Running head: An act of faith.

An act of faith.
Jazmin Pantaleon.

An act of faith.

Abstract
This essay explores a theory of writing. A thesis that makes a claim about what I understand the
act of writing to be. This essay will reflect on my development as a reader, writer, and critical
thinker and explain how your learning has led me to this specific theory of writing. My theory is
informed by my literacy practices and the learning outcomes of the course. It also suggest how
my prior experiences with writing will prepare me for successful engagement in future personal,
academic, professional, and civic occasions for writing. This reflection and theory of writing is
supported by concrete evidence from my own work and composing practices.

An act of faith.

An act of faith.
Have you ever thought of writing as an act of faith? It takes faith: to have an idea and
start putting it into words even before you understand all that it means; to keep on writing
without knowing if any of it will ever make sense to anyone else; to spend hours alone at your
desk when you could be digging a well or hugging a child or helping a neighbor or making
money or doing just about anything else that seems more productive or playful or prayerful; to
send your words out in the world where they immediately take on a life of their own for better or
worse and run the risk of falling flat or simply disappearing in the crowd. Every blog post every
article every book is an act of faith.
Author E.B. White once wrote, Writing is an act of faith, not of grammar. I can easily
see the evidence of this in his well-loved childrens books, Stuart Little and Charlottes Web,
that I read as a child, and in his essays that I later discovered as an adult. Yet curiously, given his
statement against grammar, he was also one-half of Strunk and White whose classic text The
Elements of Style actually begins with rules of grammar: Form the possessive singular of nouns
by adding s, Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas. Clearly White did not ignore
grammarhow else would we make sense to one another?yet writing is more than following the
rules. As an act of faith, writing also means imagination and risk, a journey without always
knowing the destination or the way.
In The Artists Way, author and artist Julia Cameron says this about art which includes
the art of writing: Art is a spiritual transaction. Artists are visionaries. We routinely practice a
form of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance

An act of faith.

often visible to us, but invisible to those around us. . . . . Art is an act of faith, and we practice
practicing it. (Page xiii)
But is writing as an act of faith worth it? I ask myself. Maybe for E.B. White and Julia
Cameron and other well-known, well-read writers. And yet when I think of my own writing, I
sometimes wonder, why bother? Arent there already so many other wonderful blogs and books
that I should just spend my time reading instead of writing? Is there really any point of adding
my small voice to the mix? Someone else can always say it better and likely already has.
It seems that any act of faith, whether writing or anything else, leaves that wiggle room of doubt
and second guessing. And yet I knowI knowthat every voice is needed, every voice is
importantyours and mine and everyones. Published and unpublished, private or public, blog or
book, writing is an act of faith, and so it matters.
I read something that helped me with this in Leah Kostamos Planted: A Story of
Creation, Calling, and Community. As she tells the story of the first Christian environmental
centre in Canada, she also shares her own story and some of her questionseven as she engages
in creation care as an act of faith; she also confesses that on occasion I question the legitimacy
of earth keeping as worthwhile work. . . . Is this worth it? (Pages 4-5). Her affirmation applies
to my questions about writing as an act of faith too. She writes: just because I believe that
creation care is Christian work does not mean I believe that the task of earth keeping is the only,
or even the most important, work a Christian should be doing. Because Ive taken ecologys
pattern of interconnectedness seriously I understand that the gospel functions in much the same
way. Biblically understood, the church is one body made up of many parts, and it takes all parts
to live out a whole gospel. Therefore, I applaud the caring community development worker, the

An act of faith.

humble evangelist, the erudite theologian, the dogged relief worker, the clever novelist, and the
compassionate civil rights activist. All these are potential messengers of Gods love and help
bring Gods kingdom to earth. I just dont think one is better or more important than the others
we need them all (just like we need construction workers, police officers, parents and artists who
see their vocations as spiritual callings). But lets not be reductionist here. While creation care
as a vocation is a specific calling, as a way of life it is everyones calling. Just as every Christian
is called to witness to Gods love, so too, all Christians are called to steward creation. (Page 31)
In the same vein, when I think of writing as an act of faith, I might also say that not
everyone has a vocation to write, but all of us perform acts of faith every dayfor Christians, its
our faith in Christ that shapes our vocation, whether writing or earth-keeping or parenting or art
or whatever we do, and for anyoneeven if you dont think of yourself as religious, even if faith
seems like a foreign country to youacts of faith are part of being human. We all take leaps that
we cant explain; we all sense the unseen beyond what we see, if not in worship and prayer, then
in nature, art, music, and the eyes of a lover or a child. We have eternity in our hearts as an
ancient preacher once noted (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
In this course outcomes, rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, reading and composing,
process and knowledge of conventions I was asked a whole lot of things about my writing,
making it even harder to develop my ideas to the full accomplishment of the expectations.

Rhetorical knowledge, for me was the most hard of outcomes to consider in my writing
for adapting to different situations is very demanding in research or knowledge.

Critical thinking was the easiest to accomplish given that criticizing is my best feature. I
have great analysis capacity and develop opinions with ease.

An act of faith.

Process isnt particularly bad, given that is just about following rules, but I dont like
having to go step by step because of the length of the process.

Knowledge of conventions is very demanding, because one has to learn extensively about
the different genres and structures, and fit to a certain format, for the likes of the readers.
Conclusion
In general, writing is a unavoidable experience, that makes you feel extremely

uncomfortable. One must have faith to put the most private thing one has, our thoughts, out in
the open for everyone to criticize, and above all fitting it in standards, genres and structures.