If you were asked, “What is the best gift you received for Christmas this year ?”, what would you answer? Of course most of us would try to focus on the intangibles, on the expected: celebrating Jesus; being with Family and Friends; etc., etc. But surely, there was a little something special wrapped up under the tree or hidden in   your Christmas stocking that delighted your heart!

My special gift which came early is a fountain pen! Yes, I know. Admittedly, I am a dinosaur without an I Phone, who doesn’t text, a former English teacher who gets excited by journals, writing paper, colors of ink, the heft of a pen. Admittedly, I am a real writing snob when it comes to writing materials, especially my pens. I use a computer out of necessity, not by desire. Keyboarding is faster, but typically I spend an inordinate  amount of time editing one or two paragraphs rather than just writing page after page. Pen and paper don’t allow excess  attention to minutia.

There’s something very unique about writing with a pen which doesn’t happen with a computer. A different creative process takes place when I hold a pen and move it across the paper from left to right. The eye, the hand and the brain all engage together and coordinate. Thoughts emerge almost as if they’re etched upon the blank surface. I’ve missed writing like that.

My pen is blue plastic, bought on Amazon,  made in Germany and has a nib as smooth as silk. It is fat and practical and refillable. The best thing is that I don’t end up with messy blobs on the paper or inky stained fingers. Did I say it was made in Germany?

Today my pen ran dry. I’ve been using it for over a month and today the words became increasingly fainter. It was time to put in a new cartridge. Unscrew the base, pop in the new filled cartridge and it’s good as new. With it refilled, I can write another month or longer. The used cartridge lay on the table and caught my attention. It is not very big, two or three inches long and holds only a tiny bit of ink, no more than an ounce at the most.

And yet, what an extraordinary, truly amazing thing it is! For this small volume of ink ended up as thousands of words expressing hundreds of thoughts, ideas, dreams, joys and sorrows of the last weeks  of 2014 and the first days of 2015. What was basically nothing but a dark, formless fluid in a disposable cartridge has taken shape as words, as the language expressing my mind’s musings, my heart’s searching and sometimes as my soul’s most private longings for God. Out of such   inky, murky  unknowns  emerge God’s gift of language making.
Scripture is filled with language makers, those who have dipped their quills into the ink and recorded God’s Word which the Holy Spirit breathed into their minds.

My heart is stirred by a noble theme                                                                                                   As I recite my verses for the king;                                                                                                        My tongue is the pen of a skillful writer. Psalm 45:1

Psalm 45 is one of the royal psalms in which the Psalmist was reciting a wedding song written for the king on his wedding day. As he recites/sings the verses he likens his tongue to a pen in the hand of a skilled poet or writer. It is an apt comparison because both the tongue and the pen have the power to praise and give life – or to pull down. The psalmist is stirred by noble thoughts. His “ink cartridge” is his overflowing heart for the king whose majesty he declares and whom he extols with high praise.

Whereas the tongue blesses or curses immediately, the pen affects the Ages. There is the Bible. There is also Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto.  Their authors dipped their quills into very different ink wells. I think of  Martin Luther translating the Bible into German  and wonder how many Holy Spirit  ink pots he must have used for that great work. The story  is told that Luther threw  his ink pot at the devil who was harassing him. The stain of the ink is still seen on the walls of Luther’ s imprisonment in Wartburg. His translation of the Bible  has changed the world.

As for me, my pen needs be  as my tongue speaking to all who  come across this blog.  I ask  the Holy Spirit  to  stir my heart to noble thoughts so that  with my  blue Christmas  fountain pen I honor Jesus , so that I can extol His goodness, praise His majesty and reveal His beauty. Indeed, I have much more than another  ink cartridge when I run dry again for   I purchased  a whole ink bottle filled with blue  ink. It contains an entire library waiting to be written into words , into “verses for my King.” What a  gift to be His “ready writer” with the Spirit’s  endless ink well to dip into.  Thank you Lord, for such a wonderful privilege.

EAG