Marion Dane Bauer's Blog

The only imperative that nature utters is: ‘Look. Listen. Attend.’ C. S. Lewis

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In its earliest meaning, amateur meant having a marked fondness, liking or taste for some activity.  If we’re talking about writing, an amateur is someone who loves to write . . . or perhaps more accurately, writes for love. It’s a marvelous concept, a life-affirming concept, doing something—anything—for the pure love of doing it. As […]

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Writing is incarnational. Flannery O’Connor

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I, like every other writer I know—at least every other publishing writer, spend far more time revising than I do writing the original draft.  I even prefer revising to the initial process of filling a blank page. I never think of revising as fixing something that is broken.  Rather I see it as immersing myself […]

The post The Virtue of Simplicity appeared first on Just Thinking.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. Rachel Carson

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I have always believed in story.  I believe in it still. But I am learning something in these late days of my career.  Stories don’t have to be inventions.  They can come from the world of very solid facts. I used to accept a distinction I remember Madeleine L’Engle making in her uniquely emphatic way.  […]

The post Between Facts and Truth appeared first on Just Thinking.

DEAR MISTER FLOYD in pandemic times we learn that breath is everything look what we risk to keep it flowing in and out of lungs to feel it cool the nostrils to feel the breastbone rise to trust how it finds its way and feeds the blood   in pandemic times we see how the […]

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Everyone has heard it before, the old Chinese curse.  “May you live in interesting times.” And the times have never been more “interesting.”  Not in my lifetime, anyway. First there is Covid19.  Then the police in Minneapolis murder yet another black man and my city goes up in flames.  Now homes near me are being […]

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In the name of the Bee – And of the Butterfly – And of the Breeze – Amen! Emily Dickinson

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My city is burning. Yes, I live in Minnesota, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where a police officer knelt on an unarmed black man’s neck while three other officers—and many members of our community—stood watching.  You probably know the story.  The black man died. As I write this the ashes of those fires are still hot.  And […]

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