How monotheism is helping me write my book

Plus how One Word continues to inspire me, project notebooks, and metaphors for God as Mother

Back in December, when a friend invited me to choose a word to guide me into 2024, I thought the idea was a little hokey. But I went along with it anyway. After all, there was a free online workbook involved, and I’m a sucker for a self-help-y project that involves a workbook.

My word, as you know from previous posts, is Author.

Which got me wondering whether this online-publication-in-process, The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined, could ever be contained and bound between the covers of a book.

The advantage of an online publication is that I can follow multiple tendrils of thought wherever they lead, rather than proceed in an orderly fashion from one idea to the next, from beginning to end.

In this hyperlinked web-based format I can, for example, offer a poem about the spiritual significance of trees in Sarah’s story one week, and my personal connection to Abraham’s dilemma on Mount Moriah the next. (Tune in next week for more on that.)

In other words, an online publication lets my curious, creative, often chaotic, and blissfully unconstrained mind indulge its predilection for perambulation.

Committing to One Word, however, requires focus.

And the word Author invites me to consider corralling my meandering posts into a book.

Call it the literary equivalent of conversion to an inclusive monotheism that is counterbalance to, not a negation of, my multidimensional poetic personality.

In other words, the time is right in my process to proceed, one word, one thought, and one line on the page at a time, toward completion of this project.

From author to author

Following the word author has also led me to follow the advice of authors I admire.

One helpful nugget came from

Katherine May

, author of the book Wintering, who offers a list of 10 ways to keep your writing “sustainable, orderly and sane.”

Turns out, I’m already following (at least to some extent) eight of her ten suggestions.

Here’s one I don’t do:

May tidies her desk regularly. I wait until I have no place to put a book or pen without it sliding to the floor before I clear mine. Reform on this point has proven impossible. And (for me) unnecessary.

Item #7 on May’s list provided a timely reminder:

I created a project notebook for The Life of H back in 2019. Then I abandoned it in favor of recording my notes in the Evernote app.

Until a few months ago, when Evernote informed me I’d reached the limit for my free subscription:

I have 1,418 notes and 22 notebooks in the app, which now only allows one notebook and 500 notes before you have to pony up and pay.

And so, I’ve been unceremoniously cut off.

Which, along with May’s reminder, sent me back to the spiral-bound notebook I’d left dormant for the past five years.

I chose this notebook for The Life of H, years ago, before I knew the significance of trees in Sarah’s story.

Picking it up again was like picking up a conversation with an old friend I’d lost touch with. Inside those nearly forgotten pages, I found:

• inspiring poems and quotes by other poets and authors that I’d copied down or clipped and pasted inside

• the beginnings of poems that have since been published, and others that have since been discarded as false starts

• all the words in Genesis chapters 11-22 that begin with the letter H

• titles of books to read, and sources to pursue

• a sketch of the beehive houses in Harran, where Sarah and Abraham lived before they journeyed to Canaan

• to-do lists (Research camels, update project bookshelf, find my diaries from visits to Israel, etc.)

• writing prompts for when I get stuck

• timelines and family trees for Sarah and Abraham

Now I’m once again starting each writing session by writing in my spiralbound notebook.

I’m also searching for a new (free) notetaking app. I love my project notebook and I’ll keep writing in it, but I miss having an electronic version that’s easily searchable, too. (Suggestions welcome!)

Inside my project notebook: Evidence of God as Mother

My favorite (re)discovery from my project notebook is a list of Bible verses that my late mother-in-law sent in a letter some 25 years ago.

I had recently begun my investigation into Sarah and Abraham’s story and my mother-in-law, a Christian Scientist, took it upon herself to ensure that I didn’t get overwhelmed by the masculinized depictions of God.

In her letter, she wrote:

“Did you know Elizabeth Cady Stanton … published ‘The Women’s Bible’ (1898?). They were outraged by interpretations of the Bible that were used to support women’s inferior position in house, church, and society. … It tells about the Hebrew and Christian necessity to take back the power from the original Goddess — to make God into the male figure that He/She now is!”

Betty was both a devout follower and a free-thinker. We disagreed on a lot of things, but I feel lucky and blessed to this day to have had her loving and slightly irreverent guidance as I waded into my own study of the Bible.

Here’s Betty’s list:

Biblical verses to review¹. Betty’s List

Exodus 19:4, God as Mother Eagle

Isaiah 42:14, God as a woman in labor

Isaiah 49:15, God as a mother bear committed to her cubs

Matthew 23:37, Jesus as a hen gathering her chicks

Luke 15:8-10, God as a woman searching for what is lost

Your turn

👩🏻‍💻 Are you curious about how to use poetic forms to reimagine Sarah’s story (or that of any of the biblical Matriarchs)?

📝 Want to learn a new poetic form, just for the fun of it?

🙋🏻‍♀️ Join me and find your place in the ancient texts.

In this upcoming workshop, I’ll share some of the poetic forms and techniques I’ve been using to unearth the feminine wisdom in Genesis. Everyone is welcome, no matter your faith tradition, experience with poetry, or knowledge of Sarah’s story.

In this 4-week course, we will learn how reclaiming the stories of Sarah and the Hebrew matriarchs through poetic writing can empower us to know ourselves more fully—and access the gifts of wisdom, healing, and joy that are our universal birthright.

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I’m dreaming with you,

www.thirdhousemoon.com

1. I have not yet “reviewed” this list, so if you look any of these up and find inconsistencies, or if you have more to add, let me know.