Nature or Nurture?

by Marcia Lee Laycock, @MarciaLaycock

I recently put my maiden name into one of those “learn about your ancestry” sites and this is what it said –

Lee: Irish: reduced Americanized form of Ó Laoidhigh ‘descendant of Laoidheach’, a personal name derived from laoidh ‘poem’, ‘song’ (originally a by name for a poet).

That was not a surprise. I knew I had descended from a long line of storytellers. I spent enough time around my Grandfather, not to mention my father and five uncles, to know the truth of it. They were a raucous bunch prone to argue and sometimes fight, but when one of them started telling a story the room would go quiet with respect. Of course, when he was done, they’d all say he was “full of the blarney,” but that was taken as a compliment received with a smile of pride.

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Lessons in an Art Gallery

by Marcia Lee Laycock, @MarciaLaycock

There was a hush on the fourth floor of the Vancouver Art Gallery as we entered, almost a reverence, I thought. People meandered quietly through the halls and rooms, taking time to study the paintings on the walls and read the commentaries and quotes from the artist’s journals. As I joined them I was aware of my own sense of awe. Emily Carr was an artist I had admired since I was a child. Her work always made me pause, drew me in, made me aware of something beyond myself.

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Such a Fraud

by Marcia Lee Laycock @MarciaLaycock

Dealing with the Impostor Syndrome

Neil Gaiman once attended a gathering of some very important people. “I felt that at any moment they would realize that I didn’t qualify to be there,” he said. Later he chatted with another Neil who felt the same. “They’ve made amazing things,” he said. “I just went where I was sent. Mr. Gaiman replied, “Yes, but you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”

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Let the Gorillas Come

by Marcia Lee Laycock

It’s somewhere in Africa. A young woman sits cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by tall grass. She has been told to sit very still. She can hear snuffling noises and now and then a grunt. When the massive head of a gorilla pokes out between the grasses, she is tempted to leap up and run. But she sits quietly. The gorilla approaches, moves around her, touches her hair, sniffs her shoulder. She remembers the instructions she was given: “No sudden movements. Keep your eyes on the ground.” 

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When Writing is Like Riding a Horse

by Marcia Lee Laycock

I’ve always been horse crazy. It took many years of begging before my mother let me learn how to ride a horse and many more after that before I owned one. I remember the day I woke up and looked out my bedroom window and saw Cheyenne grazing in the field. I almost pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

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Lesson on a Cruise Ship

by Marcia Lee Laycock

My husband and I recently returned from a cruise. It was a great trip, for the most part, but there were some things I found irritating. I often felt we were made to feel that we weren’t quite worthy of being on that ship.

One day we decided to go to an art auction. If you attended, you were automatically entered into a draw. I was a little excited when I won a gift bag. There was a watch in it that had a rather large price tag on it. That was nice. But then I realized there was also a $100.00 gift certificate included. I’d spotted something I liked in one of the boutiques. With the gift certificate I could easily afford it. So yes, I got a little excited.

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A Pruning Process

by Marcia Lee Laycock

I’ve had a geranium plant for several years. Every spring I put it outside and it flourishes. Every fall I bring it inside and it goes a bit dormant, but still manages to flower now and then, though some of the leaves shrivel and go yellow, then brown. Almost every time I water it through the winter I trim off the dead leaves, dropping them into the large pot that holds the plant. They crumble and eventually become nourishment for that old geranium.

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I Am Not A Writer

By Marcia Lee Laycock @MarciaLaycock

For many years, indeed, for as long as I can remember, my identity has been totally and inextricably bound up in being a writer. It’s not just what I am, I told myself, it’s who I am. Sadly, over the years, that perception led me to a place that was filled with stress and burden. In fact, it became like a prison in a way, a prison of my own making.

Today I am declaring that no, indeed, I am not a writer. Every time those words enter my consciousness I feel the chains fall away. I don’t have to produce. I don’t have to publish. I don’t have to succeed. It is not who I am.

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Going with the Flow

By Marcia Lee Laycock 
@MarciaLaycock

I stared at the small rubber raft, then peered at the mighty Yukon River, the third largest river in North America. My friends had left the raft for me to use to get to their cabin about fifty miles downriver from Dawson City. The raft looked very small. I knew it was a bit risky, but I remembered my friend’s words - “You won’t have to paddle much,” he’d said. “The current will take you.”

I tossed my pack into the small craft and launched. That’s when I noticed there was only one paddle. That concerned me, but I was already out into the current and heading north. For a while I tried to steer, but all I managed to do was go in circles. I knew it would take all day to reach the cabin I’d stay in that night, so I wasn’t too worried, though there are strong eddies in the Yukon River and with only one paddle it wasn’t easy to avoid them.

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Dealing with the Impostor Syndrome

by Marcia Lee Laycock @MarciaLaycock

A friend once emailed me to ask for prayer. “I’m having a huge case of Imposter Syndrome,” she explained. She had been asked to lead a workshop at a writers’ conference but was on the edge of backing out. Though she was an accomplished writer with a long CV, she felt inadequate for the job.

Another writer friend once said: “I keep getting the feeling that someday someone will discover what a fraud I am and the jig will be up!”

Sound familiar? 

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Going Too Far

by Marcia Lee Laycock

I hit send and sighed. This first draft of the first act of my new play didn’t come easily and I wasn’t happy with what I’d produced. I knew there was something wrong but couldn’t put my finger on what it was that left me wanting to drag the document into the trash. I thought about doing just that for the next few days as I watched my inbox with trepidation, believing my instructor’s comments would not make me happy. When her critique arrived I sighed again and hit open.

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My Day of Epiphany

by Marcia Lee Laycock

I was in tears. No, not tears of sorrow but the kind that spring from being touched deeply and profoundly. Interesting that it happened to be January 6, traditionally known as the day of Epiphany.

It happened as I began a writing course called The Creative Way by Ted Dekker. A few months ago I almost emptied my writing bank account to buy this course. I’d seen it advertised a few times and kept thinking about it, looking at it, trying to gauge whether or not it was worth the money. I kept thinking about the exchange rate and how that bumped the product up to a cost I would not normally entertain. But I kept going back to it again and again. I felt there was something there that God wanted me to investigate. So I took the plunge.

The first module stirred me deeply, not because it was anything I hadn’t heard before but because it was all about something my heart reaches for – abiding in Christ. Mr. Dekker tells his own story and then gets to the bottom line – our identity does not lie in who we are as mothers or fathers or plumbers or dentists or yes, even as novelists. Our true identity lies in the fact that we are children of God. Our freedom and release spiritually and creatively lies in believing how deeply He loves us. The premise is that “transformative fiction” comes from a heart that is resting in that place because that heart is first and foremost seeking to go deeper into that identity. The process teaches us to love God, love ourselves and others as ourselves and our work becomes part of that process.

I knew that. I believed that. But until yesterday I was not whole-heartedly pursuing that path.

I remember chatting with a writer friend some time ago about the fact that I’m a two time cancer survivor. I mentioned that I did not once ask God, “why me?” My only question as I walked down that path, was, “Who are you, God? Who are you really?”

My friend smiled. “You’re ready,” she said.

I didn’t understand what she meant then, but I do now. I’m ready to let go of me - as a mother, pastor’s wife, church leader and yes, even as a writer. I’m ready to get to know who I really am. I have a feeling this course is going to do what Ted promised in his introduction. It is going to change my life and my work.

I’ll be blogging about it here as I go, and no doubt what I learn will spill over into this blog as well. I welcome any comments along the way.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit; for without me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 

TWEETABLES

My Day of Epiphany by Marcia Lee Laycock (Click to Tweet)

Our true identity lies in the fact that we are children of God~ Marcia Lee Laycock (Click to Tweet)

It is going to change my life and my work.~ Marcia Lee Laycock (Click to Tweet) 

Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was also short listed for a Word Award. Marcia has three novels for middle grade readers and four devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan. Visit Marcia’s Website

Abundant Rain, an ebook devotional for writers can be downloaded on Smashwords or on Amazon. It is also now available in Journal format on Amazon. 

Her most recent release is Celebrate This Day, a devotional book for special occasions like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving. 

Sign up to receive her devotional column, The Spur

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Beauty in the Darkness

by Marcia Lee Laycock

Winter has landed here, its cold hard boot slamming down on the country and its inhabitants with the force of a sledge hammer. We had been lulled into thinking it wouldn’t hit so hard this year. We’d only had a skiff of snow and a few days of chill, but nothing to be concerned about. So this icy blast is a bit of a jolt to us all. How quickly we forget the true face of winter, it’s harsh landscapes and bitter winds.

As I peer out my front window I shiver and pull my sweater tighter around me. The sun is just setting, the darkness dropping quickly behind the homes on the other side of the pond. It has caught a skater unaware. She continues to glide and weave across the small space as the light fades. And then it happens. Just for a moment the horizon glows, the light shimmers on the ice, the skater is thrown into a silhouette of fluid movement. And the beauty of it takes my breath away.

I am reminded that beauty is always there, just waiting to reveal itself, waiting to slip out of the darkness. I am blessed that I was there, in that moment, to see it, to be struck by it and to give thanks for it. It makes me realize that a big part of being a believer in Christ and a writer of faith, involves watching, waiting for the beauty. It is ours to bring these moments to light, to make them known to the world. We are the observers, the recorders, the ones who point and say, “Oh, look! Look!”

There is a great need for us to show the way to beauty in the world today, in the face of the images of wreck and ruin we constantly see in the media. There is no greater need for it than now. There is no greater need than for the world to know that beauty exists, that Christ was born to bring it back to us, to elevate it to the holy place where it was intended to be, because all beauty comes from the Father above.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the place of Jesus’ birth was likely not considered beautiful? It was a common, homely place. Some would even have said insignificant. But then there were those moments – the moment when that brightest of stars stopped over the spot where the Christ child lay, the moment when the angels revealed themselves in the skies near Bethlehem, the moment when their voices peeled out with the good news of His birth, the moment when kings bowed down and presented him with gold, frankincense and myrrh.

As we head into this new year let us all be watchful, waiting for those moments when The Christ is revealed through the beauty of this world. Let us all receive the blessing of those moments and then shout, “Oh, look! Look!”

"Go now, write on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness" (Isaiah 30:8).

TWEETABLES

Beauty in the Darkness by Marcia Lee Laycock (Click to Tweet)

Beauty is always there, just waiting to reveal itself~ Marcia Lee Laycock (Click to Tweet)

The world needs to know that beauty exists~ Marcia Lee Laycock (Click to Tweet)

Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was also short listed for a Word Award. Marcia has three novels for middle grade readers and four devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan. 

Abundant Rain, an ebook devotional for writers can be downloaded on Smashwords or on Amazon. It is also now available in Journal format on Amazon. 

Her most recent release is Celebrate This Day, a devotional book for special occasions like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving. 

Visit Marcia’s Website

Sign up to receive her devotional column, The Spur

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Too Much Christmas

by Marcia Lee Laycock

“I baked a bit.” My mother-in-law smiled as my husband piled the tins of cookies, Christmas cakes, chocolates and tarts on the counter.

“I should say you did!” He said, and we all chuckled.

Then Christmas day came and the turkey and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and stuffing and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pies. We ate the left overs for weeks. I think I gained at least five pounds through that season, and I think it’s still sitting on my hips. By the time my mother-in-law left we were all feeling like we’d had a little too much Christmas. One of my daughters commented that maybe it would be a good idea to scale things down a notch the next year.

In our prosperous North American society, it’s easy to take things to an excess that is neither of spiritual benefit nor physically healthy. All the gift giving and trappings of Christmas are good to a point, but when things go overboard the true significance of the season can easily be buried under all the celebration. We get excited about the decorating and baking and gift buying and forget that our Saviour was born in a rough stable with no glitz, no glitter and most likely the most basic of food and drink. Those who knew His true identity came in secret to pay homage. Even the angels were restricted in their announcement, appearing to the most humble of that society, shepherds tending their flocks. That first Christmas day was the most significant time in history, yet it was wrapped, not in loud fanfare and celebration, but in a quiet awe and reverence.

We are a little like the apostle Peter after he witnessed one of the most astounding events of Christ’s time on the earth—His transfiguration. Seeing Elijah and Moses speaking with Jesus, Peter exclaims, “I will put up three shelters…” (Matthew 17:4). His first inclination was to celebrate but he had no idea what he was saying, no idea that he was in fact bringing Jesus down to the same level as the two prophets of old. God the Father does not waste any time correcting him. “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5).

The father dismissed Peter’s plan to surround the event with “trappings” and made it clear what they should do instead. It was a rather straight-forward command, “Listen to him!”
As I prepare to write my annual Christmas short story, I will try to remember that command. I’ll try to look beyond all the trappings of Christmas and focus on the One who was born to give His life for us. I’ll 

TWEETABLES
Too Much Christmas by Mracia Laycock(Click to Tweet)

That first Christmas day was wrapped in a quiet awe and reverence~ Mracia Laycock(Click to Tweet)



Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was short listed in The Word Awards. Marcia also has four devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan.

Her most recent release is Christmas, a book of short stories that will revive your Christmas Spirit. Now available on Amazon.

Visit Marcia’s Website

Sign up to receive her devotional column, The Spur

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Expressing Praise through Your Gift

by Marcia Lee Laycock

There was a hush on the fourth floor of the Vancouver Art Gallery as we entered, almost a reverence, I thought. People meandered quietly through the halls and rooms, taking time to study the paintings on the walls and read the commentaries and quotes from the artist’s journals. As I joined them I was aware of my own sense of awe. Emily Carr is an artist I had admired since I was a child. Her work always made me pause, drew me in, made me aware of something beyond myself.

The quotes on the walls captured my attention as well. This woman, who is famous in my own country and beyond for her depiction of the west coast region of Canada, was a woman of faith, struggling to comprehend the greatest mystery there is - the deep, deep love of an all-encompassing God.

Emily Carr’s work depicts that struggle, that striving to faith, that longing to comprehend that which is unknown yet deeply sensed. The first quote visitors to the Vancouver Art Gallery see as they enter the exhibit is “Art is Worship.” Ms. Carr worshiped with every stroke of her brush, the swirling movement in her work drawing the eye up toward the heavens. A painting labelled Untitled, one of my favourites, is especially strong. The artist’s love of creation and its creator shouts from the canvass. 

Untitled By Emily Carr

Emily Carr saw the Divine in the deep dark forests of British Columbia and in the work of others, especially some members of the Group of Seven who welcomed her as one of their own. She was dumbfounded, while at an exhibit of their work, to see one of Lawren Harris’s paintings, Mountain Forms, ignored even by a priest. “Surely he would understand,” Ms. Carr wrote in her journal, “Wouldn’t the spirituality of the thing appeal to one whose life was supposed to be given up to these things? He passed right by …”

I understand Ms. Carr’s frustration. So much that is redemptive in this world goes unnoticed at best, scorned and ridiculed, at worst. Yet those things that draw us all closer to our creator are enduring. Mountain Forms will soon be auctioned and is expected to sell for between three and five million dollars.

As I wandered in that gallery that day I was not only stirred by how Emily Carr drew us to the Divine through her work but by the recognition that we can all do the same, whatever our field of endeavour. We have all been created to express praise and adoration through everything we do, whether we work in oils or with words, whether we sweep floors or design buildings, whether our work is recognized or ridiculed. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters … It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23,24).

I was also struck by the reality that Ms. Carr caused me to praise and worship without saying a word. There was no banner declaring “Jesus saves” scrawled across her paintings yet we are able to stand in the midst of those deep dark forests and worship with her. It made me wonder, does my art cause people to worship? Does it cause them to ponder the depth of God’s greatness and goodness? Does it glorify Him? Walking among Emily Carr’s paintings made me pray it may always be so. 

TWEETABLES

Expressing Praise through Your Gift by Marcia Lee Laycock (Click to Tweet)

We have all been created to express praise~ Marcia LeeLaycock (Click to Tweet)

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart~ Marcia Lee Laycock (Clickto Tweet)

Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was short listed in The Word Awards. Marcia also has four devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan.

Abundant Rain, an ebook devotional for writers can be downloaded on Smashwords or on Amazon. It is also now available in Journal format on Amazon. 

Her most recent release is Christmas, a collection of short stories that take you from the outer edges of the galaxy to the streets of an inner city and the cold landscape of the far north. In all of these unusual settings the Christmas Spirit is alive and well.

Visit Marcia’s Website

Sign up to receive her devotional column, The Spur

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