We Write at Dawn – Saddle Up!

(Here’s an email I sent from a cold drafty chapel in the St Casmir Catholic rectory turned convent in South Bend, Indiana while I was on deadline)

Hey cowboy writer,

It’s “we’re burning daylight…” from a John Wayne movie and means Dawn breaks and we’re wasting the day. Watch https://youtu.be/MhO85yWpBJI

Hoosier hayseeds Joel Behnke Young & Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett get up early, too — like dairy farmers. 

We’ve claimed you as a Hoosier hayseed because you studied in Indiana so long, like it or not. 

I grew up with alpha men & an alpha’s alpha trained me, so I know for a fact you can’t get a man to do anything

BUT I know a good-hearted woman can inspire, cheer, encourage and come alongside a man to devote an abundance of prayer, so he can act. 

I prayed this morning, “What do I say to this writer to inspire him?”

What if the fate of the Universe weighs in the balance? Civilization and the whole Roman Catholic church need your inspired writing right now – it’s all on you?

1 person needs to read your work:  first, you; then the next top-notch philosopher/ theologian and then all the people you help also called sheep.

Baaa baaa – be a good shepherd

Write a really really really really really bad,  horrible, forgettable throw away first draft. Then, come back to it next morning.

Read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art or his 300-word posts to motivate you.

Every morning that you write 30 minutes, drink a Yeungling and play poker with the fellas Friday or eat 2 doughnuts after a scrimmage or pickup basketball with the guys Saturday morning.

As to the importance of your work, what if your words are humanity’s 2020 Lascaux France Paleolithic cave painting?

What if your writing in the year 20,020 is the Lascaux France cave painting all of humanity?

That guy (gal) drew a cave painting so man could survive by learning to hunt. They used art to save themselves and their people.

Teach us to survive, to flourish. Use your art and save yourself – and us.

All the cowboys need you to saddle up right now. We’re burning daylight.

Channel your inner dairy farmer, cowboy and Hoosier hayseed.

Saddle the writer’s chair and giddyap your artistic and literary and creative endeavors. 

I am off riding and writing the range for your sake. 

So is my brother Joel.   So is Supreme Court Justice and still Hoosier hayseed Amy Comey Bryant. 

Ride with us, cowboy.  Ride with us as the Dawn breaks.

You’re that dude.You’re that philosophy and theology writer. 

Though unseen by you right now, I champion you, I cheer you, I send graced atta boys to you and I come alongside you by my prayers, and I try to inspire you by my words.

You GOT this.

At every Dawn as we push to work in our fields it’s an honor to ride alongside you

I’m proud to call you friend and brother. 

Now round up the sheep cowboy -with your words.

cheers, Carol the Catholic

p.s. As my beloved sister and confirmation sponsor Stephanie says, “if it’s of me, I pray you forget what say, but if it’s of the Lord I hope it sinks deeply into the marrow, bone and sinew of your being….”