Mornings are getting harder and harder for me. Today was the third time this week that I was not able to get up when I should have.

Mornings and I used to be old friends. I wake before the light with no alarm. I would look at my children asleep in their beds, do morning devotions, read emails, and then go back to sleep. I enjoyed this time before the sun was up. And now I just can't seem to do it.

It's that moment just after waking that tries me.

I mean to begin each day by turning my thoughts God-ward. By breathing thanks for another morning as soon as I know it has come. By taking a few deep breaths measured by short prayers: "Author of everthing (in), enfold me in Your love (out)." Or, "Remember Your mercies, Lord (in). In Your love, remember me (out)."

Some mornings I do just that, and I manage to make a pretty good beginning.

Other mornings my thoughts are all over the place. They skitter frantic and undirected like squirrels on a lawn, twitchy with anxiety. Do you ever feel that way?

I often think of a coming deadline or a paper I am writing or a worrisome conflict.

I imagine possible disasters spun from nothing or of danger to those I love. My heart begins to race before I've done a thing, and I feel helpless to restore its pre-waking, metronome rhythm.

I know how quickly things can go wrong, and I feel more defenseless before the battle happens than when it actually comes.

The morning skirmish is one of imagined scenarios. Imagination is a powerful thing.

C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, "...the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings, coming in out of the wind."

Yes to the larger, stronger, quieter life that flows from Christ Jesus my Lord. Yes to coming in out of the wind. Yes for today, for this morning's skirmish. Yes.
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But I will sing of your strength;
    I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
    and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
    for you, O God, are my fortress,
    the God who shows me steadfast love.
(Psalm 59: 16-17)

I read a beautiful little book on Henri Matisse to my six year old last Sunday. The Iridescence of Birds by Patricia Maclachlan describes Henri's childhood.  His mother painted plates to hang on the wall with pictures of meadows, trees, rivers, and birds.  He gets to mix the colors.  He arranges fruit, flowers, and vegetables from the market on pleasing patterns on their kitchen table.  His mother hangs red carpets on the walls to give their home color.  And Henri raises pigeons.  Of course, he notices their colors as they move, fly, and flutter about.  

I imagine painters see, feel, breathe bursts of color. That pigments of every hue run through their veins, pulse in their chests. I imagine there are days they can’t not paint. Moments when their minds are a blur of brushstrokes waiting to break free, yearning to pour out a message through paint and canvas. That there is an image or emotion, landscape or lesson that must leak out in artistic expression before it is lost.

Musicians see, feel, breathe chords and melodies. Those notes and lyrics course through their bodies, syncopated rhythms dictate their hearts’ very beat. I imagine there are days they can’t not sing, compose, or play. Moments when their minds buzz with musical phrases, magical verses, harmonies, interludes, or stylistic attitudes. That there is a song that must be birthed through voice or instrument, inspiration that must move from conceptual feeling to tangible expression lest something in them be lost.

I don’t know these things to be true. I’m not a painter or composer. I’m not singer, songwriter, print maker, or piano player.

But if I had to put my money where my imagination is, I wouldn’t hesitate because of what I do know as an artist.

Yes, I am an artist.

I’m a writer.

My medium isn’t soft pastels or rhythmic runs; I don’t create with acrylics or arching melodies.

My art is made of words. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs strung together to tell the stories that vibrate across my heartstrings. I see the world not through color or song, but through description and analysis.

My mind begins to craft the retelling even as I’m in the middle of the living. It’s not contrived—it’s how I’m wired. It makes me come alive.

Surely writing, like all artistry, requires discipline and intentional focus. It’s not all creative inspiration just floating by. But one way I know I’m an artist is when I’m not trying to make art, but art is trying to make me.

The art I can’t not create.

The words can’t not write.

(The ESL teacher in me cringes at my repeated use of a double negative, but sometimes the incorrect is just plain right. There’s no truer way to say it.)

But there was an invitation to art I can't ignore.  Every week I try to create something.  Sometimes I can exhale the deep satisfaction of doing the thing God gave me to do. To make art. Not perfect masterpieces—no, messy blog posts, yes—but to get to know Him through the messy, mundane, beautiful process of making it.

God calls to me through my art.  The Word lived out calls to me.

Through my art I respond, and invite others to join with me.

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How has God used art in your life?  What does making art mean to you?

Put a child in a room with the right materials and the instruction to “create” and she will do just that.  From cardboard boxes, peanuts, and old socks, my children have created great ships, puppets, and castles.

The desire to create is not taught.  The world and everything in it is the workmanship of the Creator.  As created beings, we carry the image of God, not least of which is an innate urge called creativity. 

Creativity is a spiritual discipline that followers of Jesus have often ignored.  As far back as Genesis, God gave humanity an artistic assignment.  He asked Adam to name the animals and thus invited him into the creative process with himself, the Creator. 

Unfortunately, the beauty and order of creation were soon scarred; God, however, was not deterred. 

The story of Jesus is the mark of the creative master at work. Only divinity could take something as offensive as the Cross and use it to restore beauty.  He continues his redemptive plan by empowering us to join him in this creative work. 

The season of Pentecost gives us perfect example of this.  Jesus told his followers in John 16: 7, “It is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come.  If I go away, then I will send him to you.” And the Spirit came in power to an expectant group of Christ-followers (Acts 2), and the creative force embodied in one person, Jesus Christ, is now available to everyone. 

Peter quoted the prophet Joel to describe what has happened:

“In the last days,” God says, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.” (Acts 2:17)

And with these words, God’s creative spark ignites the hearts of men and women in a whole new way. 

God the creator now places his divine imprint on our spirits.  Pentecost shatters the glass ceiling of possibility.  The garden is now replaced with an upper room, and the new assignment goes beyond simply naming his creation to calling his creation into a a regenerative process, making old things new. 

Wherever there is a divide, God’s creativity in us leads us to build a bridge. 

Where there is doubt, God’s creativity in us stirs our imagination and produces faith. 

Wherever there is despair, God’s creativity in us pictures and pursues hope.

Where there is injustice, God’s creativity in us finds a way to show his love.

___________

The Creative Presence of God

Creator God, your Spirit enables our own creative abilities as we allow Him to work through our words, our hands, and our imaginations. 

We thank you for the beauty of created things, for pots and bowls moulded by the skillful manipulation of clay, for a portrait that captures the essence of a personality, for the written word which transports us to a faraway place, a poem that captures the raw emotion of a moment, a prayer that speaks to our heart and soul.

You are present wherever mankind opens its eyes to see, can be heard whenever mankind opens its ear to hear, can be felt as hands are outstretched in faith. -John Birch (Wales/Contemporary)

 

Loved this! Has a child ever stumped you with a great question?

Another week has gone by.  I was tired this week, but I laughed a lot! Students are great in creating humor in the classroom.  The highlight this week was a freshmen who asked me, "When was your first kiss?"  This, of course, was his idea of making get-to-know questions a little more interesting! It make the whole class crack up and brings me to another important point on humor.

9) Humor Fosters Good Relations and Builds Community
Humor and community are intimately linked.  In an intuitive way, we get the feeling that jokes are enjoyed only in the company of friends.  We tell them at school, at work, and at home.  They demonstrate intimacy trust, and sense or togetherness among those those who tell jokes and listen to them.  Thus, one of the important elements of humor is the intimate connection it fosters among the members of a community.  Through jokes we also show our affection for the people who are most important in our lives.  By joking with people we are, in effect, taking care of them and simultaneously telling them that we love them.  And in inviting more people to share the same joke, our community expands and becomes more open to the presence of others.

Jokes can affirm a group's identity and, at the same time, make that community far richer.  Yet the important of humor extends farther.  Jokes and humor may also be viewed as evidence of the changes that occur in the community over time.  They point to a shared history, a common past that consists of a litany of dangers, trials, and occasional bouts of real suffering and genuine hardship.  Humor does more than "take the edge off" these rough times.  It literally reverses the sentiment of despair into its opposite: hope.  Humor performs the Janus task of looking backwards and forwards at the same time.  It recalls the past, and it sets it squarely before us.  Humor, the language of hope and joy, turns our eyes more resolutely toward the future.  By telling a joke, we affirm that our relationships are vitally healthy and ongoing, and thus open to change, to development, to continual deepening - in short, jokes open our lives and our communities to God.

10) Humor Opens Our Minds
 Laughing releases endorphins, which helps us to relax.  When we relax and feel less threatened, we more able to listen and to lear.  By relaxing listeners, laughters can help get a message across.  And, it may help us think more broadly or creatively. It may even give us spiritual insight like in the following story.

A pastor is giving spiritual direction to an older man who was practical, hardworking, and efficient.  He was getting older, and he was becoming frustrated.  As aging slowed him down, he felt less "productive."  A big part of the problem, both in prayer and daily life, was an overemphasis on "results."

The pastor asked the older man to pray using the image of Jesus as a young man between the ages of twelve and thirty, before he started his public ministry.  During those years, as far as is know, Jesus was not preaching or performing miracles.  He was simply working in a carpentry shop, plying his trade and living a simple life.

At one point, as the older man imagined watching Jesus working in his carpentry shop, he found himself saying to Jesus, "Why don't you start healing people now?  You're wasting all this time!  You're not very efficient!"

When he recounted this to the pastor, the pastor said, "You told Jesus that he wasn't productive?" The older man smiled and began to laugh.  That moment let him relax, pray in a more relaxed way and led him to see himself and others as a "human being" not a "human doing."

Laughter can be a sign of being freed from old ways of thinking, from being bound to old habits.  It was a sign of God's liberation.

I have been counting gifts for over one year now.  I started this on Christmas day last year after reading Ann Voscamp's '1000 Gifts'.  With my whole heart, I endorse both reading her book and counting your own gifts over the next year.  Let's celebrate life and all of its beauty together.

Highlights from this month's list of gifts have been very special.  I saw some birds sitting on a snow covered tree singing praises (similar to the picture above).  My sons smiling and laughing are always good to boost my spirit.  My husband's thoughtfulness of a hot water bottle on my aching back.  Playful 'talks' with the baby.  Good meals with family and friends.  

Have you noticed that these things are not big?  These gifts are small things that warmed my heart, caught my attention, and let me notice the beauty in the everyday things.  What richness!

This is not to say that life is always good.  Sometimes I am amazed and paralyzed by my inadequacies, weaknesses, and attitude.  But isn't this the point?  When I can only see myself, I need to look around me to see goodness, light, love, and God.

Christmas day is a reminder that God is with us.  He was born in a barn filled with mud, muck, hay, pigs, and other animals.  He reaches down into our messy, mud-filled lives and does His best to get our attention.  

The beauty of this that I don't fully grasp is that He has chosen me.  Me?  My shame and inadequacies as a mother, wife, teacher, lover, friend, writer, cook, and occasionally, an artist, He knows me very well.  He changes me.  As I count gifts, as I become more and more grateful for life around me, He transforms me.  He is filling me with love, light, patience, and grace.  He is with me.

Isn't that the point of Christmas? God is with us.