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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Ding-Dong (05/16/13)
“This week,” I said to myself, “it’s going to be perfect. I’ll start early, as soon as the topic has been announced; that will give me a head start. I’ll use the Bible as the basis for it – after all, it’s there to be used, and it will lend some authority to my entry. I’ll do plenty of research to show that I’ve got a really solid grasp of the subject. I’ll begin with a rough draft, and then polish it until it shines like a precious stone. ‘Eloquent’ – that’s what they’ll call it. ‘He writes like an angel,’ they’ll say.”

DING! An awful noise seemed to resound in my head. Was it a headache coming on? The sound faded, and I continued my reflections.

“This week I’m determined to win. It must be my turn by now – in fact, I’d even say I had a right to win before long. Anyway, succeeding in a writing challenge… that can hardly be beyond my powers - I’m pretty confident that I can do at least as well as last week’s winner! And there’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to win. After all, it is a competition, so someone’s got to win it… and why not me? Yes, this time my entry will be so good that those judges will simply have to choose it. I can see it now: the verdict will be cut and dried. However good the other entries at my level are, they just won’t stand a chance.”

DONG! Oh, that noise in my head again, drowning and muddling my thoughts just when I was really getting things straight in my mind. Perhaps I should stop now, take some headache pills and think about all this again in the morning.

The next day I wake without a headache but with the following words from one of Paul’s letters in my mind:

‘If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.’ (1)

And I realise that the awful noise… was the sound of myself: the loud, hollow echo of my uncharitable thoughts, and the empty clanging of a future writing challenge entry composed and submitted in the wrong spirit.

‘Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.’ (2)


(1) 1 Corinthians 13:1 (NRSV)
(2) 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (NRSV)
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Member Comments
Member
Date
C D Swanson 
05/25/13
Good job with this honest entry. I know many of us had those thoughts along the writing path...Keep writing.

God bless~