my pen is
hovering not
touching the
paper
yet words move
through my
mind
I wonder
what keeps
the pen
still
what exists
in the
small space
between
the pen
and the paper
resistance?
fear?
fatigue?
disassociation?
maybe just
air
finally the
pen leans
and makes
contact
victory
or defeat?
I have been wanting to post more of my artwork, however, I often feel the need to provide a backstory. I went foraging for some childhood artwork and what I found, interestingly enough, was poetry.
So, here is how it started….
Maybe I am a poet after all.
my journal entry from December 17th
I have not been able to
journal for two weeks
because to do so
would mean I had to
write the words
“My mom died.”
I have not
been able to.
She passed away
on December 4th.
It has been brutal,
but today
I was able to write the words.
The only way is through.
I miss you Mom.
I have been torn about the title and tagline on my blog for a while now. I have been considering changing it from “Seeking and Stumbling” to something like “Finding my Way.” “Seeking and Stumbling” seems to imply that there is only one perfect way to follow God and that many times I fail. “Finding my Way” implies that each way is individual and our God is big enough and personal enough for that. My way may not be your way, and that is okay.
“Seeking and Stumbling” represents my previous way of thinking and being as I struggled to find that one perfect way (see my first blog post). Perhaps now I have a different perspective. My path is my own as designed by God. Each path is our own to wrestle, debate, and follow. Others can travel with me for a while, even a lifetime, but my way with God is my own, as your way with God is your own. We, as the body of Christ, have gotten in trouble when we try to define one way or even a few ways. Then, when one cannot follow the prescribed path because it does not align with God’s will for them, it creates distance from others and distance from God. It seems like something out of C.S. Lewis’s book, The Screwtape Letters, where the enemy has devised a system to ensure that we all fall into disarray.
I think we can do better. We can celebrate millions of ways to follow God. We can believe in a diverse, abundant, and creative God. We can celebrate and honor where we have been, we can be grateful for where we are now, and we can be excited about where we are going.
Autumn is a season of letting go. The trees drop their leaves and the flowers fade, but only to create room for what is next. With God, there is always more to come. There is always another season, another chapter, for evermore.
Sometimes that means creating a new way. That is the entire story of Jesus. God created a new way for us to know God. God opened the way for those outside Israel’s religion to be a part of it too. We can trust that God keeps opening doors and creating new pathways to know, follow, and love God. God loves each of us around the globe personally and intimately. We can trust that this loving and faithful God will help us each find our way. God can help us create new ways and even invite others on the journey as well. To quote the popular bracelet, “God is big enough.” God is abundant and loving and faithful. Abundantly more….
When I first started my blog in 2016, I purchased the domain for my name, marissaneil.com. I wasn’t ready to use it then but I had an inkling that it may turn into more than a blog someday. I had what felt like a divine nudge to dream about it and plan for it. Until then I have been using seekingandstumbling.com. Though I still do not know exactly where it is all going, I feel the nudge to start using my name as the domain, like authors and artists do. I don’t know that I am either, but the nudge is strong. It feels vulnerable in good and bad ways. I have always been vulnerable in my writing, but I could always hide behind an anonymous blog. Now there is no hiding, it’s just me.
On WordPress, there is an option for customization of your “Site Identity” where you choose a title, a photo, and a tagline. I don’t know about you but that is a lot of pressure, to present your “identity” in a snapshot and a few words. I have played around with using my name as the title and my artwork as the photo, but having my name in bold letters is a struggle for me and having my artwork on display is a bit uncomfortable. And there is also the tagline. I have considered keeping “Seeking and Stumbling,” since it is familiar. It is what got me here, yet, it no longer fits. It’s like wearing a coat that is too small. I can’t move or breath in the way I feel called to. I feel called to express myself and share my life and my faith in a new way.
Guess what? That is allowed. Sometimes we get stuck or held back by what is comfortable or what is familiar. That can be safe space, yet sometimes we are invited beyond that, through that space to something else, something more. It is like growing pains. It is uncomfortable for a while but it is growth. And becoming. I am still growing. I am still becoming. I am finding my way.
The concept of seeking and stumbling has been a part of my way. But framing all of my explorations, detours, and U-turns as stumbling no longer fits. Those are just a part of my way. That is how I seek, that is how I connect with God, with others, and with myself. That is my way.
How are you finding your way, your individual path with God?
I’d love to hear about it.
~Marissa
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ~ Isaiah 43:19
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. ~ Psalm 119:105
My final reflection for my Seminary course on the Holy Spirit:
Shortly after starting to put together some thoughts and some notes on creativity and the Holy Spirit, I discovered that this topic was bigger than the parameters of this assignment. I feel I could study the intersection of these two concepts indefinitely. Therefore, for the purposes of this essay I have chosen to stick to the themes that have surfaced in my life in regards to this holy intersection: resistance, hospitality, and permission. Resistance because it has been so dominant in my spiritual life as well as my creative life. Hospitality because it created a pathway and a process for moving through to something more. Permission because it is what I crave most in my spirituality and my creativity. Christine Valters Paintner talks about the creative and the spiritual journey as being a spiral way rather than a linear one.[1]I agree and as such I do not progress only one time through resistance then hospitality and then permission. Instead, I return over and over again to each stage as I spiral toward the center of my true self.
Creativity
In my professional career I worked in banking and project management. However, if I look back over my life, I have always dabbled with creativity without fully embracing it. In those seemingly uncreative positions, I found myself developing new ways to be more efficient and helping employees become the best versions of themselves. I designed databases and spreadsheets. I rewrote training manuals and restructured departments. Even as a child I loved arts and crafts. One year I inherited a set of Barbie dolls and even though I wasn’t much into playing with them, I really enjoyed designing and building furniture for their imaginary home. I used my father’s tools to build a couch, a table and chairs, and a refrigerator (and since the only paint we had was light blue, everything matched). As a young adult this creativity morphed into occasionally making gifts for family and friends. One year I realized I had forgotten to purchase wrapping paper for Christmas gifts, so I took this opportunity to create my own and painted gift boxes and paper. Once I had children, I appreciated the opportunity to do children’s crafts with them. We would make cards for family birthdays. We would make gifts for grandmothers on Mother’s Day. Whenever friends came over to play, we would plan a craft to make with them. I even volunteered in the Kindergarten Art Appreciation program at my daughters’ school, even when they were no longer in kindergarten. Then my children grew older and while they were still creative, they no longer needed me to create projects for them. I struggled at this time to create my own artistic practices.
Resistance
“Just remember, in choosing, that we often resist what we most need.” – Julia Cameron[2]
“When resistance kicks in, do you listen to what it has to say to you, making space for its wisdom?” – Christine Valters Paintner[3]
“For most of us, the idea that the creator encourages creativity is a radical thought. We tend to think, or at least fear, that creative dreams are egotistical, something that God wouldn’t approve of for us.” – Julia Cameron [4]
My mother is an artist, writer, and poet and my father is an engineer. Both are creative, yet in different ways. Somehow, I had come to believe the world accepts engineering as the appropriate and acceptable way to express creativity in the world. It is responsible. Art always seemed irresponsible. It is too free, too creative. There are no rules or boundaries. It is easy to get out of control. I crave control, purpose, and function. Art does not always seem useful and I believed I was expected to be useful. I have really struggled with that expectation in recent years in my writing and my journaling. Is it useful? Yes, but maybe in an unconventional way. Maybe it is useful as self-expression or as a spiritual practice. Maybe it is useful because it keeps me sane, it keeps me in touch with myself and with my creator and therefore in a better position to love others well. Maybe it is useful after all. I find myself having this wrestling match over and over again. I can hear the arguing in my head:
“Be creative.”
vs.
“No. It doesn’t make sense. It is a waste of time, a waste of resources, and a waste of energy. Why should I? What purpose does it serve?”
I wonder where this resistance comes from. In the past, just to avoid the argument I would decide to not create. I was willing to give up my craft rather than defend or explain myself. It was easier to deny my creativity than defend it.
I am realizing that not only have I been resistant to creative ideas that stir within me but I have also been resistant to the work that goes with creativity. There is toil involved. I have learned to be creative when writing in my journal. After I have let that creativity flow, I have a tendency to want that to stand on its own. Sometimes it does and sometimes it requires further work. In wanting to share my writing, there is always editing to be done. There is a tendency to want to skip that step and just receive the gift of the creativity without doing the work of co-creating a final project to share. Even as I worked through my many pages of notes for this paper, I was resistant to organizing the notes, editing, and writing transitions. However, I have found that when I am willing to put in the work of co-creating, taking what the spirit gives me and working further on it to create something new, it is very fulfilling and usually produces something that is beyond myself, something that also serves others in some way.
Hospitality
“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” – Piet Mondrian[5]
“I learned to get out of the way and let that creative force work through me.” – Julia Cameron[6]
“An intentional practice of hospitality calls you to make room within yourself for all the inner voices that rise up in your creative process and contemplative prayer.” – Christine Valters Paintner[7]
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” – Hebrews 13:2 NRSV
I remember being surprised to learn that many creatives (artist, writers, etc.) experience their creativity as a movement of the Holy Spirit. I first read about this in Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. The concept was very freeing to me because one of the roadblocks to embracing my own creative desires was feeling like I was wholly responsible for coming up with something original. Now I feel like it is more about releasing something that is passing through me but also bringing something of myself out with it. An expression of sorts rather than a wholly new creation of my own making. I had been treating my creativity as a stranger and was not being welcoming to the Spirit moving in me. I was not offering inner hospitality to my own creativity. As I began to understand it as a movement of the Spirit, I began to open myself to it.
Now I love the idea of partnering with God, The Creator, in creative acts. Similar to the job of the scribe, sometimes my role is merely to share the message, whatever that might be, to express the idea, to create the art. I remember years ago discussing with my pastor at the time that I frequently had messages, stories, and explanations running through my mind, like a ticker tape at the bottom of a news broadcast. They felt like conversations but only in my mind. My pastor indicated that I reminded him of a writer he admired. It had never occurred to me to write these conversations down. It had never occurred to me that this might be how writers experience their ideas. It had never occurred to me that these ideas could be a movement of the Holy Spirit. Shortly after this revelation, I started a blog so that I had a place to share these conversations. I was surprised that other people were interested in what had been rolling around in my mind all these years. I was surprised that others experienced God in what I shared. Since then, I have been practicing hospitality to the flow of creativity moving in me, the Spirit moving in me. I am grateful for the opportunity this summer to practice this flow in the reflective papers I have been assigned in this course. I have also practiced this flow in my recent creative project of decorating my church for Vacation Bible School. I was intentional about not over analyzing or second-guessing my creative ideas. I just welcomed them and let them rise out of me. I am learning to trust this flow from the Spirit outside of my personal journal.
Permission
“Is it not the distinguishing characteristic of the human being that in the hot race of evolution he pauses for a moment to paint on the cave walls at Lascaux or Altamira those brown-and-red deer and bison which still fill us with amazed admiration and awe?” – Rollo May[8]
“We express our being by creating. Creativity is a necessary sequel to being.” – Rollo May[9]
“You do not need anybody’s permission to live a creative life.” – Elizabeth Gilbert [10]
Books like The Courage to Create[11], The Call to Create[12], The Right to Write[13], andThe Artist’s Way[14]are all trying to explain, defend, and create space for the artist’s journey, for the creative life. A daunting task…like parting the sea. How do we hold back the sea so people can live their creative lives, their diverse lives, their beautiful God-given lives? The more I try to list things that are creative, the more I realize how everything seems creative. It may be easier to try to list what isn’t creative rather than what is. It seems that we are a creative species, that we were actually created to create.
As I started to seek permission for my own creativity, I begin to recognize creativity in scripture starting with Genesis where God invites Adam into the creating process by asking him to name the animals. This invitation continues with God placing Adam in the garden to co-create vegetation and then again with Eve as she is given the ability to co-create humanity. In Exodus, artisans are filled with the Spirit and gathered to do work for the Lord.[15] Creativity resounds in the various forms of literature represented in the Bible: poetry, prayers, narratives, epistles, parables, etc. The four gospels are creative in their telling of Jesus’ life. Why would we ever consider that creativity and artistry is outside the work of the spirit? Why would we ever think that creativity would be something frowned upon by God?
Coming to terms with this, I want to help others be true to their creative selves, whether in art, in self-expression, or in faith. We are all still co-creating with God. We are all still discovering all of the options our abundant God has created. It can be a bit scary and it can feel out of control, but it is in God’s control. I am learning to trust God more. God is better at this than I am so I am trying to let go, listen, follow, and then join in. I am trying to work with the Spirit rather than against it. When I do, the magic happens. It is glorious. I accomplish things I never thought I could do. Even in something as small as using my creativity to decorate my church for Vacation Bible School, I put in this little bit and God blows it up into something amazing. Hundreds of children learn about Jesus. Youth learn how to be their own creative wonderful selves at church. Adults learn to let go and see what God can do when they release the reins a bit. It keeps giving and growing, as God’s witness to the ends of the Earth.
Vocation
”Our calling is deeply connected to our creativity…Vocation is a daily invitation to be fully who we are and to allow our lives to unfold in ways that are organic to this deepest identity.” – Christine Valters Paintner[16]
“As creatures with the capacity of consciousness and choice, we can cooperate with and contribute to the greater process of creation, or we can deny or refuse our vocation and faith to reach our won protentional.” – Linda Schierse Leonard[17]
“But if you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also, you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole.” – Rollo May[18]
I feel called to live creatively. I am discovering that my vocation is not necessary some new job or career, but just living my life as truly as I can. What I mean by truly is aligning with the Spirit and with my true self the best I can, in everyday tasks as well as in relationships, new and old. I am finding vocation in my family life, in friendships, in my church community, and in the projects with which I am involved. I had been thinking that God’s call meant I would go a completely different direction and start some new life or new career. What I am realizing is that part of my call, of my vocation, is to live the life I already have as truly as I can. (Maybe I really mean “holy”, but that is a loaded word, so I will stick with “truly.”) True to God’s Word, true to God’s Spirit, true to who God created me to be, true to loving others, and true to caring for this world. I think that is the best I can do on this earth. If there is more to it, I will have to trust God to show me. For now, this is my focus, my call, and my life.
Final Thoughts
As a society, we tend to want everyone to be the same rather than honoring each other’s distinctive gifts. As the body of Christ, we are all unique with unique purposes that work together as one. As the Casting Crowns song declares:
“It is the rhythm of the dancers
That gives the poets life
It is the spirit of the poets
That gives the soldiers strength to fight
It is fire of the young ones
It is the wisdom of the old
It is the story of the poor man
That’s needing to be told”[19]
I have been releasing my resistance, offering hospitality, and seeking permission to be creative in art, in self-expression, and in my spirituality. I am leaning more into creative projects, into establishing a daily creative practice, and into my call to spiritual formation. The more I open myself up to creativity the more I open myself up to God’s Holy Spirit. I have been focusing on the practice of showing up in creativity and in spirituality, showing up and being open to the movement of the Spirit within me. As I do, I feel closer to God and closer to who God created me to be, and I am experiencing the extreme joy of co-creating with my Creator.
~~~~~~~~~~
Notes
[1]Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred(Notre Dame: Sorin Books, 2018), 155. Kindle Edition.
[2]Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way,(New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), 4. Kindle Edition.
[3]Christine Valters Paintner, The Artist’s Rule(Notre Dame: Sorin Books, 2011), 74. Kindle Edition.
[4]Cameron, 1.
[5]Ibid., xix.
[6]Ibid., xviii.
[7]Paintner, The Artist’s Rule, 5.
[8]Rollo May, The Courage to Create (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1975), 7.
[9]Ibid., 8.
[10]Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic(New York: Penguin Random House, 2015), 86. Kindle Edition.
[11]May.
[12]Linda SchierseLeonard, The Call to Create (New Orleans: Spring Journal Books, 2009).
[13]Julia Cameron, The Right to Write (New York: Penguin Random House, 1998).
[14]Cameron, The Artist’s Way.
[15]Exodus 31, 36
[16]Paintner, The Artist’s Rule, 142.
[17]Leonard, 3.
[18]May, 12.
[19]John Mark Hall and Matthew West, City on the Hill, (Essential Music Publishing, 2011), http://www.lyricfind.com.
I was invited to write a poem of instruction. Maybe some words of wisdom to my older self. Something I want to remind myself later to remember. Maybe on how to be a pilgrim or an artist or a creative or a monk, or how to be a writer or a contemplative…
I am not sure I know…
Mary Oliver says “Pay attention”
so see, hear, feel, taste, touch, perceive
go slow so you don’t miss anything
Record, she says “Tell about it”
God tells me to proclaim and witness
though I am not sure what that means
share, I guess
Perceive the sun setting
the dimming light
feel it, see it, taste it
What does a sunset taste like?
Be open
to both new
and old
Pack lightly
trust that the journey will provide
yet always bring pen and paper
Bring friends
and meet friends
and also leave friends
sometimes not everyone can go
where you need to go
Wonder
wonder day
and night
And then follow
be an adventurer
the labels don’t matter
go where the wonder
takes you
Take your faith with you
not as tether
but as a light
Remember
remember what you know
and be willing to add to
that stockpile of inner wisdom
You will be afraid
go anyway
find a way to go anyway
you can be afraid at home
or you can be afraid
on the adventure of a lifetime
pick the latter
Eat good food
whenever you can
Be willing to cry
and acknowledge
that you will probably
stub your toe
a few times along the way
no worries
keep going
Don’t always look outside yourself
look inside too
sometimes what you are looking for
is already there
Be willing to lighten
the load as necessary
somethings will be
too heavy to carry
it is okay
to just drop them
and let them lie
Be kind
and loving to yourself
you have never
been here before
show grace
accept grace
And have fun
be silly
laugh
and then laugh some more
even when people are watching
who knows
they may laugh with you
and how wonderful is that.
I am asked: “What is your inner source of orientation? What is your inner compass?”
So I begin to wonder….hmmm….what guides me?
To be honest,
curiosity points the way.
I follow until
the road gets tough
then I ache to
turn back.
Who wins? Comfort or curiosity?
On a cold day, maybe comfort.
When I have the energy, maybe curiosity.
So, is curiosity my inner compass?
Sounds dangerous but true.
Sometimes I wish for
something more noble
like wisdom
or faith
or even courage.
Truthfully, I am a shy adventurer.
Always on the lookout
for another shy adventurer
to explore with.
Someone whose courage
I can borrow, or whose
wisdom I can follow
and whose faith will
keep us on the path.
Being shy makes
companioning difficult.
Needing alone time, quiet,
solitude, but friendship too.
The paradox, the balancing
of the paradox.
Maybe someday I’ll have the
wisdom, courage, and faith
to explore on my own.
Maybe someday I’ll trust that
the companions are
already waiting for me
just up the road a bit.
Maybe someday I’ll take
that one step that
leads to the rest
of my life.
Today, it seems, I’ll just
write about
the dream of it all.
I have two tween-age daughters. We’ll call the 10 year old Twirly, and the 12 year old Booky (soon to be 13 year old when she will be referred to as the Bratty Teenager.) Booky, as practice for her soon to come bratty teenage years, has picked up a new favorite saying: “I don’t like it.” She says this all the time.
Me: Have some breakfast.
Her: I don’t like it.
Me: Here, try this tea.
Her: I don’t like it.
Me: Here’s a million dollars.
Her: I don’t like it.
You get my point. And her younger sister, Twirly, who is always trying to be like her big sister, has picked up on it too.
It makes me crazy, because I tend to be somewhat of an optimist and an adventurist, always looking on the bright side and up for trying something new. That is probably exactly why they say it, because they know it makes me crazy! I have tried to get them to stop. But since it is a somewhat trivial offense, I didn’t believe my tried and true form of punishment (like taking away their screens) was appropriate. So I had to get creative.
My girls are both writers. They are both very creative and artistic. In fact, it was their interest and dedication to writing that inspired me to give it a try too. So this gave me an idea. Let’s try some “Creative Punishment”.
So, I started with Booky, the biggest offender. I told her that every time she said, “I don’t like it”, she had to write something for me. And I get to pick the format and the topic. She had just finished writing a Shakespearean Sonnet for a school assignment, so I threatened that to get her attention.
True to form, we were having our normal after school chat about what we had planned for the evening, and she says, “I don’t like it.” And then her eyes get big and she cries, “Nooooo, not the Sonnet.” I grin, but decide to start smaller to convince her to play along.
I say, “So, you owe me a poem…about…a dinosaur.” She protested, “What?! No! I don’t want to write a story about a dinosaur!” Then I added, “It must take up the entire page, so choose your page wisely.”
So Booky is a bit of an over-acheiver…when not at home, that is. She gets mad when she doesn’t get 100% on her school assignments. When she comes home from mission trips, the adults are always commenting on what a hard worker she is. But at home she tends to try to get by with the absolute bare minimum amount of effort. So when searching for her “page” for her dinosaur story, she chose an index card. An index card. This is the girl who complains when there is a page limit on her written assignments because she always wants to write more. I call her Booky, not only for the number of books she reads, but also for the number of books she is attempting to write (currently working on two fantasy novels, yes two). She writes parodies in her spare time, for fun, over 15 so far. But I get an index card.
So for the next offense I requested a Haiku.
Clever. But on the third offense, it really got fun. I asked for a story about an orange…and a hedgehog. I was really interested to see what Booky would come up with. Leave it to her, a Hufflepuff through and through, to turn it into a Harry Potter story…
Harry stared at the hedgehog. He knew the incantation, he knew the movement, but he couldn’t do it. But he had to. This would decide whether he passed 5th year. He raised his wand and took a big breath. “Orangeocallyous!” he exclaimed. POOF! On his desk now sat an orange. He picked it up. He had done it! He would move on to 6th year. He tossed it up in the air and caught it. “Squeak!” it cried in protest. Wait. Oranges don’t squeak. He looked down at it and sticking out from the side was a little hedgehog face. “Noooooooo!”
Cute! And then, I asked Twirly to help clean up her room. “I don’t like it.” Busted! I requested a story about a baby chinchilla (we were once big Diego fans). Here’s her story…
One day there was a chinchilla named Rebecca. Rebecca had a cookie. She loved cookies, there was something about this cookie that disgusted her. She stared at it with a curled nose and a snarl. Suddenly there was a sound coming from in the bushes just below Rebecca’s tree house. She put the cookie down on the table, ran outside and studied the ground. There was no sign of a predator or her mom, who she had been waiting for to come home from Seattle. Then as she opened the spruce wood door to return to her home she saw her cookie hop off the table and out the door… TO BE CONTINUED WITH MY NEXT PUNISHMENT!
Love it! Leave it to Twirly to already be planning for the next offense.
So the “I don’t like its” have decreased. But my husband caught Booky in one more, and he pulled out the big guns…a Sonnet…about a chocolate malt. This may end up being my favorite form of “punishment”!
My husband got his sonnet, and we haven’t heard the “I don’t like it” since. I’ll have to apply it to another annoying bad habit (like “Your face”! Middleschoolers have the weirdest expressions.), so we can get more fun stories. Stay tuned….
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
~ Psalm 51:10
Drip…..drip…..drip
like a faucet dripping
my thoughts
Drip…..drip…..drip…..drip
not a complete flow
Just drip…..drip…..drip
the pattern draws me to sleepiness and heavy eyelids
that same pattern bobs me awake
Drip…..drip…..drip
I cannot help but be annoyed
And then the puppy comes in with her fluffy fur and wet kisses. Just enough weight on my lap to help me feel grounded. And the annoying drip has stopped.
I love creative practices and spiritual practices. So last year, I was drawn to the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. And, as with many of my good books, I only made it through the Introduction. The book is a 12-week study, or really a 12-week practice, to help release your inner creativity. But I never made it to Week 1. But not because I didn’t love the book, but because I so loved the very first tool explained in the Introduction, The Morning Pages (or mind dump as I like to call it). It is “three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness”. The book further explains, “Pages are meant to be, simply, the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind. Nothing is too petty, too silly, too stupid, or too weird to be included.”
It’s a mind dump. To get all the junk out. Just putting pen to paper and letting it all flow (or drip) out.
So as I continue my morning “mind dumps”, I won’t apologize for what ends up on my pages, but I will apologize now for what may end up here shared with you.
Thank you for coming on the journey with me…stumbles and all.
p.s. If you want to work through The Artist’s Way with me, I would love that! And it will be easy for you to catch up, because I am still only on the Introduction!
My Prayer
Dear Loving and Faithful God –
Thank you for minds and words and pen and paper. Thank you for fluffy dogs and wet puppy kisses. Thank you for connection with You and with others. I pray that I always find You in my Morning Pages and everywhere else I spend time today.
Amen.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
~Jeremiah 29:13
I have been wrestling with this ‘writing’ thing. I have been writing everyday, just not posting everyday. I am unsure of what to share. So today I have decided just to share my truth, because that is all any of us really have to share. Here is yesterday’s journal entry…
February 6, 2017
I am curious about the ‘writing’ thing. My hand, my mind, my heart, my soul want to write, but what to write? Just my journal for now. It seems purposeless, wasteful, but it’s what I love. It seems like a waste of paper, of ink, of plastic pens, of time. But it is my favorite part of the day. It’s my communion with You, Lord. It’s how I ‘hear’ You. It’s how I release the clutter from my mind and my heart and my soul. It’s how I dream. It’s how I catch glimpses of me…of who I was, of who I am, of who I am becoming, of who I crave to be, of who You created me to be.
My orange pen spills across the page with so many words. What to do with all of these words? Do they have purpose? Do they need to have purpose? Is the purpose for me? Is the purpose for You, Lord? For others? Why are there so many words? Not even thoughts or ideas really. Just words…flying around like the key scene in Harry Potter. Words with wings all flying around. Seems like chaos, but gentler. Feels like love, and enlightenment, and joy, and relationship.
I love words, and the emotions and feelings and connections they are. They are these things for me. Why does this seem so new and foreign, yet so old and familiar at the same time? Of me, but not of me?
I really like the orange ink on the page. I can taste the refreshing orange as I write. The orange is not as dark and jarring as the other contrasting colors I usually use. Fun and springy. And juicy.
My mind is slowing and the Peace settles in. The unknowing is still there, but it is peaceful, not frenetic. It lets me know that I can handle the unknowing. I can move forward without all the answers. I can breathe and I can see what is right in front of me. I can’t see everything, but just right in front of me. And that is enough for now. Enough to be able to smile and say, “Okay God, what’s next?”
The words slow and I can just Be, and Listen, and hopefully Hear.
Amen.
But the Lord said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
~ 2 Corinthians 12:9a
finding my way 