writing

The Creative Spirit: Waiting

Steve · February 21, 2015 · 16 Comments

It’s a cold, cold, cold morning here in America’s Midwest, and the snow and ice outside my window are begging me to stay inside today, nudging me toward my chair by the fire, toward a time of prayer and waiting.

So much of prayer, like so much of the creative process, is in fact about waiting. But it is not a passive waiting as much as it is a time of expectation that something will happen, a hidden promise that revelation or inspiration will come if we leave ourselves open to that secret and mystical movement of God in our lives.

And yet, sometimes it just doesn’t seem to work. Sometimes we sit and wait and nothing happens. No words, no ideas. Our hands won’t move across the keyboard, the pen sits idle in our grasp, the paintbrush remains dry.

So what do we do when our prayer life or our creative process come up dry? Rather than wringing our hands or — even worse — giving up, our call is to something gentler and more faithful. God asks us to sit and wait, to keep coming back with the knowledge and expectation that the divine presence remains, whether we sense it or not, whether our time of prayer or creativity seems fruitful or not. With a very loud silence, God reminds us that our time together is not about what gets accomplished; it’s about our time together, our shared and intermingled presence.

I was reminded of all this upon reading a poem this week by Rev. Tom Schoenherr, a retired Lutheran pastor, spiritual director, and inspired writer and blogger. Tom’s poem, below, speaks to this “gnawing at the soul” that we can sometimes feel in the depth of dark and cold winter. You can check out more of his writing at his website, The Deeper Journey.

Today,
Snow blankets the scenery,
White smoke pours from chimneys,
Writing gnaws at my soul,
No words to pray
Today.
Longing for peace-filled thoughts,
Hoping for new life,
Doubting your presence,
No words to pray
Today,
Where comes the Spirit?
Where come the sighings?
Where lie deep thoughts?
Where comes the crying?
Today,
My mind settles in,
My spirit centers my soul,
I rest my open hands upon
My knees. I wait,
I listen.
You are here
Today.

Speaking of waiting, yesterday Sue and I welcomed our second grandchild. She is perfect in every way and the spitting image of her big brother, Noah. Welcome to the world Kate Olivia Givens, we’ve been waiting for you…

Ask yourself in silence: How do you cope with those times when God and inspiration seem distant?

The Creative Spirit: What If?

Steve · February 14, 2015 · 14 Comments

reflection — What if I missed this moment? SJG photo.

Asking “what if” is one of the most creative and contemplative questions we can ask ourselves. How many books, poems, paintings, songs, plays or other creative works have come to life because the artist dared to ask, “what if?”

“What if” is how we find meaning. It is how we begin to make sense of the senseless and read between the lines of reality and the mundane to discover something new and rare. “What if I created an imaginary world of dragons and elves and hobbits, of secret doors and alternative worlds?” ask imaginative and deeply spiritual writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. “What might that world teach us about ourselves? About God?”

What if I created a seamless and perfect form from a rough block of marble or brought to stage the complexities of life, family, addiction, love, hate, sin, God? What if I put paint to canvas or paper (or clicked the shutter at just the right moment of time, color and light) and captured the sacred in the midst of ordinary existence? What if I could make it seem like dancers were flying through the air or sang a song that would speak to your heart and your very real human condition?

And what if I could do all these things and didn’t? This is the call of the artist, and for those of us who hold and share a belief in a Creator-God, it is a call to holiness. It is a call that must be answered and responded to. Ask most artists why they create and you are likely to hear some version of, “because I have to…because I wouldn’t know how NOT to…because it’s who I am.”

But asking “what if” is also a call to us all to think and imagine more broadly. It is “yes and” and “no but” instead of “either/or.” Whether we consider ourselves creative or not (and I believe we all are and can be), to ask this question is to step outside our own little worlds for a brief time and consider the alternative. Whether we are seeking to create a work of art or a healed relationship, asking “what if” is a place to start and a place to pray.

mystery — On the corner of Mystery and...SJG photo.

To end, I wanted to share with you a poem written by my friend and fellow spiritual director, Jeanne Baer. Jeanne asked “what if?” in dealing with the pain and confusion of her father’s death and in seeking to make some spiritual sense of loss. Read carefully. For this is more than a list of “what if” questions. In these few poignant lines, Jeanne gives us the privilege of listening in to a painful and personal internal dialogue leading to revelation and the presence of God.

What If

What if I never forgave my Dad?
What if God helped me to forgive him?
What if I never spoke to him again?
What if God helped me to find the words?
What if I carried the pain of memories to his death?
What if God healed me of those memories?
What if I couldn’t forget our differences?
What if God showed me our commonalities?
What if I always wished he done things differently?
What if God showed me he was doing the best he could?
What if I could only see him through my eyes?
What if God showed me how to see him through God’s eyes?
What if I carried all the pain and hurt to his death bed?
What if God allowed me to be the one to lovingly lead him into the arms of Jesus?
As you can see, I am human.
As you can see, “with God, all things are possible.”

– Jeanne M. Baer

Ask yourself in silence: What if I responded today to a call I have been ignoring?

My blog turns five today: Looking backward and forward

Steve · November 27, 2014 · 6 Comments

time — Sundial at Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, VA. SJG photo.

As I awake on this cold, snowy Thanksgiving morning and begin to move about the house, I am immediately grateful for a few days away from the university to have some quiet time to read, write, pray and, of course, cook, eat and spend time with family. There will be a good balance of communal life and solitude this weekend, and I am reminded how important both are to the richness and fullness of life and faith. I thank God for both.

There’s a murder of crows somewhere outside raising a ruckus, which makes me think of my very first blog entries, two of them on Thanksgiving Day, 2009. You can read both of them here and here. (The crows make an appearance in the second post). As I re-read these words, I am grateful for all that has transpired over the past five years, including my times of disease, treatment and healing. However worrying and painful at times, these moments are all part of the one same story, a journey that led, shaped and changed me along the way. I have deep gratitude and joy for the journey and for all of those who have walked it with me.

Five years ago, a similar group of noisy crows helped me kick off the part of this journey that I chronicle here on this website. It’s just a small part of my life, if we measure life in the amount of time we spend doing any one thing, but it’s the place where I have continued to turn to help me make sense of the rest of life. Hopefully, as I write to clarify for myself what this “God stuff” all means, I’ve been able to help you think about your own journey, encouraged you to “ask yourself in silence” how God is moving and working in your life. That’s always been my goal, and I pledge to continue along that good and well-tread path.

As I re-read those first entries, I’m reminded of my original intent, which was to take a special look at the intersection of that place where spirituality and creativity meet. I think I’ve done that to a certain extent, but in the coming year I intend to spend a little more time at that intersection, reflecting on my own creativity as well as that of others, searching for and pointing out the inseparability — at least for me — of those two concepts and practices. Spirituality and creativity, as ideas and as ways of living and acting, both point to the same place, back to the Creator and Spirit that moved across the abyss and created everything out of nothing.

Detail of study desk at George Wythe House, Williamsburg, VA, where Thomas Jefferson studied as a young man. SJG photo.

I know that many of you — I would say all of you — are creative people yourselves, involved in writing and art and music and other forms of expression. And if you’re not, I’d encourage you to ask yourself if there might be some work for you to do. As I move forward into the new year, I’m going to encourage that creativity in those of you who read my blog, even as I encourage you to look deep within for the source of that good work.

For we are, in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien:

Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, ’twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we’re made.

I’ll continue to suggest that you “ask yourself in silence,” but I’m also going to encourage you through creative “prompts” to delve deep into that silence and come back with something to share. Share your thoughts, prayers and poems with me through the comment button so that everyone else can see them, too. From time to time I may choose some of those to share in one of my posts. If your creative expression takes you to the more visual worlds of art and you wish to share, you can send files or links to me via email to givenscreative@gmail.com for consideration to be shared with others via the site. I can’t and won’t share everything, but I look forward to seeing and hearing about what you are finding and creating from the deep and silent places where the breath of God lives within you.

Peace to you all.

Ask yourself in silence: What’s God saying to me today? What “voice” do I have to share that with the world?

Blessing: For Those Who Create Art

Steve · November 13, 2014 · 2 Comments

flute — In a garden in Marshfield, Mo. SJG Photo.

May the gifts of the Creator-created world, which never cease to amaze and silence the noise within and draw us close to the source of all, give power and inspiration to those of us who try to make sense of a sometimes senseless world through art, music, movement and the written word;

May the blessings, tragedies, challenges and intricacies of our lives and histories feed our imaginations and bring to others a sense of the Divine that lurks in the sunlight as well as the shadows, a God who can sometimes only be seen through the painter’s strokes and impressions, the composer’s trills and silences, the dancer’s angles and speed, the writer’s sense of story and character and rhythm and truth;

May the presence of God in every living thing, in every color, movement, flow, sparkle and whisper be the divine spark that is captured and reflected back to the world by the humble servant of the art, who hears and responds to a call that cannot always be understood and yet continues the response as if driven by the very air she breathes, the very flow of the blood that courses through his veins;

pickers — "Pickers" at Antique Archeology in Nashville.

May we see our work as merely a small measure of all we have received, the first fruits of a greater harvest returned to the Lord of the land, an offering back of everything we hold close and sometimes covet too dearly — our liberty, memory, understanding, will, possessions and passions.

May we take our work seriously and ourselves with a grain a salt, with a growing knowledge that we are only instruments waiting to be played, apprentices under the guiding hand of a master craftsman, young players in need of the maestro’s baton, glimmering pieces of shiny glass and refracted light in search of focus and unity, sparkling moments of inspiration awaiting meaning and purpose, self-knowledge that we are moons, not stars capable of our own energy and light.

Today’s Word: Mystery

Steve · November 4, 2014 · 1 Comment

gate — The mystery of life and death. Williamsburg, Va. SJG photo.

A couple of months ago, my friend Fr. Gary asked, “why haven’t you written about the word “mystery” on your blog?” I was flabbergasted. Surely, I thought, I’ve used that word as one of my chosen words before (this, by the way, is my 101st entry in the series). But he was right. I’ve written about mystery and around mystery and have been inspired by mystery. How could I have not? As a person of faith who tries to live a contemplative and aware life, mystery lies at the core of all I am and believe. For in mystery, God resides.

Fr. Gary (easily the most gifted preacher I have ever known) wrote in an email: “Mystery: Wow. Some of the every day events I come up against that bring me into Mystery include birth, death, evil, love, vocation, suffering, the human person.” Indeed, there’s a lot of fertile, mysterious soil in in the stuff of our everyday lives.