Who Inspires You?

​I’ve been hearing this question recently, particularly since I’ve become an active participant in the writer community. It’s usually phrased a little more specifically – what writers inspire you. This is a hard one for me to answer because I’m not really a reader, never have been unless it was required of me by someone else. 

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​In high school, I was assigned a book report. The book I chose (from a list) was The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck, and I checked it out from the school library. There was no Amazon, or any other online bookseller for that matter, had I wanted to purchase it, which I did not. If you wanted to purchase a book, you’d head to the local mall and hit Waldenbooks, Borders, or B Dalton for the privilege. For me, it was the musty old card file at the library.

The book – which was far too thick for my liking – smelled as musty as that old card file. I figured the best way to get through this volume was to start at the beginning and just read one word at a time. But the words were so boring – who cares about an old turn of the century Chinese farmer? Reading through the book one word at a time seemed to devolve into reading only one word at a time. How was I ever going to get this book read in time to complete this assignment? *ugh*

My teenage logic kicked in: If a well-constructed paragraph begins with a solid introductory sentence and ends with a strong summary sentence, then I should be able to read just these sentences and get a good idea of the story. Good plan. Well, it might’ve been, had I actually done it.

As the due date hastened, with little of the book read in full or abbreviated form, I thought Heck, if this is such a well written book (and I heard it was), perhaps reading the first and last paragraphs of each chapter would clue me in to the major events of this story. That should be enough info for a reasonable paper, right?

The due date was looming, but I had other teenagery things to do. What if I read the first and last chapters …? I did manage to execute this plan; the last chapter made me cry. What happened to this man? How did he get from the young vibrant man in that opening chapter to this sad ending? And why did it matter so much to me, a 20th century American teenage girl?

I wouldn’t learn the answers to these questions until much later in my life when I read it again – in its entirety. And the last chapter made me cry. Again. This author moved me then, and she moved me now. Her writing challenges me as an writer; she made Wang Lung’s story matter. How she did that is something I’ve yet to learn.

Ms. Buck is an inspiration to me as a writer, but there is another person who has consistently astonished me though all the different versions of me in my lifetime. That person is Mother Theresa.

She found her calling – to serve the ‘poorest of the poor’ in the city she’d lived and worked in for nearly 40 years – and she was all in. No questions, no fanfare, no delay. 

She lived among them, shared ​their surroundings and their resources, and grieved with them in their trials and celebrated with them in their triumphs, even if it was that they survived the night. She broke down the us/them barrier, and did life together.

She was smart about it. She went through the proper channels so she could proceed with the support of the church, and she locked arms with other sisters who were willing to join her.

But what inspires me is not wrapped up in her doing, but in her being.

She felt a call, and chose – for herself – to follow that call. She understood that her conviction was just that – hers. She didn’t shame anyone else for not doing what she was doing; she dismissed naysayers and she continued her course. She understood that the best qualifier of service is a shared experience; that is where empathy is born. So she became like those she was called to serve.

So what does an American author and an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun have in common? The impact of their stories is real, and when we take the time to pay attention their stories – fictional or real – they can change our lives. One of these ladies is inspiring my doing, and one has always inspired my being.

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​When my husband was diagnosed with cancer, he said, “I am now uniquely qualified to minister to a whole new group of people.” He understood that experience resonates with experience, and that he could find – and provide – support to other cancer patients on his dark road, and that he could find a camaraderie there that even I couldn’t provide for him.

So what is my calling? I believe it has always been a call to serve. As a child, I enjoyed setting the table, making clothes for my dolls, and saving ladybugs from drowning in our pool. As an adult that service has been focused on my family, and I was all in. But now that my children are grown and I am a widow, this question emerges once again.

The real question for me now is who am I to serve? Who do my life experiences best suit me to lock arms with? I can hear my husband telling me that, since his death, I am uniquely qualified to serve a whole new set of people.  

Who inspires you? How are you responding to that inspiration? I’d love to hear your story (share it in the comments)!