Writing as an Act of Resistance
by Mary Rakow, PhD.
Dear Wonderful Writers,
My good friend Greg Boyle, S.J., speaks all over this hemisphere, saying, “We belong to each other, no exceptions.” We belong to those we disagree with, and they belong to us. But this can be hard to imagine in this challenging time. As writers, what should we do?
When we are in touch with our best self, our highest self, we are able to love others more deeply and more widely. When we leave the zone of our self as citizen, parent, business person, our self as author and go into our self as a writer, into the cave of that writer’s solitude, we find our nobility. We find our generous heart.
We come out from that writing zone changed because we have experienced a different kind of time. Our body is more relaxed. Our stress level is down, and we look at the world differently. Whether this lasts an hour or a month, it is a radical change, and for the good. For ourselves and others. And it is undeniable. We know that we have experienced the bigger, truer situation.
For this reason, entering the writing zone is one of the most powerful forms of resistance we have against despair, fear and injustice.
As a semi-cloistered hermit, I’ve been wondering how I can more deeply be part of this resistance. I thought of my editing, and the question evolved into, How can I encourage writers to enter their own, individual writing zone? How can my editing practice facilitate that?
We want to come out of that interior solitude, changed.
No action of this kind is too small. A small step into your writing zone is still a powerful and effective act of resistance. And of compassion. I believe this with all of my heart.
Like the young Buddhist monk in Thailand who sits in evening meditation and reviews his day, noting his good thoughts and actions. They are usually very small. But he takes the merit that his good actions have earned in the universe and first applies this merit to himself. He takes it in. Then he offers it to his community, his village, his country, and finally to the entire world and to those who lived before him. That is the moral of the story. Small or large, to do it. Size doesn’t matter. In the same way, Christians preserved for two millennia the story of the boy who offers two fish, and from that small gesture, a crowd of 5,000 are fed. This idea, I believe, is in all major religions and much secular thinking because it is true.
One page helps. 5 pages help. 500 pages help.
Writers are not people who make pretty, little silly things. We keep the human spirit alive. We keep courage alive and generosity, and most of all, love.
Let us help each other do that in these last months of 2025.
Almost a century ago, a woman standing in line to bring bread to prisoners recognized the poet Anna Akhmatova. Akhmatova was also waiting to bring something for her son, who was imprisoned for counterrevolutionary activities. The woman asked, “Can you write about this?” Akhmatova said “Yes,” and did. Her poem, “Requiem,” was memorized by others and survived by word-of-mouth alone until it was finally published in 1963. To this day, Anna Akhmatova remains one of Russia’s greatest poets. Let us be inspired by this.
Let us move forward together in this moment. Let us be strong. Let us write stories that only we carry inside. Let us each give voice, in 1 page or 50 or 200, to the story we alone can write. And in doing so let us refuse fear and despair and manipulation. Let us refuse to make stuff. Let us refuse to be silent. Let us, with joy and gratitude, make art. Art that is greater than we are and greater than what surrounds. Art that will speak for decades.
Good writing, always! And hugs!
Mary
P.S. Inspired by this, I have decided to open my gate wider. Instead of editing full book
manuscripts, I can edit 50-page submissions, 10 pages, or even one single, solitary paragraph.
Whatever might help another step into that zone. I thought this over for a few days, and it felt
right. For the details, you can email me at maryrakow1@gmail.
© Mary Rakow, 2025
