Every once in a while the brain gets frozen and nothing seem to move it so I just start writing about almost anything and then from that an idea takes hold…seeking an idea, a thought, a pattern in the words to discover what God may be asking of me this day. It’s called the hot pen (or hot keyboard) and sometimes it works…scribble scribble Mr. Frog.
Many years ago I read an essay about writing and the lost art of cursive writing, when writing manuscripts or even short essays, and how it was changing both writer and editor. The thesis was basically, because of computers and their unique ability to delete, move and wipe away previous thoughts, the writer and editor had lost the ability to see the pattern of change in the writing. Add to this the cold uniformed letters of the computer screen and print out obliterated the emotion and feeling of words scribbled hurriedly or wrote with slow burning passion from the composition and editing of a piece of writing. In other words; the computer which can be a good thing brings the unintended consequences of bad into a process of love and of passion.
I read that essay almost 20 years ago (it’s funny how certain things stick in your mind) but it always comes up when I see something written about how the electronic communication adversely affects our human relationships and how social media allows us to sanitize our interactions and only allow the final draft to be seen, filtered or deleted as we search for the unity of love which God desires each of us to live.
““This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.” (Gen 2:23-25)
The last sentence of this beautiful passage that calls forth the unity of God desire for our human relations reminds us of a great intimacy formed in the bond of marriage between husband and wife. In an age where each image is airbrushed, photoshopped, filtered and our words are edited and perfected in an endless revision of what we are told is good, to be simply naked in front of the beloved is a revelation from God. Because it is not only the physical nakedness but the emotional and spiritual nakedness before the eyes of the beloved spouse where the revelation of love grows greater, stronger and fuller.
The great Archbishop Venerable Fulton J. Sheen shares this wisdom, “The body is also the means by which we enter into communion with one another: verbally, through words, which are broken fragments of the Eternal Word; physically, by the assistance of our neighbor in the common tasks of daily life, culture, and civilization; artistically, in the dance, the theater, and the arts: sexually, by reducing duality to unity, which is the mission of love; religiously, by adding force to prayer in outward symbols, such as bye kneeling to express the humble attitude of the soul before God.” (p 93 “Three to Get Married”)

Archbishop Sheen reminds us through the body we allow blessings to flow and the story of life to unfold with the corrections, the hurts, the sufferings as well as the blessings, the triumphs and the joys shining forth to tell the great story of life and love. It is in the offering of sacramental marital love that the spouse is able to stand before the other in blessing rather than shame because the gift of love is a non-edited gift of life.
God’s invitation for us is to “scribble scribble” through life not hiding behind the “deleting” of fear but rather celebrating the joy of the love and life wrote in the cursive breath of love in and through our loving God.
God Bless
Fr. Mark