Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Recovery

So . . . I have been thinking about some of my favorite writers and I've realized that one of the reasons they are among my favorites is that they are writers who write about writing . . . more than writing they write about creativity. Writing is one expression of that, but not its only expression. . . I believe they all reference, if not deal directly with that reality - My list in order of discovery includes Madeleine L'Engle, Natalie Goldberg, Julie Cameron, Anne Lamott and now Elizabeth Gilbert whose book Eat, Pray, Love I enjoyed with half the nation a couple of years ago.

Writing feels like such an indulgence that still I spend more time reading about it than doing it. However, recently while taking a Grief, Trauma and Crisis Counseling class with H. Norman Wright I was reminded that writing, for most people, is an important part of the healing process. Telling one's story is apparently a healthy thing to do. The last few years have been a time of healing for me, however, oddly enough instead of redoubling my efforts at what I know is a therapuetic practice (most of my life I have been a committed journaler) I have instead resisted the pull of the pen and the page. What that resistance required was a disconnection, a severance from the energy that is found in self-expression. What that resistance achieved was more than distance from my writing soul - but also from the passion that led me to my vocation. congregational church ministry.

Ministry, I am realizing began for me as a creative endeavor. It used to be - in the early days - a sincere expression of passion, an irresistable commitment, an opportunity to be all I am and apply an admittedly awkward (for a woman) gift palette. During my first years in minister there were so many times when I thought things like "Okay, my life is starting to make sense now."

More recently my life hasn't made so much sense. I have still maintain a job in ministry, still feel blessed by the work I still feel called to do . . . but something is different. I think I may be understanding what that something is after watching a video of Elizabeth Gilbert (my most recent favorite writer) speak about creativity and its connection to an other source. I've listened/watched the video twice and today have read through the transcript and I have been taken on an interesting journey of self-reflection.

When I began studies that would provide me with some academic preparation for ministry and even as I accepted my first position - all the while the pieces and passion are falling into place for me, people who truly love and care about me are asking (as they asked Ms. Gilbert) "Aren't you afraid that . . . .(all sorts of things)" and like Ms. Gilbert the answer was "yes." Yes, I am afraid I will make people uncomfortable. Yes, I am afraid I will get hurt. Yes, I am afraid it will be hard on my family. . . . Yet at the time I was in a place where I refused to let fear be the controlling force in my life. There was a bravery that came from a partnership with an "other" that I know in my Christian heart was/is God/Holy Spirit . . . . but over time and pain, somehow, I see now that I DID let fear (just as described in the opening pages of The Alchemist -the only pages I actually read in the book) suppress passion and creativity. I shut off the connection to the "other" - to the muse, my daemon, the genie assigned to me. Quite frankly I have trod a scary path of uncertainty the past few years . . . Ms. Gilbert seemed to describe what lay ahead if I didn't open myself up, offer myself up, again to the powers that be -- call them Alla, Ole, Jahweh -- whatever : every person who acknowledges his/her creative center knows they are there . . . to whisper in our ears, speak to our spirits, hide in our hearts . . . Her words echoed what I have read in the writings of Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way and the Right to Write, in Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones . . . . nothing new under the sun I suppose. Except that today I felt kind of new.

I am trying not to be tentative about my commitment to "show up" and "do my part" . . . I am trying to rekindle the fire that I hope is smoldering enough to burn again . . . . which oddly enough or maybe not oddly at all is similar to the theme of a conference day for women in ministry that I wll be attending on Friday. Suddenly the theme verses have even more meaning . . . "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." (2 Tim 1:6-7)

I am hoping that at some point in my life I will look back on this point in my life and see that it was a turning point toward the light.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Music Memory

Listening to the Brandi Carlise station on Pandora has awakened my music memory and made my mind and my fingers itchy to record the here and now . . . the voices of Tracy Chapman and Rachael Yamagata (who I've never heard of until "Duet" played) have taken me to times and places I've been in my life . . . This latest blogspot (I think I have 3 others, but I can't figure out how to post on them) is aptly titled because last 7 years of my life have been a pilgrimage - a journeying from one place to another, physically, emotionally, spiritually. This last stop on the physical map has involved 7 hearth moves. Seven times I have packed up my two youngest and moved them. Seven times they have had to adjust to new sleeping arrangements and schedules . . . and we're not done yet. There is at least more . . . and that makes me tired.

There are blessings and curses to being on the move. To never actually settling. Today I am trying to be grateful for the blessings. I think I'll count them after my nap.