“And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua,
loose thy shoe from off thy foot: for the place whereon thy
standest is holy. And Joshua did so.”
Joshua 5:15
Sure, I should be studying social media. But I’m not — not yet, anyway! Instead, I’m doing something a bit offbeat: I’m taking a course in the Old Testament. There’s a method to my madness: As a writer, it seems to me that having a deeper understanding of this amazing piece of literature might really be beneficial. And I’m loving the course — it’s fantastic.
Tonight, as I was reading the book of Joshua, I came across the passage above. It made me smile, because my wonderful mom, Dorothy, used to quote a similar text from the story of Moses and the burning bush. When I felt frustrated by some problem or circumstance, she would often say, “Just remember, ‘the place whereon you stand is holy ground.’”
To my mom, this meant that whatever I needed to thrive and grow, to solve a problem or make a choice, was already present, right beneath my feet, so to speak. “Bloom where you are planted” is a variation on this idea.
So often in life and in our writing, we fret and chafe about what we need and don’t have, or how much we could improve our craft if only we could take this workshop or study with that teacher or have more time — the list goes on and on.
Why limit ourselves in this way? Why not free ourselves to create by saying we have everything we need right now, in this moment, to do what’s called for? Why not see the page itself as holy ground, take off our shoes, and get to work?