{"id":2928,"date":"2013-11-23T08:27:21","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T13:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/2013\/11\/be-reverent\/"},"modified":"2013-11-23T08:27:21","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T13:27:21","slug":"be-reverent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/2013\/11\/be-reverent\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Reverent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent post on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/index.php\/2013\/11\/22\/bird-by-bird-anne-lamott\/\" target=\"_self\">Brain Picking<\/a>s presents excerpts from Anne Lamott\u2019s <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and<\/em><em> Life<\/em><\/span><em>,<\/em> including this wonderfully instructive snippet that one could argue is true for all creative endeavors:<\/p>\n<p><em>In order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here? \u2026 Think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world. Think of those times when you\u2019ve read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone\u2019s soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment. This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of \u2014 please forgive me \u2014 wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds. When this happens, everything feels more spacious.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#0160;<\/p>\n<div class=\"tpad-img-center\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/6a01156f6c1fc1970b019b0187aeb5970b-800wi\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bear Hill 1\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a01156f6c1fc1970b019b0187aeb5970b\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/6a01156f6c1fc1970b019b0187aeb5970b-500wi.jpg\" title=\"Bear Hill 1\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent post on Brain Pickings presents excerpts from Anne Lamott\u2019s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, including this wonderfully instructive snippet that one could argue is true for all creative endeavors: In order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mohonkimages.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}