on writing to write

learning to climb cringe mountain + believe my voice matters

Podcasts have become so important to me — can you believe there was a time we didn’t have them? In particular, Las Culturistas is a lifeline carrying me back to joy every week when things feel overwhelming. (Literally listening to this week’s episode while I’m mulling over this)

Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang make me laugh and speak to my heart when I need it most. Several months ago, they had an episode titled ‘Climbing Cringe Mountain’ and it has stuck with me. In it, they talked about how the only way to get where you want to be with your dreams and goals is to continually, vulnerably put yourself out there. Every day, you climb cringe mountain — recognizing the vulnerability of it all and yet knowing that it’s the only way up, the only way forward.

In it, this source of writing itself feels a lot like climbing cringe mountain for me. Without question, I feel a pull to write. I believe that writing matters, and I know how much I value the voices of so many other people through their writing.

But the lesson I have to keep learning is actually believing my voice matters in this world too.

Though I have loved writing for quite some time, I often think back on when I more freely wrote with a tinge of cringe. I still carry all kinds of fears around a willingness to write.

When I look back at some stuff I’ve written on theology, for example, I shudder a little. My mind has changed so much over the years in how I see God and people. I fear that whatever I write now will not stand the test of time and instead even be used against me in some way.

I fear that whatever I want to say has already been said by someone wiser than me.

I fear, maybe most of all, that I don’t really deserve to put my voice and my thoughts and what I really have learned out there.

Even as someone who has published multiple articles, has two master’s degrees, and literally writes sermons monthly, I carry all these fears with me as I write this right now.

And still I write anyway. And I hope the same for you too. There is room for all voices.

In a nation that is intentionally trying to silence voices right now, it feel so important to remind others that we need them. We need you.

Black voices matter. Queer voices matter. Indigenous voices matter. Immigrant voices matter. Trans voices matter.

And even more than matter, they are beloved. Precious. Absolutely crucial to who we are as the human collective. Their voices and their lives are non-negotiables.

We must listen to one another. We must use our voices now more than ever. An author I love,

Kaitlin Curtice

, put it this way recently—

“Maybe we don’t want to be writers right now.

But we are called to be writers right now, the universe pulling it from our beings—

we must be writers right now, we must roar and cry and plead and laugh our way onto the page.

For ourselves and for each other.”

So all of this is my hope right now. I hope I keep writing, for myself and for others. And I hope you do too. My voice matters. Your voice matters.

Let’s roar and cry and plead and laugh. Let’s climb our way up cringe mountain together, remembering to stop, breathe, and check in along the way.