A New Song, Glimpses of the Grace Journey

After submitting a couple photographs for possible publication to, A New Song, Glimpses of the Grace Journey, I was contacted by Diane Kulkarni, the Managing Editor.  She expressed her gratefulness and complimented my photography.  I was so excited and asked her which one she might use; she told me ALL of them.  Surprised and humbled, I did what any self-respecting photographer would do; I did the happy dance around my office and then sent her more.  I am thrilled to say that there are quite of few of my photographs published in A New Song. 

A couple days after the final submission date, I felt the nudge to send in a poem.  Seriously God, share one of my poems?  Up until recently, my writing has been private, therapeutic, and not something I was willing to share.   So, I pushed the thought aside, after all it was past the deadline, my haiku’s were personal, and I’m not even sure they were grammatically correct.  Also, each three sentence poem was separate from the other.  Many were similar themes but all stand alone thoughts.   I was on my way to take my dad to lunch that morning, and although I had told him I was coming, he would forget and head over to lunch if I wasn’t there before his scheduled lunch time.  I didn’t have time to put some of my poems together in a way that would flow and tell a story, and besides the final submission date was days prior. This is crazy thinking and it's not going to happen!  “Just do it, Lynn.”   But, this is ridiculous; I’m a photographer, not a writer, and certainly not a poet.  Once again that negative voice was asking me who I think I am; once again the nudge.  OK, I have a couple minutes before I have to leave, I’ll just look through my poems.   Are they even publishing poems?   I sat down and started to form my thoughts into a bit of a story, something that began and ended.  I edited, deleted, added and moved around a couple of the many haiku’s that I have written.  I wrote an email to Diane, with my haiku’s attached, telling her that although photography was my passion, sometimes God told me to write.  I then pushed the send button with a pounding heart and shaking fingers.

  

On my way to see my dad that day, I thought, “Well, that’s that.”  I was feeling insecure about putting myself out there but tried to tell myself that the only person that would read it was Diane, and she would be gentle.  When I got back that day, I checked my email and there was a note from Diane.  She said that although she didn’t know much about haiku’s, she liked my poem and was going to send it to her grammatical editor, who taught college English.  WHAT! Now, I was busted.  I emailed her back and told her I knew nothing about the grammatical quality of the haiku’s either and once again thought, “Well, that’s that,” along with other negative and insecure thoughts. I then told myself that all is well because only Diane and the professor will read it, and they will be gentle.  Well, more people have now read my poem.  It was accepted and published on a page alongside one of my photographs.  

My point in writing about this process is that the answer will always be no to the request not spoken.  I am learning that I can survive criticism, negativity, and being told no, but I don’t want to live with the regret of not trying.  I have missed out on many things in my life for the fear of rejection.  I want to live the rest of my life knowing that it doesn’t matter if I hit a home run, or even if I hit the ball, I just want to play. The most important lesson I have learned through this process is that if God gives you a nudge, there is no way you are not going to move!

 I am honored and humbled to be a part of such an amazing group of writers and photographers.  Here is the link to A New Song if you would like your own copy.

( http://www.mscbc.org/anewsong.htm)