SEIZE THE MOMENT Ron Rolheiser, OMI
A young man once wrote to Rainer Marie Rilke complaining that he wanted to be a poet, but his daily life offered little in the way of inspiration.
His life was not the stuff of poetry, he complained: too much drudgery, too many pressures, life in a small village. How could he write poetry out of such life?
Rilke wasn’t exactly sympathetic: “If your daily life seems poor to you,” he replied, “than you aren’t poet enough to call forth its riches. For a poet, there are no uninteresting places, no uninteresting life.” The day is there to be seized.
. “..The Day is There to be Seized.”
This is the greatest revelation any writer can experience. Whether a longshoreman, like philosopher Eric Hoffer, or a denizen of the north, like poet,Robert W. Service–all walks of life contain the greatest element of drama the universe can offer: Survival.
Television viewers have been conditioned to believe only law enforcement, medical personnel or the legal profession can offer interesting lifestyles to write about. Once in a while, writers deign to reveal educators as “interesting.”
The beauty of life itself lends luster to poetic thought. The power of family life offers a world of dramatic license. The struggle of everyday existence opens up the entire human condition.
For the writer, the day’s first rays of light bring with it the opened door where the muse resides. Then the messages from the universe bombard the senses until any scribe still breathing will experience the most exquisite writer’s cramp on a daily basis.
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