Insanely Committed

a writing prompt for you + May Writing Hour

May 13, 2026

She is all in on stage.

This May, my daughter is playing an iconic character (Toto!) in the Wizard of Oz in her local outdoor theatre company’s production. She is visible almost the entire show, but has no distinguishable lines—though one happy doggish “we’re off” got a big laugh. Her character comes through in her physical presence, voice work, and her beautifully expressive face. The brutally honest local reviewer said hers was “an insanely committed performance” where she “yipped and wagged better than a real Toto would.” On opening night, there were dogs in the outdoor audience, and they yipped right back at her.

At several points she channels our sweet dog Twyla (gone almost a year now), shivering during the storm that blew her and Dorothy to Oz, stretching and wriggling and cocking her head in quiet moments. It is delightful. SHE is delightful. I know I’m biased, but the reviewer and the audience seem to agree.

I want to be equally fearless and insanely committed like that to what matters to me. To push past any worry that I might look silly, and just dive in with both…paws…and have fun. I want us all to join a group project of creativity and delight, like a zany community theatre show. Sometimes I think church can be that. So can family and friendship and neighborhoods.

Most of all, love can be like that, when we open ourselves to it.

Becoming Toto took practice. What if we all practiced being insanely committed to joy, or peace, or love?

In the poem below, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer offers the same invitation when she invites us to be ridiculously courageous in love, in a world desperate for it.

Because

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

So I can’t save the world—
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can’t
foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth,
about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.
One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world
as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,
as if the world depends on it.

a writing prompt

This world needs more group projects dedicated to insane commitment and ridiculous courage with love and joy as the intended result.

Let’s practice one here!

Use a phrase from the poem or the post as an acrostic (write each letter down the left side of the page, to begin a new word or phrase or sentence.) Write about your own commitment and courage, or how you hope to practice love. Or write about a group project of joy. Or your talented kid or friend or dog.

Then I dare you to be brave and committed and courageous and share it in a comment… I’m working on one using the phrase INSANE COMMITMENT about when I played a flying monkey in a ballet recital, but it’s not done yet. I promise to add it in a comment when I’m done.

Here’s a short one as an example.

T he thing I learned from
O z is this: If you want to be
T ransformed, you’ve got to find your community
O f other misfits, then be brave together.

Now you try one.

Share your acrostic in a comment so we can celebrate your bravery with a bravo!

May Writing Hour - Sat. May 23 | 4-5 pm Eastern

My next live writing hour on Zoom for paid subscribers is in two Saturdays. If you want to write in company with others, you are welcome to join in. You can upgrade your subscription for a month ($7) just to try it. A separate email to paid subscribers will go out with the link, or you can find it on my Substack tab called Writing Hours. Let’s write together.

like/comment/share

Join in the conversation with others in the comments. Tell me what you think about the prompt, or where your writing takes you.

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Welcome to Writing in Company! This is a community for you, whatever your experience with writing. It’s an invitation to write about what matters—grief, gratitude, grace, and more. In an off-kilter world, using our words can help us stay centered and move toward healing and wholeness. Writing in company with others saved me once. Let’s keep writing now, alone and together, and trust our words to help us see and say what matters.

Each week I share some ideas and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft a writing project, as prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. If this one doesn’t resonate, look back through the archive for more. Clicking the heart to like this post helps keep my writing prompts visible and my own writer’s heart grateful.