The Painful and Rewarding Process of Writing
Hilja came over last night and managed to totally transformed this application essay writing experience, even after a hellish day at work. She's such a good coach! And there was my wife, cheering me on from the couch, making hilarious comments along the way.
We got the white board out and brainstormed my experiences to fit into three categories that princeton wants to know about: 1. My commitment to Jesus Christ and His Church. 2. My gifts, previous education, and experience that indicate potential for leadership. 3. My capacity to undertake serious academic preparation for the ministries of the Church.
We looked around for a theme, a foil, a guiding metaphor or narrative to hang all this stuff on. Then she had me look over everything that was on the board and take a half hour to walk outside and process. Then I came back, set the timer for an hour, and wrote whatever I could get down. Unfortunately, I only got through half of the material, with a 1 1/2 pages single-spaced. It needs to be three pages, and for all the things I have to say it needs to be single-spaced. So I stayed up an additional hour to finish it. I'll show the final product to you when it's done. Frankly, as much of a pain as it has been to reflect on myself, yielding mixed and ambiguous results, it has been good on many levels - both in terms of thinking of future goals but also realizing that my commitment toward Jesus Christ remains the center of my life. And Hilja's helped me to say it in way that is tactful and not just this given reality, i.e. "I converted at age __, and from then on I was committed to Jesus Christ." Instead it's taken the form of a crisis that has made me realize how incapacitated I am to solve, rescue, or save myself and the church from its sins.
Perhaps there shall be a public reading of this someday.
We got the white board out and brainstormed my experiences to fit into three categories that princeton wants to know about: 1. My commitment to Jesus Christ and His Church. 2. My gifts, previous education, and experience that indicate potential for leadership. 3. My capacity to undertake serious academic preparation for the ministries of the Church.
We looked around for a theme, a foil, a guiding metaphor or narrative to hang all this stuff on. Then she had me look over everything that was on the board and take a half hour to walk outside and process. Then I came back, set the timer for an hour, and wrote whatever I could get down. Unfortunately, I only got through half of the material, with a 1 1/2 pages single-spaced. It needs to be three pages, and for all the things I have to say it needs to be single-spaced. So I stayed up an additional hour to finish it. I'll show the final product to you when it's done. Frankly, as much of a pain as it has been to reflect on myself, yielding mixed and ambiguous results, it has been good on many levels - both in terms of thinking of future goals but also realizing that my commitment toward Jesus Christ remains the center of my life. And Hilja's helped me to say it in way that is tactful and not just this given reality, i.e. "I converted at age __, and from then on I was committed to Jesus Christ." Instead it's taken the form of a crisis that has made me realize how incapacitated I am to solve, rescue, or save myself and the church from its sins.
Perhaps there shall be a public reading of this someday.
posted by Chris TerryNelson at 8:49 AM
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wow amigo
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