What Should I Write About?

By G. E. Shuman

So, let’s see… I’m sitting here alone this evening. Lorna is at work, the kids are at a church youth group meeting, and it is my big job to come up with a column for next week’s paper. No, actually, it’s for the week after next. The point is that tomorrow afternoon we are all leaving on vacation, and I would like to get this to the paper before we go.

So, again… let’s see… what do I have in my challenged little brain that I could write about? I could write to you about that upcoming vacation, but I don’t want to sound like I’m either bragging or complaining about it. I get to drive a very long way, but it is to arrive at a wonderful vacation place. Or, I could write about the great privilege that I have, in being a teacher at a wonderful Christian school here in Vermont. Also, I could talk about our country, and how much better a place it is to live than anywhere else on our entire, beautiful, big-blue planet. I could also invite you to visit my fantastic church, (Bible Baptist in Berlin) but I think I have written about all of those things several times, although some things (like the church invitation) do deserve repeating.

At times I just like to tell you about how much I love to write, and how much I appreciate all of you who take the time to read my words. (It is true that there might be something wrong with you… but I didn‘t cause that.) At other times I can’t seem to help talking about how blessed I feel, with all the wonderful things I have been given, and especially with all the wonderful people who have been placed in my life. (This could include you.) I, also, on occasion, love to just mention the fact that I believe that all of those things were done; all of those people were placed in my life, by a ‘doer‘… a ‘placer’. In other words, my life has been blessed, deliberately, by someone who loves me enough to give me much more than I will ever, ever, deserve. That someone, as I have, likely, told you several times, is God. He isn’t ‘a’ god… you know… like the god of agriculture, or the sun-god, or something. He is THE God… the Real God, the one who simply, (or not so simply) made every single thing that was ever made… anywhere. (This DOES include you.)

I have written here, over the seventeen or so years of the life of this column, many thoughts on the holidays, including family observances, and my own, sometimes, not so well-accepted opinions of those holidays. As a Christian I suppose I’m not supposed to like Halloween, for instance, but the fact is, I LOVE Halloween, and always have. I have told you about that. We have discussed caring Christmas’s, thankful Thanksgivings, and joyous Easters, including eggs, in this very spot in my favorite Central Vermont newspaper. -Thank you Gary Hass.- (Unfortunately, this year my every-other-week writing’s didn’t align with the Wednesday before Easter. It must be the moon’s fault, or something.)

We have also, at times, thoughtfully thought together about everything from potholes to phone booths; from the rocky shores of beautiful Coastal Maine to the rocky craters of our beautiful moon. I have extolled the virtues of having a very patriotic wife, and I have, I believe, written more than you might have wanted to read about my five kids and ten grandkids. Oh well, if I can’t brag about having the best family in the world, which happens to be a fact, what can I brag about?

Well, (I like beginning sentences with ‘Well’… President Reagan did it all the time.) as I asked earlier, what do I have to write about? Well, again, here’s a possible answer. I really don’t know. I do know that writing is a bit like painting a fence. Sometimes ya just gotta’ start, and before you know it… you’re done. I invite you to try it sometime. It’s a lot of fun. I mean writing, not fence-painting. Now I can go on vacation.