Comfort My People by Elaine Langford

 

When I’m preparing to write a post for More Than Writers, I often search the blog site to check if the topic has been raised before. This also checks I’m not repeating myself. Not finding many posts using the word ‘Comfort’ was satisfying and disappointing at the same time. While grateful I wasn’t regurgitating age-old topics, I was concerned that many posts covered the struggles of being a writer, myself included. From ideas to marketing via structuring and editing, it seems as if comfort is not a word familiar to writers.

I’ve often reflected on creating a commissioning document for my writing. I wrote one when I was exploring freelance writing and journalism in the early 2000s to dedicate my writing endeavours before God. I dismissed this as irrelevant as I sought to engage with poetry as my writing focus this time. While I considered topics I could write about, I struggled to know how find ‘my voice’. I enjoy the artistry and wordplay of poems from Maya Angelou to Brian Bilston, but could I write from a deep soul and light humour? Either way seeking my unique perspective on poetry felt indulgent or frivolous.

As Easter approaches, I’ve been using some Lent word prompts to help focus and inspire. Easter feels a more serious season than Christmas, but I still wanted to bring a fresh perspective rather than fall into the Easter trope pool. To avoid my poems sounding too preachy either, I also considered who I was writing my poems for, eg Christian audiences or those more familiar with a chocolate-flavoured Easter? Could I write to inform, encourage or challenge my audience, and maybe myself?

During Lent I’ve also dipped back into ’40 Days with Labyrinths’ by Fay Rowland. I felt drawn to the reflection based on Isaiah 40, which starts ‘Comfort my people’. This passage mentions preparing a way, straightening paths and leveling highs and lows. It felt like a good framework to follow, even as a start. It also references potholes, a highly relevant current topic. Who says that God doesn’t have a sense of humour?

When I reviewed my 2004 Commission document, I was reminded that as a potential journalist, I challenged myself with these headings and intentions:

To inform:

•  on behalf of the community, charities and individuals
• with practical advice, in serious and fun issues

To reform

• highlight issues where people are being mistreated or misrepresented.
• challenge opinion where people are short sighted and prejudiced
•  seeks ways to bring forth new ways of looking at old problems

To Affirm

• To encourage those who feel alone in suffering
• Offer hope to those where life caves in on them
• Develop other’s spirituality through Bible Study, meditation and reflection.

How wrong was I to think this wasn’t appropriate to carry forward in my writing outside journalism? It looks like I need to only tweak my original commissioning document a little and alter some of the songs and scriptures I used to help me focus on God as I exercise my gifts.

Comfort come in many forms. Writers sharing their struggles encourages other writers facing the same challenges as much as it informs readers that writing is a skill that takes time. Remembering that poems explaining Easter to those unfamiliar with the spiritual significance are needed as much as encouraging those who have celebrated Easter for decades. In the same way writing poems sharing my experience of my neurodivergence, can comfort those who feel the same that they are not alone while also giving insight to those whose brain works in a different way. It can also encourage me that I have a valid voice one several different topics. Even a humorous poem may bring comfort in the form of joy. 

What scriptures help you focus on what you write? How do you decide what topics and voice to use? Who is your audience? What comfort can bring your readers or yourself?

Elaine Langford is currently based in South London and takes comfort that she’s getting nearer to define a poetry commission. A copy of her original Commissioning document is available via her Faith Bites blog.
Thoughts for Tea is a poem about her neurodiverse brain posted on her Poetry Puddles blog. 
Her back catalogue of MTW blog posts are listed on Faith Bites - blog archive. Other writing can also be viewed on the blog for the ACW writing group, Cambridge Christian Writers