Shaela Scanlon

The first time I can remember keeping a journal is during my freshman year of high school. I had an English teacher who thought that timed writing was the greatest invention since the full stop, so every day she’d give us things to write about, and we’d spend fifteen minutes trying to look like that statue by Rodin. Or maybe that was just me. I’ve never been good at that kind of command performance. But by then, I was good at ignoring what I was supposed to be doing, so I actually have fond memories of that journal. I named it Parnassus, after the home of the Muses, and the first thing I wrote in it was Psalm 19:14 — “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” It’s been almost twenty years, but that still seems like the best place to start a journal.