Nobody Cares!

(Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash)

The universe has conspired to send this repetitious refrain (already clamoring) into my ear, heart, and soul. I keep encountering the sobering message, in regard to my writing, that nobody cares!

In flipping through the May/June edition of Writer's Digest, the words of Reni Roxas first hit my ears:

"Here's the sorry-ass deal if you are an unknown writer: The world is not waiting for your novel. Nobody cares if you finish it, not even your mother.... Nobody cares. But one. You. You care. Desperately."

How true! My mother will not care (she cannot, thanks to her dementia). Indeed, not a single member of my family, immediate or extended, reads my blog.

In my morning devotions, I am in Ecclesiastes:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!... Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?... Noone remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.... Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." (Ch. 1:2-3,11 and Ch. 2:11 - NIV)

And then, also, in Luke 10, I read the story again of Martha and Mary, where Martha begs Jesus to chide Mary for not focusing on the work at hand, only to be told by Jesus that Mary has chosen what is better. Later, in the same day, I received an email newsletter from Jordan Raynor addressing this same chapter. He wrote: "Martha wasn't focused on what mattered most. In that moment, the most essential thing was ... sitting at the feet of Jesus."

In my current research for a non-fiction work I'm pursuing, it was hammered into me again:

"Nobody cares about your silly book. Nobody cares about my silly books.... What we write doesn't matter half as much as how we live, how we love each other." - Martha Beck

So, how am I living? Am I sitting at the feet of Jesus? How do I love others? Not well enough, I have decided. I am currently dealing with the fall-out from a large blow-up with my sister (never one I have gotten along with well). I cannot see my way to reconciliation or any redemption in the relationship. Is it her unwillingness to see her role in our dysfunctional dance or is it my inability to forgive and forget wounds inflicted. Moreover, other relationships have fractured as well, and for several I am at a loss to know exactly where I went wrong. Somewhere along the line, it seems I've done something to alienate or estrange.

I'm hearing the message loud and clear. Yet, I'm stymied. I don't know what to do with this theme. I would say instead of "doing" I need to focus on "being," but even that rings hollow. Dust to dust, I will be!