I’ve been away a while, haven’t I? Didn’t realize it had been five months… Time is flying these days. I’ve got to practice writing. The discipline slips away just like any other activity and it is tough to hone again.
Most of the time, life feels so cyclical. I learn and forget the same things over and over. When it comes round again, especially here, I think to myself that certainly no one wants to hear these words again. Why would you want to hear about how I’m trying to un-busy myself? How I’m trying to write more? How I still cherish all the same things in this life, knowing that they are gifts that come and go? But still! Here I am again.
Read MoreFact of life: It is hard to create.
It’s tough to keep moving through the blockages, to challenge yourself to be innovative, to act when subsisting is easier. I think that for many of us, the lulls between booming essays and satisfying works snatches our focus. We are weighed down during the in-between time, discouraged by all the goodness we aren’t producing. We’re even discouraged when our creations are duller than we think they ought to be. We’re seeking perfection in every little thing we think of, put our hands to, talk of. We expect to resemble the numerous Instagram-worthy, faultless images that we scroll through daily.
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It’s a blank page. It’s always a blank page. And yet every time it’s turned into a beautiful story. Even though it’s often far from eloquent, far from coherent, far from perfection, it’s a story. Your story, my story. Any word poured out on a page, any syllable uttered from the mouth, any brush spread across a canvas, any root stretched a little deeper. They are utterances of our stories. And they matter.
There are a handful of word artists that I deeply respect. For some, I haven’t even read all of one of their books. But the theme coming from each of their voices is that your art matters. Your art that my not feel like art at all? It is. It matters because it releases your person as you really are. It leads you to notice the beautiful and creative around you. It leads you to express, release, and give thanks. It leads you to the King. Every little step of the process is important, so much more important than anyone can make you realize unless you believe the Creator Himself. I read Shauna Niequist, Emily Freeman, Hannah Brencher, and so many more, and in one way or another I’m redirected to my King in the purest, most sensible way my heart knows. I think that is art accomplished.
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