Tired Old Constructs

When we learn to "live with" the constructs around us our creativity is sent to the back burner.  Our true self is overshadowed by the lesser self.  We can function this way for a while; we may even be productive.  But please don't be deceived...productivity does not equal life.

This is dangerous.  If you believe it you will pursue productivity over your calling every time, and in so doing your formation will come from the parameters around you and not from the God-breathed life within you.

And after a while?  You will find those parameters begin to fit like chains.  Continue on the imprisoned path long enough and you will find your world, your life, will get smaller; no room left for even your breath.

Instead of taking your cues from the constructs around you, begin listening to the voice deep within you.  Vocalize it, share it, act upon it.  There will be moments the art within you does not work with the constructs around you.

Don't worry.  Don't be afraid.

While this is a place of death it is not the death of your true self.  It is the place where the old order must pass away to make room for what is bursting forth.  This is a divine shedding of the old self; the warn out container discarded, and a new wineskin awaits.

Working Stiff

I have nothing to say of my working life,

only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is,

it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.

                                                                 - Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Please don't forget what your real work is.  This world will try to convince you that your "job" is answering to others, doing tasks and fulfilling obligations.  You will certainly have responsibilities in this life, but the minute you believe the false notion that your responsibilities are your life, is the moment you become a working stiff.

Rigid, lifeless, a cog and a number.

If there is to be a "job" it is to keep focused on your art; that within you that only you have been gifted to give.  Be persistant in purusing it, be deliberate in displaying it, and never tie the tie too tightly.

Getting out of bed means the day will have to begin.
Going to bed at night means having to relive this again soon.

Moving through the day in a sleep-haze gets it over quickly.
Insomnia at night buys more time until tomorrow's insanity arrives.

Longing not reached
Yearning not fulfilled
Passion not lived
Hope still elusive.

The "Ah-ha!" Moment

The "Ah-ha!" moment.

The "Light bulb going off" moment.

The "It just clicked" moment.

These break-through moments of clarity are what many of us hope to see happen in our work.  We want the epiphany to come so we can finally have our success.  Jealousy may even set in when we see others come into their moment with relative ease.

But please don't be fooled.

The "Ah-ha" moments are actually few and far-between in life (the rarity is what makes it such a marvelous spectical).  If you keep waiting for the "light bulb to go off" before you to get to work, your art will never be realized.  The "Ah-ha!" is only possible because of all the preceeding grunt work; that's what gives birth to its brilliance.

The visionary artist isn't someone who lives in a continual state of brilliant epiphany, they are the ones who are trudging through the darkness because they can't escape the gnawing, haunting feeling that 'something' lies ahead.

Your real work doesn't begin after the "Light switch went off", it began long before it; when the room was dark and it was impossible to see.

Filler For the Masses

If you are concerned with gaining a following your art will suffer.  Your over-concern with what you think others think they want will leave you second-guessing, cutting corners, and selling-out.

Continue on this path long enough and your art will cease being art and become cheap-filler, white-noise, bland and uninspiring.  You may get others to sign-up and sign-on, but each time you do it will be a death a thousand times over to the true artist within.

Co-Creating Melodies

The story is told of a concert pianist who was on the point of beginning a performance when there was a scream from the audience.  A child had left her seat beside her parent and was running around the auditorium.  the concert pianist stepped away from this instrument in order to maintain concentration.  The child ran up the steps onto the stage, sat herself down on the stool, and began to play discordant notes at random as she pleased.  The hushed audience gasped in horror and embarrassment.  The pianist walked toward the child and stood behind her as she played.  The pianist leaned over her hand, and without disturbing her, placed right and left hands outside her two small hands on the keyboard.  The pianist then began to play in response to her notes, weaving their discordant sounds into an improvised melody.  To have thrown the child out would have been to block; to have let her play on would have been to accept; to weave a wonderful melody around her was to receive her as a gift, to over-accept.
                                                                                               - Samuel Wells

You are never and inturruption to Divine Pianist.  Your off notes and broken rhythms are never outside the steady movements of God.  You are, after all, a gift and welcomed to play at the seat of the Great Musician.  So, do not be over-concered with the glares of others or over-whelmed that your timing and technique are fragmented. 

This is what it means to be a child.

It is not yours to orchestrate each stanza and perfect each measure.  This is the work of the Conductor, who, as you get lost in the delight of play, hems you into a bigger song.

How Loud Is Your Fear?

Fear of failure.

Fear of being “found out”.

Fear of not being as good as others think you are.

Fear that you will have to try harder than you ever have before.

Fear that it will require you to dig deep.

Fear that you don’t have enough time.

Fear that you can’t live up to your standards.
Fear that it can’t be done.
Fear that it has never been done that way before.

Fear that you won’t fit in.

Fear that no one will buy it.

Fear that no one will listen.

Fear that it will kick you to the outside.

Fear that there is no going back.

When your fear gets loud, it’s probably an indicator that you are on the verge of something great.

...keep going.

Step Into Your Life

Wishing you could do what you see someone else doing?  Do you lament that your life is not as interesting as what your “friends” portray in their status updates?  If you keep moving down this path you can be sure you will never step into your unique calling.

The more time you spend focused on what someone else is doing means you have less time and energy to dream and act on what only you can do.

Stop your infatuation with other people's lives...it will keep you from falling in love with your own.

Prioritize Your Art

What are you working on today? 

Is it something that feeds your soul or is it a have-to-should-supposed-to-expectation-duty-obligatory-go-through-the-motions-check-list-task?

Yes, we all have things we are “supposed to do”; responsibilities that need fulfillment because others are waiting on us.  However, please don’t let this be your excuse from getting to your real work.

Every day you have an opportunity to creatively lean into that which brings you life.  You may need to change your day’s schedule so your art becomes a greater priority, you may need to change your attitude so you stop blaming others for your lack of production, or you may need to change your expectations of creativity so you can find beauty in what you are already doing.

We are all busy people with expectations too long to list.  The difference between the artist and the amateur is that the artist makes a way for their art to come alive.

Giving Up On the Game

“How are you, young man?  No doubt you’re expecting a lecture, but I promise that’s the last thing I intend.  Your decision to leave medical school is your own entirely.  I can even understand and sympathize.  Around the third year, when exhaustion and nausea have taken up permanent residence in your bones, the healing profession seems less like a calling and more like and exercise in expedience and venality.  I understand that brand of despair better than I wish.  But it’s a different decision you’ve made that troubles me more deeply.

I mean your choice to give up golf.”                        - The Legend of Bagger Vance

Idealism, promise, expectation, hope.  These are all good things.  These elements do more than get us out of bed in the morning; they propel us into each day with the anticipation that something remarkable and worth while will take place.

We are a burst of energy in which no obstacle is too big.  Exhaustion never even gets a chance to yawn because we are awakened to a mission bigger than ourselves.  We embody the change we want to bring to the world and we believe we can do anything.

Then…

Challenge flanks us in a manner totally unexpected; completely blind-sided.  We see a side to the Opposition that we never saw before and we are left disarmed, disrobed, and disheartened.  The ideal, once fuel for life, offers nothing but the bitter taste of “what could have been”.

Cynicism encroaches as we question the work, the calling.  “What’s the point?”, “Why bother?” “Where’s the meaning?” become just a few of the rhetorical questions we feast on.  We come to a grinding halt.

We give up.  We are sidelined.  We are beaten.  Something within us dies.

And we are left with a choice:

Fade away until nothing is left.

or…

Keep playing.

May you, in your moment of defeat, your season of disillusionment, be filled with just enough promise to believe that giving up on the game is never an option.  And may you have the courage to keep showing up to the life no one else has been gifted to live.

Living Icons

“We seldom celebrate enough the fact that healingness and newness are inborn in the human person, and we can release them into the world in creative and redemptive ways.  We are perhaps too frozen in the notion that we are faithful if we are obedient.  We are moral if we play it safe.  We are virtuous if we ask God to do stuff for us.  Slowly and not often enough do we learn that God is not one who bails us out, or one who nags and supervises what is entrusted to us.  The good news is a glorious but demanding affirmation that we are trusted by God to live a new kind of life.”      - Walter Brueggemann

You are one of God’s icons; designed to reflect his very nature.

Goodness.

Mercy.

Justice.

Love.    

Do not wait for God…he is waiting for you.  You have been trusted to act, to move in ways that promote wholeness, restoration and peace.

Today, and each moment within its confines, you have opportunity to live out what has been hard wired into you.  Do not listen to the voice that says, “not good enough”, “forgotten”, “washed up”, “unqualified”, “fool”.  Instead listen as the Author of All sends you forward with new words:

“Chosen”, “Esteemed”, “Friend”, “Daughter”, “Son”...

"Image bearer".

Direction

"For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm" Proverbs 1:32-33

Waywardness and Complacency.

Directionless and Apathy.

Sometimes aimlessness is my only direction and complacency my only drive.

I am listening.

Unique Meaning ("Man's Search For Meaning" pt. 2)

As human beings we are on a continual search for puropse and "the meaning of life". Victor Frankl writes that in one's pursuit of an over-arching meaning of life on a grand scale, we miss the meaning that is found in the day to day, hour to hour.

"What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment...Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it."

When the fullness of what Frankl writes hits us, we will find great tragedy and loss with those who "wander" this life. For it is not merely "their loss", but ours...the community's loss of a unique contribution in which they were designed to make.

It becomes all of our responsibility to foster within our self, but even more, one another, the pursuit of that uniqueness, that in the discovery of that meaning "whole" might greatly benefit.