I was an English major at Cal State Hayward with an option in creative writing. That meant that I had to take a poetry class. I had always known that I wanted to write short stories, but I had never had any interest in poetry, either reading or writing it. I was also a little jaded about poets. They seemed to be wispy discontents or irritating romantics. Except for Stevie Smith, of course, and Theodore Roethke.
So I had to take a poetry workshop and we talked for a week about writing a poem and finally I had to actually write one and workshop it. Here's how a workshop goes. You make ten copies of the poem and hand it out at class, then everyone packs it in their backpack and you don't hear anything about it until the next class meeting. Then the students and the teacher critique the poem, usually constructively, saying what worked for them and what didn't.
I wasn't a poet, so I couldn't write a poem, but I was a writer, so I could pretend to be a poet writing a poem and that's what I did. I pretended to be meaningful and observant, clever, wise, and artistic. I pretended to take it very seriously. It turned out okay, so I wrote another one like that, and another.
Later, at another college, I won a prize at a poetry competition. Still, I waffle about calling myself a poet. The word is loaded. When I swim I'm a swimmer. When I write a poem I'm a poet.
It's like that with being a missionary. We're telling people we're missionaries raising support and it sounds strange. We haven't gone anywhere yet, we haven't done anything missionarylike, except ask for money. Don't you have to earn money before you ask for it?
The word is loaded. Missionary. Lifelong Christians immediately award you a couple of ranks. Recently a pastor we were meeting with asked my opinion about a church matter as though my opinion had some weight. My friends outside of the church are politely mystified. Why would I align myself with something so anachronistic? It's the uncool version of the Peace Corps, with cultural assasination and legalism thrown in. At best it's harmless and ineffective. At worst it's self-righteous imperialism.
I grew up around missionaries, so I know the best and the worst. The best were better than most people know (or would even believe), and the worst were evil, but not evil of the imperialistic sort. I never met missionaries like the caricatures in Michener's Hawaii. The worst missionaries I knew were just like messed up people anywhere- always trying to escape some trouble that they ended up bringing half way around the world with them.
My wife says becoming a missionary is a change of venue. We're going live like we've always lived, we're just going to do it in Pretoria.