Lately I’ve been very worried about my writing. Or rather, not writing but publishing. The fact is, after a fairly successful career of over forty years and many books, I can’t get published anymore. Publishers will no longer even look at my stuff. Why? Because I don’t have enough internet presence.
I’ve tried self-publishing, but with poor results. Unlike many younger writers, I don’t have scads of followers on social media platforms. I keep writing; in fact I have three new books ready to be published. But where to send them? Nowhere. Now in my seventies, I’m over the hill, a dinosaur, extinct. So yeah, I’m discouraged.
It was in this low mood that I suddenly thought of my meeting with John Lennon. This was years ago, of course, back in the 70’s when I was first starting out as a writer. At the time I was in a similar funk as today, fretting over how to get my work published. In this state, I received a phone call from John Lennon.
Yes, you heard right. Only the most famous musician—maybe the most famous person—in the world. What was he doing calling me?
It turned out that John had seen one of my stories in a literary magazine, and was very impressed. He wondered if I could meet him in New York for a chat.
Well, I was over the moon! Within a week I’d caught a plane and was sitting in a room in the Dakota with John Lennon.
We hit it off pretty nicely, and before long John laid down his hand. He said he wanted me to work on some writing projects with him. I get a lot of requests like this, and I always say no. But not when it comes to John Lennon! In a flash I agreed.
“But there’s just one catch,” he said.
Oh? And what was that?
“Well, I can’t promise to pay you. I might pay you something, and I might not. Even if I do pay, I can’t say how much it will be, or when.”
We were silent for a minute while I absorbed this information. Actually, it didn’t trouble me. As I saw it, despite John’s incredible fame, he was a rather insecure guy, and I guessed he might be sizing me up to find out whether he could trust me, or I him. Also, not many people know this, but in those days after the Beatles’ break-up, John was pretty strapped for cash. He wasn’t poor, of course, but his money was tied up and he definitely had a cash flow problem.
John continued: “Considering that I might not be able to pay you, will you still accept this assignment?”
This time I didn’t have to think long. Gladly I agreed, saying, “For you, John, I’d do anything. I mean, with your music you’ve given me—and the world—so much, that anything I might give in return couldn’t begin to repay you.”
As you may imagine, John was well satisfied with this answer, and we struck a deal. I’d do my best to write whatever he wanted, without any thought of recompense. If eventually I got paid, that would be gravy. If not, no problem. Just the chance to work with John was reward enough.
So we left it at that, and it was at this point that I emerged from my daydream. For that’s all it was. I never really met John Lennon, I just imagined it. Or rather, my imagination imagined it. That morning I’d listened to a podcast about him, so he was on my mind. Later in the day, while making coffee in the kitchen, my semi-consciousness amused itself with this little story of meeting John Lennon.
I must emphasize that this was not a fantasy, not a pretend scenario worked out in my head. No, it happened at a level deeper than that, closer to dream than to fantasy. Though it happened in the daytime while I was wide awake, like a dream it was not something I consciously willed or controlled. It was a daydream.
I do a lot of daydreaming—probably you do too—and I put dreams and daydreams in much the same category. Mostly they’re not very significant, but sometimes they are. Both dreams and daydreams are important because they short circuit our reason and can put us in touch with a more direct form of spiritual communication. Every once in a while I have a dream I can interpret, one so clear that I know what it means. But until that meeting with John Lennon, I couldn’t recall ever having a daydream I could interpret. This was a new experience for me, because I knew immediately what it meant.
The only true way to interpret such things, of course, is through the Holy Spirit. And as soon as I emerged from my daydream about John, the Lord said to me, “WHAT?! You’d trust John Lennon but you won’t trust Me with the results of your writing? Don’t you know that all I need to do is lift My little finger to connect you with a publisher?”
Well! I felt abashed and properly upbraided. People talk about experiencing ‘the hand of God’ in their affairs. But the Lord was right: I didn’t need His hand, I only needed His little finger.
So that’s where it stands. I know who I’m working for, and my whole reward is in doing it all for Him. From now on I’ll keep writing, and I’ll trust the results to God. And I’ll pay more attention to my daydreams, because God might be speaking to me through them. They can come like little parables, which we know from the gospels is one of Jesus’ favorite ways of telling truth.
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