Writing and Muppets

I was prompted recently to ponder the following question: am I a writer, or do I simply write?

This was prompted by a few interactions with people in real life who are also readers of my blog. It was also prompted by the fact that an article I wrote for Horizon, the journal of the National Religious Vocation Conference, won a Catholic Press Award. Plus there's the fact that I have a monthly column on the Global Sisters Report.

And this blog. .... So maybe it seems like a super silly question. I write because I have this creative energy and desire to put thoughts and feelings to words in ways that might touch other people and inspire their own creative energy and desires.  Of course I realize that people actually read some of what I write, but at the same time it's easy to forget that fact when you are writing in a bubble.

It's always strange when you meet someone who you know nothing about who knows an awful lot about you! Or at least the public version of you and your thoughts.

In any case, this question has been knocking around in my brain the past week or so, accompanied by the song from the Muppet Movie, Man or Muppet:


 Although, in my case, the words I've been singing in my head are:

I look into these eyes
and I don't recognize
the one I see inside.
It's time for me to decide:
Am I a writer or do I just write?
(Do I just write?)

Silly, I know, but so is so much of what goes through my head, truth be told.

More and more, I realize how much I love to write and how I've had tremendous opportunities of late to write things that not only have an audience, but that seem to be helpful to people. It's become part of my minx of ministry, really, and that is very cool, ... whether I'm a writer or just someone who writes.