The Underlying Themes

My apologies to all of you who have been awaiting my next post.  While there is not a set schedule for these, I try not to keep you waiting too long, lest you lose interest.

As an author, it is usually a good thing to receive confirmation that what you have written is true.  Usually.  For good or bad, it appears that my last post contained a great deal of truth, at least on a personal level.  Apparently, the "opposition" didn't care much for what I had to say, and my convictions were put to the test in a rather spectacular and scary fashion.  Details are unnecessary, but I will say that the eleven days between my last post and this morning have been some of the scariest and disheartening I have experienced in recent years, possibly even some of the worst ever.  Hope was lost, my spirit was crushed, fear overwhelmed me and those closest to me.

By God, we must be doing something right!  And by the way, we made the choice to trust, and God provided.  It works that way.  Not always the way I'd like it to, but always the way it needs to.

So...  how do we find "IT:"  That magical, wonderful thing we are created for?  The thing  (or things) we are made to do?  Darn good question, and one I am tragically unqualified to answer.  I have some ideas, though, some radical thoughts to share with you.  Thoughts on how to find "IT," thoughts on what "creativity" actually means, thoughts on cutting our own path through the briar patch.  I make no guarantees, and there is no warranty implied, but... 

What I share with you today are the things that kept floating to the surface over the past ten days.  These are the things that continually came to me in direct contradiction to our circumstances, that had the sweet aroma of Truth that somehow managed to slip through the stink of our fear.  They're nuggets, really, just tiny bits that managed to shine in the darkness.  You know what, though?  It was the darkness that made them stand out, just like the subject in the low-key photographs we discussed a few posts ago.  So, in defiance of the darkness, I am going to do my best to breath life into these tiny embers and share their warmth with you.  Take that, Darkness!

(Heh, heh.  It felt good to say that!)

First, it came to me that our definition of "creativity" tends to be terribly restrictive, and it needn't be.  I tend to think that most of you who have been drawn to these pages are creative in the traditional sense -- you are artists and musicians, writers and photographers and dancers and thespians and singers.  You know, the outcasts, the oddballs, the eccentrics.  We are used to thinking of ourselves as having something inside us that makes us different.  Here's the thing, though.  I believe that we ALL have been individually crafted by our creator.  Each of us is a unique and wonderful work of art, designed with specific purpose and bearing a reflection of our creator within us. 

So what  does that mean?  To start with, it means that when those of us who are "traditional creatives" look down our noses at differently-gifted people, we are guilty of being creativity snobs.  We are being just as hateful as those people who made us feel different and weird.  I think that we need to lay those preconceptions aside if we are going to be successful in this journey.  For the sake of discussion, let me toss this out to you:  There is no "Normal."  No ordinary.  No one who isn't gifted with creativity of some kind, because we all carry a reflection of our creator within us.  What does this mean?  In essence, it means that we have to expand our definition of "creative."  When I talk about unlocking and exploring our creativity, I am talking about discovering those natural abilities and gifts that are hard-wired into each of us.  Whether that means penning a novel or discovering that you have a gift for organization is irrelevant.  What is relevant is that you go on the journey.  I believe creativity is being obedient to your calling, no matter if it is as a sculptor or accountant or mother or mathematician.

Second, I think we need to lay aside the preconception that we have to tie our creativity to how we make a living.  I'll confess, it pains me to say this.  I want to make a living with my creative gifts!  But here's the trap I've fallen into repeatedly over the past thirty years or so:  Every time I start to explore my own creativity, I ask myself how I can make a living with it.  I find myself unable to answer the question, and so I get discouraged and turn away from the exploration.  I think, "I can't do this while I'm in this job," or, "I'm too worried about making rent to write right now," or some other nonsense.  As a result, I think myself right out of doing what I want to do.  If you are wondering, the answer is yes, that's just stupid.

There is a vast difference between "making a living" and "living."  Making a living is the process of earning the funds we need to cover our basic needs.  In the world we live in, it's becoming increasingly difficult, and as a result, it tends to dominate our thoughts.  These are scary times.  Nothing is secure, nothing is certain, nothing is safe.  Ick.  Fear takes hold of us, chokes the breath from our lungs, steals our hope.  Trust me, I know. 

Here's what else I know, though I don't yet understand the full truth of it:  "Making a living" is a lie that the opposition has created to keep us from Living.  It's a distraction, a smoke-and-mirrors trick designed to direct our attention away from the things that really matter.  It's a way of stealing our focus and energies away from what we are made for.  I'm not saying that it doesn't matter.  Let's face it -- food and shelter matter!  They matter a great deal.  Good news, though -- our creator knows this.  Whether you believe it or not, you were not individually hand-crafted only to be cast out and ignored! 

God promises this in his Word in Jeremiah 29:11  ""For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.""  I'm not even going to apologize to those of you who aren't Christian.  This is a fundamental Truth that I believe in, a promise that I cling to.  Why?  Because over and over again, it has proven to be true in my life.

So where am I going with this, you ask?  I want, no, scratch that, I NEED you to understand a vital distinction.  "Making a living" is about survival, nothing more.  It's that state of entropy that the universe tries to enforce on us, that place were we exist with as little energy as possible.  This journey is about Living.  I want all of us to quit just surviving and start coming Alive.  (Yes, the capitalization is completely intentional!)  I know, I keep coming back to this, and I apologize for that.  It's because I am incredibly dense and often stupid, and this blog is self-serving.  I am trying to convince my head of that which my spirit knows to be true.

Unlocking our creativity, in any and all of its myriad forms, is all about Living.

So what do we do?  I've known since sixth grade that I was made to write, but I've never done it.  Not fearlessly, not without letting those pesky questions of survival choke it off.

I suspect I'm also make to draw and paint and sculpt and... well, I'm made to make stuff.  Cool stuff, I hope.  But I'm definitely made to make stuff:  Inspiring, uplifting... stuff.  Not very well-defined, I know, but at least I know.  I'm lucky that way.  I also know that a lot of us on this journey aren't so lucky.  For what it's worth, there are many days when I'm not, either, when my knowledge of my purpose is utterly lost.   Fortunately, I believe that our creator didn't just hard-wire us with unique gifts and abilities, he also hard-wired us with the knowledge of their existence. 

The problem that we tend to face is that this knowledge is often incompatible with our thought processes, our logic and our worldly way of thinking.   We are programmed to ask the wrong question, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, asking "...what I can do for my country (or my family, or my employer, or... whatever.)"  It's not that this is a bad question; in fact, it's a good question.  It's just the wrong question to unlock what we're made for, because the focus is on what the world needs. 

I read a passage recently that hit me like a two-by-four to the head, making me completely re-evaluate the question I was asking.  In his book "Wild at Heart," author John Eldredge quoted a passage by Howard Thurman:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

I was floored by the elegant simplicity of the words.  At first glance, it seems selfish, because the focus is on yourself.  In truth, it is the least selfish thing we can do, because in coming alive, we bring light into the lives of everyone around us.  Being alive is highly contagious!  If we engage in that which makes us come alive, we are throwing a stone into the still water of the entropy that the opposition tries to force on us.  The ripples spread to those around us.  Its the genuine answer to the "What can I do for..." question.  You can come alive, and in doing so you can breathe life into those around you.

I know many of us are on this journey feel lost, with no sense of direction.  I believe, however, that each of us has experienced moments in time that made us feel alive, in the truest sense of the word.  To find what we are made for, we have to be willing to explore those moments, to play time-traveler in our heads and return to them.  For some of us, maybe even all of us, it's going to be difficult.  The world we live in makes it hard to hold onto those moments.  They get buried under layers of stress and disbelief.  Voices whisper that it wasn't really that good, that we are romanticizing those moments.  The unbeliever in each of us will bring up the imperfect moments that followed, the greater context, the ugly waste that life dumped on us in the time that surrounded those moments.  Our "logic" will seek with everything it has to diminish the glow of those moments and convince us of their insignificance.

All of those things are lies.  They are the entropy, the opposition, the Enemy striving to keep us away from discovering that those "perfect moments in time" actually existed for each of us!  I don't know about you, but I have lost all patience with those forces that seek to steal these things from me, and I am striking back by reclaiming them.  These moments of wonder, of Life, are real and must not be diminished!  We must dig for them, treasure them and hold onto them.  The clues we so desperately need lie within them.

I can offer a real-world illustration from my own life.  When I moved away from New Mexico nearly twelve years ago, it wasn't long before I started to ache for what I'd left behind.  Without going into detail, we didn't leave under the best circumstances -- I was the human equivalent of whipped dog with his tail tucked between his legs.  I started to romanticize our lives here, to ache for the blue of the sky, the color of the sunset on the Sandias, the scent of pinon smoke coming from fireplaces on a fall morning, for the golden color of the late-afternoon light and the low roar of hot air balloons in the sky.  In my cynical heart, I knew that I wasn't remembering it as it really was, knew it with everything I had.  I convinced myself that I was just romanticizing the memory because our current circumstances sucked.

But...  when I finally returned to visit, I discovered something interesting.  The sky over New Mexico really is that big and blue.  The color of the sunset on the Sandias really is stunning, as is the quality of that golden late-afternoon light.  When I caught the scent of pinon smoke and sopapillas in the air of the north valley, my heart released and whispered "I am home."  For me, it was real, all of it, just as I remembered.  This place, this magical land, is a vital part of me.  I don't understand why, but it is part of what makes me come alive.  At the heart of things, that's why I've returned to this place, despite what it may cost me.

As I look back, I see so many perfect moments in time in my life:  My granddad walking in the door and picking me up when I couldn't have been much more than two years old; riding in the back seat of Dad's '55 Chevy and laughing at the sun blinking through the leaves of cottonwood trees; backpacking with Mom and Dad in the Pecos and reaching the top of a long climb to see a breathtaking alpine meadow with snow-capped peaks behind it.  There was that terrifying moment in sixth grade when Mrs. Martinez made me read my story aloud to the class, and suddenly I was... cool.  Me, the geek.  I could do something wonderful that no one else in the room could do.  (I know that one or two of you who are reading these pages were actually there in that classroom.  Did you know that you were a vital part of one of my "perfect moments?")  There was that amazing moment in the earliest days of my relationship with my wife when I realized that this incredible girl, who had no reason to trust me, trusted me completely.   Those magical moments when I looked into the eyes of each of my kids for the first time.  These, and so many more...

There is a danger in returning to these moments, especially when our current existence is harsh and unforgiving.  It is a danger born of the opposition.  If our enemy can't get us to deny the reality of those moments, he will try to seduce us into entropy by getting us to dwell in them.  Just as we should not deny the real and life-giving reality of those moments, we cannot allow ourselves to be lulled into living in the past.  Life is not designed to be lived in the past, nor consumed by worrying about the future.  At this point in our existence, we are temporal beings.  We exist in the Present, the Now.  The Now is the only place where we can have impact.  Yes, the ripples of our actions can move forward into the future, but the land of Here and Now is where we have the power to affect change.

If that's the case, then why think on those "perfect moments in time?"  I believe it is because the keys to unlocking our effectiveness in the present lie in those moments.  For me, there are underlying themes that run through all my perfect moments:  Love; Beauty; Discovery; Encouragement; Empowerment; Creation; Trust; Faithfulness; Contentment.  In every perfect moment I can recall, at least one of these themes lie at the core of its perfection; often, three or more blend together.  These are the core elements that are woven through the core of all that I am.   These are the heart of me.

I wish I was a better writer, that I could say this more eloquently.  It matters so much, and I feel that my words are woefully inadequate to the task.  Fortunately, I'm not limited by my own abilities, and I trust that God will use me effectively to talk to you, despite my limitations.  Here's what I'm trying to say:  If you honestly look back over your own life and examine those perfect moments, I promise you that you will discover underlying themes of your own.  You will find your own heart, your own essential elements, your own core truths.  This isn't mumbo-jumbo!  It is the fulfillment of God's promise that if we seek Him, we will find him.  In seeking the truth that is woven through the fiber of your being, you are seeking the image of the creator that is embedded in you.  I know this to be true, with everything I am and everything I have the potential to be.

There's a lot of self-help and self-discovery advice out there in the world, and a lot of it is good.  The world, however, tends to twist the definition of those core themes we are looking for in our perfect moments.  What we are not searching for in these moments are those aspects that leave us crying, "More, more, I want more!"  Yes, most of our perfect moments have an element of this.  "More, I want more," is our physical, psychological, worldly response to that which is pleasing and perfect.  Unfortunately, it's also the response that drives many of our most destructive impulses.  It's the force behind our desire for more stuff, more money, more love, more whatever, and it is insatiably hungry and it can never, ever be satisfied.  Do you see why we don't want to fixate on these elements of our perfect moments?

At the heart of every perfect moment in our lives, there is something deeper than the desire for more.  There is an element that touches something deeper in us, that moves past the flesh and into the spirit.  If we are willing to look deep enough, I am convinced that we will always find an element that makes us feel complete, that overwhelms us with a sense of wonder.  It's that sense of completeness and contentment that serves to make that moment in time stand out for us, to let us recall them with such perfect clarity.  I lack the credentials to convince you through logical means, so all I can do is say what I know to be true:  Those elements of perfect moments that give us the sense of completion and wonder are the heart of our unique, hard-wired creative gifts.

I know, I know – this feels like a rabbit trail.  Sounds good, but it's all useless if you can't apply it to your life.  Concept without action does you no good whatsoever.  Here's the thing, though.  We CAN apply this directly to our lives, now, today!  As you examine your perfect moments, ask yourself why it was perfect.  What was it that you did in that moment that gave you that sense of contentment?  Now here’s the tough part, at least for me:  Don't focus on where you were, or what others were doing, but rather on your actions, your choices, your responses.  Direct your thoughts to those aspects of that moment that are internal,  to the things that you had control over:  i.e., yourself.  Then move from the past to the now, and look at your life and the choices you are making today.  Ask yourself how you can choose to respond to your current life in a way that will allow you to feel that blessed contentment again.

For this to be effective, it will require action on your part.  You have to Choose, and you have to Do.  You have to be willing to appear selfish, to do things that breath life into the heart of you.  You have to be willing to actively resist those forces in your life that seek to discourage you.  If, in examining your perfect moment, you said to yourself, "It felt so good to have painted that picture," then you have to be willing to pick up a paintbrush and paint again, without worrying about whether the painting will be good or not.  The painting itself is the byproduct, not the goal.  If your contentment was in just looking in the eyes of your lover on your first date, then you have to be willing to risk just looking deep into their eyes again, no matter how long you have been together or how rocky the relationship may be.  You have to be willing to risk having them say "What on earth are you doing?"  You have to be willing to appear silly, or foolish, or sentimental.  You even have to be willing to fail.

Why?  Because just like the painting, success is a byproduct, not a goal.  Our world has mixed that all up and confused us.  Our world has taught us to always put the cart in front of the horse.  Is it any wonder that we are all so confused and messy?

One more thing:  It doesn't have to be big, or life-changing, for it to change your life.  Sometimes, perhaps even most times, it is the small choices that can make the biggest difference.  As I've been thinking back over my "perfect moments in time," I've noticed something interesting.  It is very, very rare that they are anything more than a moment.  Not a day, or an hour, or even minutes.  So very many of them are only seconds long.  Moments, and yet they shape and sustain me.

It's been a rough week.  Yesterday was scary, full of very real worries about our immediate future.  I thought I had solutions, only to run into obstacles I could not overcome.  I was at my desk, trying to find solutions, and the dogs scratched at the door to be let out.  I opened the door, and discovered that it was starting to rain, and the sweet scent of the air captured me.  I don't know if I can explain this, but the rain smells different here.  It is cleaner somehow, pure and alive.  In Oklahoma, the rain always carried an underlying scent of decay to it, and I'd missed the clean scent of New Mexico rain.  With all the fear, it would have been so easy to close the door and turn away... 

Instead, I stepped out on the back porch and drew the perfume of the desert rain deep into my lungs, closed my eyes and savored it.  For an instant, I was transported back to days sitting with Granddad Williams on his front porch, watching the thunderheads build and roll in over the city; to the soft music of rainfall on the bricks of our courtyard in Llanito while a fire burned in the fireplace of my studio there; to every moment of peace I've ever experienced while watching the rain.  It was just a moment out of my day, five seconds or so, but it changed me.  By claiming that moment, I altered my outlook, changed my perspective.  I reminded myself that there are greater things in the universe than the fears that threatened to overwhelm me.  It was a perfect moment, claimed in the midst of my personal hell.  Because of that moment, I remembered that one of the things that makes me come alive in the here and now is sharing these thoughts with you.

Look for that magic within yourself.  Dare yourself to remember what you love to do, and then grant yourself permission to do it.  Touch that place of contentment and wonder within yourself without constraining yourself with the expectations of specific outcomes.  Allow yourself to Be, and you will open yourself to Become.

Finally, I want to reassure you, and myself, and it may seem contradictory.  If you feel confident and safe, sure that you are on the right path...  dig deeper.  Keep peeling back the layers until you find the thing that you ache for, but that fills you with unreasoning fear, and then pursue that path.  Why?  Because a spirit of fear is not a spirit of God.  Fear is a tool of our Enemy, of the opposition.  Your creator will not make you feel afraid, but you can be assured that the opposition will use fear as a tool to keep you from going where he doesn't want you to go.  I know my logic may seem messed up here, but the heart of me is starting to recognize me that my fear serves as a signpost, not warning me away but showing me where to go!  Yes, I know what I'm saying here, and I pray that this isn't one of those times that I lead you astray. 

If we are going to lay claim to the heart of what God made us to be, I think we have to do what scares us most.

Wow, I wonder where that came from.  More soon.  Think on your perfect moments.