In When Women Were Birds Terry Tempest Williams asks, “How do we give voice to creation?” Here’s my answer.

When we write, we create at every level. Copying out a list of quotes from Williams’ book, I have made new use of them, a basket of rushes, taken from their natural habitat. Now I weave them into my journal, use them to carry my musings. Writing this question again makes it new because today some reader of this blog will carry it into his day.

Writing we give voice to creation because each time we write we change ourselves. Today I am a woman in possession of Williams’ words and my response to them. Yesterday I had neither. I’ve grown and growth is creation. The writer writes herself into being. She becomes more than an opera singer, a lawyer, teacher or accountant, more than a business woman.

This creation is not of the marketplace. It’s greater value comes when a pen scratches paper or fingers tap a keyboard. We write on trees, we write with light. Every sentence, copied or original, is newly placed, newly read. This is how we give voice to creation. As Williams says, “My inspiration was winged.” Amen.