Skip to main content

A Reference Letter from God -- Invitation to Write #11

For Writers:

People are busy, and acknowledging that fact, I hate asking anyone for favors that will eat away their precious time. As I know from personal experience, writing a reference letter can be a chore, and needless to say, the person doing the requesting always needs it written and sent out immediately. The sense of urgency is probably a good thing, though, because if given an ample amount of time – two or three weeks would certainly seem helpful – it would just be far too easy for the reference writer to procrastinate and forget.

When I first started asking people for references, usually professors to support my applications to graduate schools, I would often write the letters myself. Sometimes my professors would look at me like I was crazy to hand them a completed reference letter that I had written for them to sign; but I’m sure that some of them simply signed their names at the bottom, secretly glad that they didn’t have to take the time to write anything themselves.

What if you needed to ask God to write a letter of reference for you? Explore the kinds of things that might be included in such a reference letter. Would you have the chutzpah to write your own reference letter, expecting God just to sign off on it without reading it first?

"Call on god, but row away from the rocks."
Indian proverb

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #4 -- The Federalist Radio Hour

I first heard of Sean Davis last week. He created an online magazine called The Federalist in 2011, and he currently has about 500,000 followers on X.  It was about last week that he posted something amazing. He suggested if the Supreme Court doesn't rule the way they should, not only should Trump just ignore the ruling, if they keep obstructing the administration, he should just dissolve the Court altogether.  And I thought, wow. This guy is saying outrageous stuff like that, and there's an audience for it.  So, I decided I'd listen to an episode of The Federalist podcast: April 17, 2025 -- Deportation, Due Process, and Deference to the American People (40 minutes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deportation-due-process-and-deference-to-the/id983782306?i=1000703904873 In the 40-minute conversation, the host and guest discussed why due process wasn't required for illegal immigrants.  The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was mentioned for a brief second, but...

In Utero

  In 1994, I wore my In Utero shirt to college. I’d walk down the hall, and people would look at the shirt. I still remember a professor looking at it, not apparently hip to the scene. She asked, “Bret, is there something you’re trying to tell us?” I had no idea what I was trying to say. Kurt Cobain had just shot his head off with a shotgun. Before that life-changing event, I hadn’t been the biggest fan of Nirvana, but I did recognize the immediate impact “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had on music, or at least on MTV. Nirvana had seemingly killed and buried Hair Metal, and they had done it single-handedly. What exactly was this “Alternative” sound? It was weird, because soon it felt like everything was “alternative,” and that didn’t make any sense. Once everything is the same, how can it be anything but standard, normal? Nirvana was okay, but at least at the time I was wearing the merch, I was much more into Offspring and Green Day and Tool. And that’s about as far as I went into...

I Must Betray You -- Ruta Sepetys

I appreciate the pacing. The author's epilogue includes her mission statement -- historical fiction as a way to keep history alive. Romanis is an obscure place, but she hopes people reading the book will take an interest in its history.  She also makes the point that there are no clean endings. So, the evil dictator and his wife were killed, but the problems they created didn't magically go away, the country still had to find its way and move forward, and it was a process.