Advent Readings

There are times when I can't quite tell if I'm being obnoxious, prideful, or vain when I ask people to read what I've written. I have a good friend of mine who's a tremendously talented artist (specializing in ceramics, but a damn fine painter as well) who has been giving lots of great advice on my poetry. She tells me that I should be proud of what I'm writing -- I'm an above average poet, a good writer, and I say things well. Why shouldn't I be proud of my art, my creations?? I guess that my answer is that, too often in my life, my artistic abilities and propensities haven't been appreciated, encouraged, or even acknowledged. If you've never been given positive feedback and quality constructive criticism, you haven't the means or the self-esteem to want to talk about your writing, my music, or anything like that at all.

However, I feel that I have gotten a bit braver and more confident with my writing. I guess that when someone gets hired on by their church to actually write the lessons for the Sunday School classes, that someone can deserve and reserve the right to be proud of your writing and be willing to share it with people. Thus, having completed a month or so of lessons on Genesis (since we're progressing a week-at-a-time through the book during Ordinary Time) and two weeks of lessons for the Advent Season, I'd like to see what my "regular readers" here at this blog have to say about another set of my writings. Is that vain? I hope not. I'd just like to get your input on what I've been creating.

Thanks.

Peace.