More Short Autobiographies

"I learned so much from doing those two-hundred, fifty and, finally, six-word autobiographies," I told her. "I've told many people about that exercise."

"Glad to hear it," she said. "We're doing a similar thing tonight, only backwards."

The instructor leading Benjamin's and my current writing class, as mentioned earlier, is one we've had before. Last time, doing it after the longer efforts, I strained to come up with my six-word autobiography. This year she had us begin with the six-word autobiography and asked us to come up with a bunch of 'em. In the five minutes she provided. Being the good student and one who follows instructions well, I put my mind to the task and came up with what I consider some pretty good ones. The next step was to pick one of them and expand on it, as a longer but still brief autobiography. My autobiographies ( random order ):

• I came I saw I puked.
• Never the right time for anything.
• Eventually, with helpful wife, found God.
• Can I enable you to share?
• Eventually, with helpful wife, experienced God.
• Eventually anything goes and everyone dies.
• Eventually, with outside help, experienced God.
• God broke through my extreme cussedness.
• Some take; some give; and I?
• I was never one to share.
• I was never much for sharing.

I chose to expand, "Eventually, with outside help, experienced God," but screwed up the assignment, writing about one specific experience of the outside help. Writing in more detail, I wrote about the posted conversation with Fr Pat from my Jesuit retreat this past spring when the assignment asked for a longer autobiography. 

Oh,well.

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