By Brenna Salverson
August 28, 2024
Listen to this post.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. That all changed when God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.
God said.
God said.
God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.
God didn’t gesture. Didn’t lay concrete. Didn’t swipe with brush and oiled pigments.
God said. And it was.
We humans, too, create the world through language. We construct stained-glass cathedrals nested in clouds a thousand feet high by the mere force of vibrating vocal folds, by the curl of a tongue, by breaths snatching at the backs of teeth.
We don’t wait eons for erosion to sculpt canyons. We speak them. And they exist. We don’t wait for human brains to posit practical, logical, feasible solutions. We speak them. And they exist.
Imagine the power we funnel into markings scratched on a page. Or perhaps stone. Or clay.
Those words no longer hang in the air and dissipate like the fading smudge of sunrise. They’re rendered, incised. They’re here to stay. And they keep speaking—well, at least according to ancient Near Eastern thought.
Writing keeps speaking—keeps creating—until it is not writing.
Ancient Egyptian tombs contained written spells that kept cursing as long as the script stayed, dooming those who dared to live in death’s space. Ancient Mesopotamian statues etched with prayers beseeched through the night and day. Ancient conquering stelae proclaim a king’s victory and glory until the inscription crumbles to gravel. Writing keeps speaking—keeps creating—until it is not writing.
As writers, we’re not stringing together letters on a thread. Or stacking word game tiles. Or bleeding ink on sheeted trees.
We say. And it exists.
We write. And it exists and exists and exists….
Wandering through Infinite Possibilities
Writing is powerful. It’s world-shaking and world-building. It’s numinous.
But today is certainly not the ancient Near East. What writing can be has changed dramatically over the past ten thousand years. Where the ancient Near East’s literacy rate was approximately one percent, 79 percent of the US population is literate. Where the ancient Near East primarily used writing for record-keeping and governmental purposes (alongside its numinous properties), we use writing for everything.
Modern day is marked by hypertextuality. We text. We read street signs. We leave affirming sticky notes on the bathroom mirror. We laugh at closed captions on social media and streaming services. Writing is no longer a skill reserved for trained scribes. Nearly anyone can be a writer.
Alongside these differences, our contemporary moment and the ancient Near East share a view that writing is a product. It’s a clay tablet with merchant records. It’s a text message making dinner plans. It’s a novel with an incredible plot. Writing is written text on some sort of medium that records, communicates, builds stained-glass cathedrals.
Writing, though, isn’t just an end result. Writing is a process.
Writing, though, isn’t just an end result. Writing is a process. It’s collecting observations, conversing with memories, pondering meaning, living vicariously, problem-making, problem-solving, concluding dramatically, laughing for no reason. It’s live and dynamic. It’s a person engaging with themself as they wander through infinite possibilities.
Writing is soul-searching.
Say the Thing
In undergrad, I once found myself in my poetry professor’s softly lit office. Framed poems and photos collaged the walls. My own words were balanced on my knees as we discussed one particular piece. My professor was blunt: “You need to say the thing.”
I looked down at the poem as if it could clarify what she meant. It did no such thing. Because those stanzas weren’t written yet. Because I hadn’t gone there. I hadn’t wanted to go there. A grayness opened beneath my ribs. I knew full well what “thing” I needed to say. What I needed to wrestle with. And it was going to hurt.
I was right. That story wasn’t easy to tell.
Writing as soul-searching demands a lot. I had to confess to myself. To reclaim what I buried. To acknowledge the past bleeding into the present. To forgive myself. Forgive others. At the end of all that, I was still on tears’ edge when I performed the poem at an open mic.
I knew full well what “thing” I needed to say. What I needed to wrestle with. And it was going to hurt.
That tough process doesn’t need to be lonely. There are editors, like my professor, along the way.
Editors are much more than the grammar police. More than those gatekeeping, little devils with red pens for pitchforks. Editors walk alongside the writer through the soul-searching. They know that we often mistake ourselves for our words and that words so often get in the way of our stories.
They listen to what is said. And then they listen deeper for what is meant. They look for what longs to be written.
In a beginning, long after light burst forth, an editor reaches through the formless void of paragraphs, syntax, and 12-point Times New Roman font and grasps the hands of a writer. The editor asks the writer to walk them through the sweeping, swirling void of words. They point at text fragments that bounce, whisper, whoosh, in awe. They say, “Here’s what I’m hearing. Is that what you mean?” They catch floating letters in their butterfly net and arrange them. “Like this?”
They stand with the writer as they get stuck at one elegant phrase. The writer’s fingers run over the words again and again so that they don’t see behind them where a stained-glass cathedral rises among clouds. The editor gently tugs their hand, whispering, “It’s time to let go.” The writer’s fingers brush the phrase one last time, and they let the editor turn them around.
The writer’s mouth falls. “I wrote that?”
“Yes. It’s been there the entire time.”
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Brenna Salverson, Polaris Content Editor
Brenna helps uplift the voices and stories of our incredible Polaris Blog contributors by working with the nitty gritty grammar details and developing social media content. She is an MDiv student at Princeton Theological Seminary where she nerds out about the ancient Near East and reads as much Hebrew as she can. She is passionate about encouraging storytelling and can be found collecting stories. She holds a BA in writing and philosophy/religious studies from Georgia Southern University where she fell in love with the Old Testament and poetry.