level and way of engaging with the world. More pressing still, how we continue to narrate our own stories only magnifies and solidifies the impacts above. In other words, we gotta keep at the work of beginnings so we can get better at telling—and living—our stories.

Finally (at least for this post), every beginning in this life is preceded by some kind of ending. One school year ends, another begins. A new job comes because an old one goes. A couple gets pregnant, their former way of life ends. Even our most purposeful and joyful beginnings are tangled up with some kind of ending. And endings all have a fragrance of loss to them. Sometimes that fragrance is subtle and sweet and fades easily away. Sometimes it’s wicked smelly like a fart or a literal dumpster fire. Oftentimes it starts off as a whiff of something that you can’t place until it’s gone full rotten and near impossible to kill. These, I think, are the worst. The good thing is, once you find the source of the stink, you can do something about it. Even if all you can do is acknowledge it. Maybe acknowledging it is the best thing you can do. Let the beginning be imperfect, let it be rough, let it be small.

After all, it’s only the beginning.

Thanks for wondering about beginnings with me. :)