Inspiration and Maintenance

In “The Artist’s Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice,” Julia Cameron offers a wide slate of encouragement, exercises, prodding, tasks, tools, proven advice and hard-learned lessons which, when applied, can move writers and others from stuck to stellar, from blocked to blossoming. I'm going through the book in a 12-week class.

It’s one reason I’ve not had the urge to blog. And why I’ve not felt a need to see my therapist. And one of the contributing reasons as to why I’m happier than I’ve been for about as long as I can remember. Well, besides the fact that I’m a very happy newlywed, married to an astonishingly perceptive, funny, loving, gifted man.

I also must tip my proverbial hat to the course facilitator, Caroline Russell-King, a successful playwright and dramaturg who has run the class numerous times through Alexandra Writers Centre Society. She has guided the participants of the course with gentleness and stewardship.

It’s not a walk in the park, though. week four and week nine are typically the weeks participants quit, according to Caroline. And I am procrastinating on the week nine assignment quite a bit. Self-discovery is not always about mining the good stuff. Sometimes there’s a lifetime of sludge, negativity and denial, even outright lies we have believed about who we are.

Yet, it’s worth the excavation, moving the rubble out of the way to get to the buried gifts. One of the most significant discoveries has come through an increased self-awareness: what’s going on in my body, mind, heart, soul. I’ve come to finally recognize how I have had a negative narrative running incessantly for most of my life: accusing me, name-calling, cultivating doubt, pointing out past missteps and all sorts of imagined failures; raising up the spectre of past wounds and offenses, stirring fear. It is the sum total of all the unkind voices of my past, plus my own, at times, when I’ve chosen to agree with the dark whispers regarding my perceived limitations.

“You’re a loser.
“You’re fat, lazy, rude, unlovable, unworthy.”
“You will never succeed.”
“You will never be enough.”
“You don’t deserve anything.”
“You are nothing.”

Until now.

Now I speak the truth against it. Speak affirming words, kind words, filled with self-care and truth. I re-read the cards of thanks for those who were touched or changed by my care or prayer. I sing songs and repeat scripture passages that tell me who I am and what God thinks of me. Loved. Treasured. Worth dying for. Daughter of the king. Gifted. Called. Chosen. Blessed. Shepherded. Fathered. Cherished.

Self-care is part of the assignment. Making that a habit. Eating right, setting up routines that help me get to sleep, learning how to process thoughts and dump them onto the page each day so they don’t get stuck in an infinite loop. Solving problems, setting goals, having fun, taking play dates with my inner artist.

The past ten weeks have been full. I write daily, complete class assignments, poems, articles, projects; I was acting in the dinner theatre, prepping for my son’s wedding, doing a weekly Bible study, camping and hiking, directing and singing at the choir year-end concert, speaking three times to different groups, working on a script for a grief recovery video, finding a new medical doctor, making medical and dental visits, preliminary appointments with specialists before impending surgery, doing home maintenance.

Everything needs maintenance.

Not only do I need to do maintenance on my heart, soul, mind and body, I need to do it on my physical environment. Even as I write, there is an HVAC specialist here replacing the air conditioner. He replaced my furnace three years ago. The year before that, I had the roof redone. I replaced two-thirds of my windows two years ago.  I have a fireplace that needs repair or replacing. These are the major items and not unexpected in a home nearly thirty years old. Yet the details of getting all this done can take up enormous time.

Then there are smaller chores and minor maintenance. Replacing plastic parts in the dishwasher - twice. Installing a fire pit in the back yard. Five large trees and multiple shrubs require regular pruning and fertilizing. I maintain a flower garden, several bird feeders and have nine large potted plants to water and dead-head each week. The deck chairs need new cushions. Then there’s the challenging load of trying to help the grass grow in the midst of shade and spruce needles without helping the weeds flourish. And regular chores like cooking, cleaning, laundry, and so on.

I know none of this is unusual. I love many of the activities I’ve listed, but they all simply take time. So writing sometimes gets the back seat, the lower priority on the to-do list. So this blog is the first to languish without my attention. So, I thought I'd throw out this little crumb of a summary.

But, truly, no news is good news. I’m finally at a point in my life where it seems I am living out the reality of those quiet verses in Psalm 23: “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters, he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.”

I refuse to cave in to foreboding joy. The next verse says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” I know the cycle of life well. I know death comes, and I have had more than the average share of lives cut short among those I love. So, I choose to focus on the last part of the verse: “I will fear no evil, for You, Lord, are with me… your (guiding) rod and your (disciplining) staff comfort me… you anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”

Thank you, God, for this life. For this joy. For the capacity to see it, soften into it, relish it and love the life you have given me for as long as it lasts without worrying about when it's going to end.

And when life IS over on this earth, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” What could be better than that? "In your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand there are pleasures forever!"

Amen.




Photo credit: depositphotos.com #46399219, standard license

Intercessory Prayer for Awakening

I'm currently involved in doing a study with my women's group. This week's lesson was very powerful for me and I would like to share with you one excerpt from the study as we seek awakening to the Spirit of Christ for those who have not yet come to follow the only One who has the words of eternal life.

Intercessory Prayer for Awakening

excerpt from “Children of the Day”, Beth Moore, p. 128-129

And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Matthew 13:58

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Mark 6:5-6

Perhaps one reason awakening waits is that we are afraid for God to do whatever it would take. We fear the uncertainty of revival. We don’t trust God with the work of his own spirit. What if he embarrasses us? Or makes us change our minds? God won’t work contrary to his word but perhaps our greater worry may be that he could work contrary to our tastes. He may not use our methods. Perhaps many reasons cause a fresh awakening to wait.

The following prayer is offered in humility, in lack and in want. We cannot put words on a tongue detached from a heart. If this is not you and if these sins are not yours and these aches find no place in your soul, please don’t own them. If, on the other hand, these words could flow from your own pen, pray them with me.

Most glorious, all-powerful, merciful God:

Your son died for more than these. We thank you for what you’ve already done, but we beg you to do infinitely more. Look upon this ailing planet, pulsing with the hopeless, the helpless, the hiding and the dying. You have willed that people would not die in their sins but be saved and redeemed through your son, Jesus Christ. You promised that the cross was big enough for us all, with everlasting arms reaching to the ends of the earth. We know what your word says you can do and we confess to you that many of us have not yet seen it with our eyes, but we feel it stirring in our souls. Hosanna, Lord! Save now!

We willingly confess to you our sinful arrogance. We have prescribed to you by what means you should heal souls. You , the solitary healer have refused to sign your name to our prescriptions. We ask you this day to write your name across our sky and bring revival! Save by whatever means bring you glory. Bring it any way you like, but bring it, Lord. We free you from using our methods. We free you from using our denominational names. We free you from using our buildings, though we welcome you to them. We free you even from using us, though we cast ourselves before you at your complete disposal and beg that you would. Use none of us. Use all of us. Use whatever people and whatever means honor you most, but do it, Lord, Please do it!

We confess to you our appalling narcissism in asking you to mirror us. We confess to you our oversophistication and snobbery. We confess to you that we are terrified of your Holy Spirit. We confess our pathetic arrogance for having forbidden signs and wonders when there could be no greater sign and wonder than a tidal wave of salvation rolling on our dry banks. Oh, Jesus, that we would not leave you to marvel that you could do so few miracles among us because of our unbelief.

We repent this day for not trusting you with what revival should look like. We repent this day from prioritizing our dignity over your downpour. We confess to you that we have torn pages from our bibles and handed them back to you and demanded that you work through what was left. We confess to you this day that the tent pegs of scripture are vastly wider than our imaginations and our expectations.

Lord, if souls are saved by the thousands of thousands and millions of millions, we pledge to you this day that we will not, in our sectarianism, pick apart the process and reason how it was not legitimate. We are ready even if it’s messy. Even if, atop the beautiful feet carrying the good news are bruised and broken bodies of willing evangelists.

Open heaven. Rain down, Holy Spirit. We repent for having asked you to respect our boundaries. We bow now to your boundless Spirit and make room over our lowered heads for you to fall upon us with power and might and a firestorm of your great affection. You have loved us so. You have loved us well. Carve our hearts with your cross and love through us, Lord. Oh, Holy Spirit of the living Christ, come without limit. We have known you were able but begged you to be willing. All the while, we have been disabled because we have been unwilling.

To what conceivable degree we could have held them in our hands, we turn the reins of revival back over to the rider who is faithful and true and we plead that you would not let them rest on the neck of that great horse but that you’d bid him run.

Do what you want, but we plead for you to do it now. Do it here. Make your name glorious. Save now!

In the holy name of Christ our King, Amen.