Creativity Comes Knocking

I've always thought that creativity comes knocking at the most unusual times. I've written about this on my blog before (although where and when my tired mind doesn't remember at the moment!) and I stand by it. When you're a writer, it doesn't always seem to matter what's going on in your life, how busy or sick you are, or how you're feeling. Sometimes creativity just waltzes up to the front door, rings the bell zestfully, and slides right in as soon as you open the door even a tiny crack.

That's what happened to me in the wee small hours of the morning last night. Yes, another night when, exhausted as I was, I still woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. Not even quiet music or soporific reading can get me back to sleep right now once I'm up, probably because some part of me is usually aching or hurting. So I give into the wakefulness for a while and see where it leads before I finally begin to nod off again.

Last night it led me to an unexpected place: a children's book idea I had quite a while ago. I should say it was a book idea that the sweet girl and I had together. I came up with it first, but she and I talked about it one morning. It was quite a long while ago, before I got sick -- I would say at least a year and a half ago? Maybe two? Who knows. But here it was again.

I'm not going to share the idea right now because it's in that brimming, simmering, almost vaporous stage where I feel like if I share too much about it, it could pop like a bubble and disappear. Well, okay, I shared about it with my dear husband at lunch (in between my final radiation appointment and our next visit with Erin in the hospital). He liked it, and being the creative guy he is (one reason I married him was because I knew he would forever be my writing partner!) bounced some ideas around about it with me, which made me even more interested in pursuing it. I feel like I'm in that stage where I sit up like an attentive puppy with my ears cocked and my head turned sideways, eyes on whatever might happen next so I can jump.

Part of the reason I brought it up with him at lunch is because the ideas, which started coming between one and two a.m. last night, started falling like a gentle rain again during the first part of my radiation treatment. In some ways, that didn't surprise me. I always try to arm myself with things to think about before those start, so I can begin to meditate as soon as the treatment starts. I have a small piece of oval foam I have to hold onto while I am lying on the table and the treatment goes on (to keep my arms and shoulders in place). My legs are bent over another piece of foam. The mask goes on over my face, and my head is bent back on a sort of neck brace. My kind radiologist brings a blanket to cover me. (They didn't stock them today becase it was Sunday, but he knew I'd want one and nabbed me the last one!)

Once I am in position, I stay in that position for about forty-five minutes, listening to meditative music. If I choose to keep my eyes open, then I am looking at an image of green trees against a blue sky (which they keep on the ceiling). Most of the time, however, I choose to keep them closed, especially because there are times when the arm of the radiation machine (what I have referred to as the "robot" all week) zooms over right in front of my face, and it's a little alarming to have it so close. I tend to breathe better and relax more with my eyes closed. And then I begin to think about whatever I've chosen to fix my mind on, often a verse.

I did that today, pondering my morning devotions from Jeremiah 16 and 17, but then I let my mind wheel to the idea for the children's book. And sure enough, the ideas began to flow. And I really, really like these ideas! They are coming together in ways that just make creative and beautiful sense.

Although there have been many times in my life when I have been surprised by creativity's visits, I think this may take the top spot. I am exhausted right now on every level, particularly physically and emotionally. I don't know if I have the strength to do much with these ideas as they come, but I confess I've begun doing a bit of jotting in my journal, and that some of the actual possible writing is starting to flow through my mind. I am also discovering that the ideas are feeling a bit like crepe paper streamers -- you know the ones you get and twist together to decorate a wall or ceiling for a child's party? You unroll them and weave them together and there is just something very satisfying about it when they start to come together and look the way you want them to.

Maybe it's time to throw a party -- even if it needs to be a small, quiet one for a while -- for creativity, my unexpected but still very welcome guest.

What Will You Create in 2016?

Happy 2016!

We all slept in (my dear husband too) and it felt so good to start the year with rest.

After having my morning quiet time, chatting with my dear D, and checking in on Facebook, I went over to my emails and discovered a new year greeting from a local craft store. "What will you create in 2016?" was the catchy subject line, and I've found myself pondering the question from a much wider point of view than the craft store folks might have intended!

What will I create in 2016? For starters, I'd like to create a more peaceful, more loving, more creative home. Our family struggled with lots of stresses this past year, some of them small but nonetheless trying and some of them quite large, and while we handled some of them with real grace, there were so many days I know I felt like I just gave in to frustration, worry, weariness. This year I want to stay more centered on Jesus. I want to worry less and laugh more. I want to keep my voice gentler and my touch kinder.

I want to create space inside myself to be more attentive, more loving, more focused on what matters. I want to let the little stuff stay little and the big stuff help me grow. I want to be more grateful.

I want to remember the shortness and sweetness of life. I want to honor my mom's legacy by trying to engage more people in real conversation (where I listen to their stories). The listening part comes naturally to me, but the engaging part doesn't. (Deep down, I am still the shy girl that my mother worried about when I was in elementary school and all the other kids rushed forward to get candy and I hung back and waited and hoped someone would bring candy to me.) I will always be introverted...that's just who I am...but I want to make more of an effort to be fully present to whomever God brings across my path.

I want to read and read and think and think and write and write and write and write and write some more. I want to keep pushing to know more, understand more, love more as I create stories and poems as well as write the things I need to write in my writing projects and jobs.

I want to create a learning environment where S can thrive again and re-find some of her learning joy. We've been limping along for too long in this past hard year. 

I want to draw and paint and color and collage. I know I am not the best visual artist, but I find all those things so relaxing and life-giving. I never seem to have time to do those kinds of things while we're busy trying to stay afloat, but I want to try to make more room.

Speaking of making more room, I want to keep de-cluttering.

And I plan to keep blogging. I am pretty sure that hardly anyone is reading this blog anymore (it never had a huge following, and I've written so sporadically in recent years that the few folks who read it regularly probably seldom remember to check it) but in some ways, that's freeing. I want to journal more of my thoughts about what I'm reading, writing, listening to, and learning from.

2015 held much in it that I didn't expect, including some things I wasn't sure I would weather. But here I stand with a grateful heart. So thankful for the turning of a page and the start of a new year!

The Creativity Angel Come to Visit

I had to laugh when I walked into the living room this morning and discovered the creativity angel on the floor.

Twenty-eight years ago I spent a year in Connecticut, living with my older sister. We spent a lot of time reading, cooking, and creating together. One of her gifts to me that year a set of tiny "angel cards." Each card has a picture of a small angel on it, right next to a gift word. "Responsibility," "Surrender," "Love," "Creativity," etc.

I honestly am not sure where the whole set is anymore, but occasionally the angels turn up in unexpected places, as angels tend to do.

Today's angel was, I'm pretty sure, tucked inside a basket of photographs and cards that I keep on the white shelf between my dining room and living room. The basket overturned late last night when I was hunting for a hole punch so that Jedi Teen could finish up her Stars Wars Christmas ornaments (speaking of creativity). I scooped everything up willy-nilly and shoved it all back in the basket, too tired to organize it in any way. Apparently the creativity angel escaped my clean-up efforts. Seems fitting somehow!

And this morning, I think I finally finished this year's advent poem. 

May the creativity angel visit your house soon too.

An Open Letter to the Story Idea That is Fast Slipping Away

Dear Story Idea,

Please come back.

I know it has been about 36 hours since you first came to me in my Thursday morning shower. I know you really, really wanted to be written down right after that, when you were fresh and when all the creative connections were still firing in my brain.

I know it's not your fault that you chose to come on one of the busiest days of my week. During a season of huge amounts of work deadlines that I am struggling to meet. During a time of real financial stress. In the midst of ongoing weirdness with my health.

I planned to get back to you later yesterday. And again last night. And again this morning. And after I got some of my work done. And housework. And school time. And helped my daughter through a really hard day. And cried for a while.

I didn't know how my tiredness and discouragement would send you into hiding.

I've been feeling pretty lonely, and having you drop in yesterday in the midst of everything that feels so fragile and tiring felt really great. I'm sorry you couldn't stay longer.

It sure would be nice if you'd come back to visit. I promise I will try to be ready with a pen this time.

Love.

Almost September....How? A Gratitude Post

It's so hard for me to believe that it's almost September, though the weather -- and the fact that we're home from our annual mini-vacation -- reminds me that it's true.

It's also hard to believe that I've posted so little on the blog this month. It feels surprising because I've actually had a rich writing month -- it's just all been off-blog. The summer turned out to be a good one for reading, pondering, thinking, and poeming; I also managed the rough draft of an essay I didn't plan to write but like a lot (and am pondering what the heck to do with once I revise it). I didn't get much time to work on the novel, alas, though I managed some good reflection times on the back story with my dear husband/creative consultant. I have a sense of where I need to go -- I just need to find the time to do it.

And I'm hopeful I can. The autumn is gearing up to be a highly busy one. Sweet girl/Jedi Teen will be in 8th grade (we start Monday). I'll be working as a teaching assistant and doing a good bit of curriculum writing again as well as staying involved in ministry (church school, missions, afterschool arts). It's a full plate, but I am raring to keep writing and determined to try to keep my morning writing rhythm going even once we move into the busier fall schedule. It's frankly feeling more important than extra sleep right now.

Two other blessings I should mention: our long, long overdue technology upgrade is in the works at home at last. Once we're through the transition, I'm hopeful that will free up much more time for writing, both here and elsewhere. And on a final but profoundly grateful note: my medical tests came back with good news last week. I'm still extra tired physically, but knowing that what I'm dealing with is in the "normal" range of things makes me feel incredibly grateful.

Tired and busy I may be, but I feel read to make these next few months count in terms of creativity and faithfulness. May it be so, Lord! May it be so!

Wordplay! A Creative Exercise for Priming the Poetry Pump

It’s been a delightful poeming month, an unexpected gift to this summer. I’ve been both reading and writing poetry again and loving it.

Part of this is due to my reading “at” a couple of great poetry resources, one old and one new-to-me (more on these in another post). But part of it has just been a wonderful rekindling of a perennial love of words. I find myself wanting to pick them up and marvel over them like gemstones, wherever I happen to encounter them – in good prose or in poetry.

One way I can tell I’m in good poeming season (besides the bouquet of poems blooming in my journal) is because I’m relaxing with some wordplay exercises. While word play can refer to any sort of playing with words, I tend to use it as a heading in my notebook for a particular kind of writing exercise I started doing many years ago and return to whenever I’m feeling particularly playful with language.

I don’t think this is an exercise I picked up anywhere in particular, although I may have patched it together from dribs and drabs of other writing exercises and prompts. Still I’ve honed it over the years, finding new ways to relax into it each time I do it. It doesn’t have an exact set of rules. I basically know what to expect when I go into the exercise, but one of the fun parts is that I never really know what to expect, because it always leads to such creative and varied results. 

Here are some of the parameters for the wordplay exercise as I’ve developed it.

1. Start with culling a list of words from a book or any other bit of writing. This will be your resource list. Your list can come from almost any type of book or article – in fact, it can be fun to experiment with different kinds of resources. I’ve pulled my list from magazines, history books, poetry anthologies, and nature field guides. You could try it with a favorite novel or a science text book. Sticking with one book is usually my favorite way to do the exercise, both because it limits my choices and because it delights me to see what a vast array of words you can find in almost any resource. Poetry anthologies or collections are, of course, some of the best for dipping into, since poets tend to use such concrete and evocative language.

2. Set a limit for how many words you list. This can be any kind of limit – a “page’s worth” (however you decide to write them on the page), a certain number of words, a number of words within a given time frame, or a number of columns of words. I like to write my lists in long columns down the page.

3. Try not to be too conscious of which words you’re choosing. This sounds harder than it is, because once you’re in the groove of choosing words, you’ll see how easy the choices are – it’s like picking fruit from branches. When I say “try not to be too conscious,” I mean don’t go looking for words with common sounds, or a set number of verbs or nouns or adjectives. But don’t worry or be surprised if you find yourself clustering around certain types of sounds or words. Let your pen write down whatever words your eye falls on most naturally. Pick the word up mentally and let it roll around your brain. If it feels good, jot it down; if it doesn’t resonate with you in that moment, skip it and move on. If you find a word that you really like but find yourself wanting to jot it in a different form, that’s OK too. Recently I came upon the word “boisterously” but decided to drop the “ly” and tuck away “boisterous” as an adjective. You can always go back and ad the “ly” later when you’re using it, or change it in some other way.

4. If it helps to prime your creativity, capture your words in colorful felt tip markers or crayons, or alternate different colored ballpoints – one word in blue, another in red, black, or green.

5. Occasionally, a poem may begin to form (chomping at the bit!) as you’re making your list. If that happens, go ahead and run with it first thing.

6. More than likely, however, you will find yourself pausing for breath once you’ve compiled the list, pleased just to sit there and look at it for a minute. Like other things you collect, words can be beautiful in and of themselves, each one as different and unique as shells or wildflowers. Let yourself enjoy the collection.

7. Get ready to play! This is where I have to confess the guidelines break down a bit. I don’t have a single approach to how I play with the list beyond this: I begin to put words in groups (clusters, bevies, strings) on the page. Sometimes I do this on the actual page where I wrote the list, letting the words dance in the margins. Sometimes I do it on a facing page. Sometimes I go for groupings via sight features and sometimes by sound. Although there isn’t any set way to do this, here are a few possibilities you might try to get started:

(a)    Read through the entire list, either silently or out loud, and let yourself notice repeating sounds. Did you gravitate toward a lot of words that all started with the same letter? Put them together. Did you happen to collect a lot of words that major in long “i”s or short “a”s or long “o”s? Let them gather together and see what happens.

(b)   Group words by form. Let your nouns huddle in one place, or divide them into concrete nouns and more abstract ones. Encourage your adjectives to hang out together and marshal your verbs into one force. Notice if you had a tendency to go for certain forms like “ing” endings or plurals. Anything that makes these words kin is game for a grouping strategy.

(c)    Begin to put together adjectives with nouns, even if they don’t seem to make logical sense. Turn adjectives into nouns and vice versa. Silent can become silence and kindness can morph into kind. Yes, you could end up with some trite expressions – in my wordplay session earlier today, I did this and stumbled upon both golden silence and natural kinship (I think our brains are sometimes wired to make the obvious connections) but push yourself and put words together willy-nilly, whether they look like they belong together or not. You will end up with some combinations you would never have come up with except in playful mode: relentless world, secret father, obstinate rain.

(d)   Look for rhymes. Sometimes you won’t actually find any that occur naturally in your list, but you’ll find words that want you to find rhymes for them. My collection of “ing” words netted me the following: living, bleeding, glowing, meeting, which felt like they were begging for a quatrain.

Once you’ve spent a while playing with the words of your list, grouping them and re-grouping them, you will probably find poems or poem lines start to come. The end goal of the exercise, for me at any rate, is not usually a whole poem draft – though sometimes I end up with one. More often than not, I come up with what I call “snippets” – potential lines of poems, stanzas that might be built into something interesting later, or even just a series of images that I can come back to.

Here’s example of a snippet I wrote in today’s wordplay exercise:

the broken wing of

the boisterous bird

left him earthbound

but his music

was heard

in an echoing chant

that spilled

through the bones

and waltzed

through the woods

and scattered

the stones

One of the best parts of this exercise is that it helps me to approach poetry from a different place: not just a playful place, but one in which form takes precedence. Actually it’s not even form taking precedence, but the words themselves. The words lead me into the poem, rather than an idea I want to convey or even an image I feel compelled to describe. Those are fine places to begin with in poetry, but sometimes I need to get back to words themselves. The wordplay exercise shakes me loose from the typical ways I approach the writing of a poem and pulls me into the music of language.

The Blessings of the Yearly Advent Poem

My mysterious disappearance from the blog has not been all that mysterious really. Between an incredible amount of work and our recent Thanksgiving travels, I've not had any time to post here. And I miss it.

I've been thankful to have managed some scribbles in my journal during this time, which have helped to keep me sane. Most of all, I'm thankful for the blessings of Advent.

In years past, I've done a number of posts about Advent. I love to share poems, prayers, snippets of what I'm reading, thoughts about the season. This year I am living at such a flat-out work pace, and our extended families are going through so much stress, Advent had taken on a much more raw and urgent feeling...less about making our way toward the Christmas celebration (though that's still a layer) and more about clinging to the very real hope we have in Jesus. (Which is, of course, a big part of making our way toward the Christmas celebration...but I'm meandering here, and I only have a couple of minutes to write!)

One of the biggest blessings this Advent has been my yearly discipline of writing a poem. This is the twenty-third year I have done so, which means I have been writing an annual Advent poem for half my life. There are years the poem comes easily and years it's a struggle, but this is one of the first years I seriously thought I might just not be able to do it at all. It's not just the work pace right now, but the exhausted inner space. I am spending a lot of my writing working days plowing through work-a-day prose -- poetry has not been a regular part of my diet (reading or writing) for a little while, yet another thing I miss. And yet there's the mysterious blessing of having stored up so much over the years that it's there to draw on when I need it, even in lean seasons.

So when the poem started to do its push and pull inside my heart last week, I wasn't as surprised as I might've been. I found myself smiling at its approach like I would smile at the coming of an old friend -- "really? you decided to come this year too?" The poem never seems to mind how cluttered my house is, how worn out my body, how tired my spirit. So I got up early this morning, tired as I was, to work at a draft.

I am so thankful for the gift of creativity, even or especially when I'm convinced there's none left in the storehouse. Proof once again that it pours into us from the Creator whose well never runs dry.

Thankful Heart

 There are times when I am very hard on myself as a parent. When you have a dear child who struggles, sometimes intensely, with anxiety of all sorts, it's very easy to second-guess yourself at every turn. My daughter struggles hard every day to come to terms with brokenness and uncertainty, and the older she gets, the more she becomes aware how much life is full of both. I have an internal dialogue that goes something like this "Am I pushing her too hard? Am I not pushing her enough? Is she ever going to reach a place of enough healing on some of these issues that she will be able to make it through this life, which is filled with uncertainty, with more joy and peace than anxiety?" I can have those kinds of thoughts even in the midst of a relatively good day or week, when I realize how far she's come, but they especially whack me on the hard days.

So sometimes I just need to sit back, take a deep, trusting, cleansing breath, and remember what a delightful person she is and how hard she is trying to engage life with courage and creativity.

I love it that my almost twelve year old is coming up with creative ways to spend her summer, even in the face of disappointment over changes to long-standing summer plans. I love that she

• is boldly taking a art class at a local art center, where she's never taken a class before
• has an eighteen book TBR stack in her room
• has begun reading Moby Dick just to see if she can 
• is learning new embroidery stitches
• wants to begin daily drawing times again with me in July
• is looking forward to the celebration of her birthday
• is gardening with me again in the community gardens
• is excited about building a model bridge with her dad (they've been measuring things to make it to scale)
• will be taking workshops later this summer to keep her Irish Dance skills fresh
• is loving our family read-aloud of Lord of the Rings
• thinks it's cool that we're learning about the Lord's Prayer from a book by Kenneth Bailey
• is working on an entry for the county library picture book contest

Thank you, Lord, for all the ways you're growing her to be the young lady you want her to be. Thank you for giving me grace as a parent, and for filling up all the places where I know I lack strength, patience, and skill.

Stones That Bear a Witness

Last week, I posed a discussion starter question to my church history students, one which has turned out to be a thought-provoking one for me as well. I asked them to ponder the “visual books” of Gothic cathedrals and how they represented the medieval synthesis that was so much a part of Christendom, and then to think about modern structures or spaces and what they might be communicating about our particular time and place.

The students did some good thinking, and their reflections ranged far and wide over a number of modern spaces, from movie theaters to shopping malls to church buildings to houses and skyscrapers. I was especially intrigued with their thoughts on shopping malls, because I’ve been reading the beginning of James K.A. Smith’s book Desiring the Kingdom, in which he talks about “cultural liturgies.” He provides a fascinating several- page description of a shopping mall, not chiefly as a functional place of commerce, but as a space that shapes our desires and evokes a religious response in us (more on this another time, I hope…I had the chance to hear him lecture the other evening, and I’ve been chewing on it since).

In our discussion of church buildings, I found several of my students confessing that they found many modern worship spaces sterile and uninviting, built primarily to spare expense and to be able to maintain multi-purpose functions. I agree with them, but I also confessed to some inner wrestling on this very subject over the years.

On the one hand, I see the practical value of meeting in spaces that are more functional and less “obvious” in their churchiness. From my perspective, this is less about making people feel at home in the “familiar” and more about reminding ourselves that the church is not primarily a building, but a community of people. When we invest oodles of money and time into maintaining a space, then we run the risk of investing less time and money in the work and joy of being the church. We also run the risk of tying ourselves so firmly to a beloved space (and space really can be beloved) that we forget how to travel light. So church buildings, even beautiful ones, can sometimes detract us from mission.

On the other hand, I see a real value in creating a space that is beautiful. When our churches invite people into a sacred space that looks different from the everyday, it can remind us all of the true beauty and holiness of God and his kingdom. Such spaces, in their very beauty and creativity, can glorify God who has made us people of creativity with a longing to worship and a longing to know the ultimate beauties of his presence and his realm. Such beauty can even help usher us into a deeper sense of his presence, becoming an incarnational aid and reminding us that God speaks through ordinary stuff, and that we are encultured people called to sing his praise and manifest his goodness in a material world.

If you have doubts about that last line, think for a minute about the church you knew first as a child. You may not remember a word that got preached from the pulpit or a program that you attended. Chances are, however, that you do have an impression of something physical that has stayed with you through the years  – a window, a pew, a cross, a communion table, a candle. And no doubt you have a memory of someone in that church who loved you, taught you, prayed for you, sang with you. We remember love, and we remember physical places. And those physical places often give us some of our first understanding of who God is and what he is like, understandings that can stay with us for a lifetime.

I wonder if this is not something we see running through Scripture, a sort of tension between a worshipping people of God who “travel light” and stay on the move (the moveable, portable tabernacle) and a people of God who plant themselves solidly in one place and build something tangible to witness to his glory (the amazing temple). Clearly there is a place and time in the vision of God for both. And I’m not sure it’s as easy as saying “well, once the people entered the land, they could build” or “once the building was destroyed, it was a signal to disperse and move again.” There are God’s words to David about not needing a house built by human hands, even though he realized how much David longed to build such a space. And yet there is the fact that God did allow Solomon to build the space, and that he envisioned such a space being a place of prayer for all peoples. The lack of permanency of such a space – it gets built and destroyed, built and destroyed again – does say something to us about the finiteness of any human cultural project, no matter how grand and worthy and real. But clearly there was a time and place for the people of God to stay put and be an inviting light, a call that I think sometimes resonates with us more deeply in our modern times when so many people are transient and so many home spaces are broken.

But then (there keeps being another “on the other hand” moment…I’m starting to feel like Tevye) it strikes me with force that where we see the most detailed instructions about building and beauty come in the wilderness. It is there that we see God’s detailed instructions – right down to music, colors, decorative scheme, measurements, clothing, and candlesticks – about the beauty and majesty of the portable, moveable worship space the people were to build and carry with them as they journeyed. Maybe there is something for us to glean here? That we can build spaces that are both beautiful and inviting and yet are spaces that we can “take with us” as we mission forth? That we could even somehow build spaces that witness to the glories of a God who travels with us in the desert and disperses us to the nations?

Advice to Young Poets

I've been reading at Seeing the Blue Between: Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets compiled by Paul B. Janeczko. Lots of gems here, but I found myself especially loving two bits of advice to a young poet from J. Patrick Lewis.

"Book your eyes on a never-ending cruise: become a lifelong reader."

And "Nothing succeeds like failure. Revel in it. You may take a measure of pride if you can say, 'I failed three times today, and that was before lunch.'"

Glorify the Lord, Ye Snow

Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold,

drops of dew and flakes of snow.

Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord,

praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

(~From the Book of Common Prayer) 

 Wilson“Snowflake” Bentley is one of my artist/scientist heroes. He spent a lifetime paying attention to something hardly anyone else ever paid attention to – snowflakes. (He was also fascinated with other tiny bits of creation, like raindrops and dew.) He spent years developing a technique to photograph snowflakes, in a day and age when that seemed impossibly hard. His creativity and patience seemed to know no bounds.

So when I see something like this article, posted by two of my dear nieces on FB, I find myself smiling with gratitude but also recognition. The work of this photographer, Alexy Kljatov, is beautiful and amazing, and clearly still takes innovation and patience (see his blog post, here, on his photographic techniques) but you realize too how much easier it is using the photographic equipment we have today, and how much he stands on the shoulders of a pioneering giant like Bentley. Perhaps that’s truer than we know for most artistic and scientific endeavor, though we don’t always remember it.

I also smiled over the opening line from the commentator who posted the pictures of Kljatov’s work, calling attention to the “impossibly perfect” design of snowflakes. She writes: “One of the true wonders of the world are snowflakes, tiny designs made of ice that are so individually unique, so detailed, and so spectacular it's hard to comprehend that they happen naturally and aren't pulled from the depths of our own imaginations.”

Uh-huh. Might it not indicate, perhaps, that the depths of our own imaginations, wonderful as they are, are themselves the creation of someone whose imagination is far deeper and vaster than our own? I love that God creates snowflakes, which in our puny understanding don’t need to be so incredibly beautiful (considering their size and transience) and yet just are. They are stunning, unique, intricately pattered. They are clearly exercises in artistic delight. And they appear to “happen naturally” (you’ve got to smile over the hint of casualness the word “happen” evokes) because he has placed this kind of beauty into the very ordinary unfolding fabric of the world. Praise Him!

The Staying Power of Art

My husband brings home the most interesting books. This week it's Charles M. Knight: The Artist Who Saw Through Time.

You may think you don't know Knight, but if you're at least forty, you probably do -- even if not by name. Knight was the artist/naturalist who, for many years, was the "go-to" guy for artistic renderings of dinosaurs in museums and textbooks.

Although the jury is still out on what dinosaurs looked like/acted like (in recent years, there's been a switch to quicker moving avian-like as opposed to slower moving reptilian-like) it was Knight's imaginative renderings, based on fossil reconstructions and the scholarship of his day, that captured the public imagination for so many years. When I look at the paintings in this book, especially of his T-Rex and Brontosaurus, I harken back to elementary school...and I also think "yup...that's what's dinosaurs look like." Stephen J. Gould is referenced for saying that "although Knight never published original research in scientific journals, he was more influential in shaping our ideas about ancient extinct animals than any paleontologist who ever lived."

I found this buzzing around my brain this morning as I thought again about what I reflected on in my last post ("Feeling and Thinking"). The power of imaginative work that engages our senses as well as our minds is staggering. Work that captures our curiosity, makes us feel or ponder, has real longevity -- in our own lives and in the life of the culture. It's not that creative artists can't be scholarly -- many creative artists are also scholars, or are creating their works of art (paintings, songs, stories) as part of a responsive engagement to scholarship. But it's the stories/poems/songs/paintings that have the staying power, long after the scientific (or theological) journals are set aside.

For evidence of that, one need only turn to an imaginative storyteller like C.S. Lewis whose heart and imagination capturing work has phenomenal staying power. So does J.R.R. Tolkien's. The pictures these writers painted of a world invaded by grace have an ability to raise questions, stir eternal longings, and move people Godward. Their work lives on in a way that the work of academic theologians of the same era -- and there were some good ones -- simply can't. I'm not saying that good, theological scholars aren't necessary; I'm not even saying that either Lewis or Tolkien saw themselves as theologians. But they were actively engaged people of faith who poured their grace-steeped views of the world into their work, with the result that the gospel truth was so intricately and beautifully woven into their stories that people still see it and marvel and respond to the whole big picture (and sometimes without even seeing all the threads). 

One of the reasons I think it's so deeply necessary for Christians to engage in the arts (beyond the sheer joy of doing so, in response to our very creative God!) is that it's storied/poemed/sung/painted truth that has a lasting power in the shaping of the human soul and a lasting influence on the culture.

Feeling and Thinking

“ Mozart fulfills me. But I cannot think about his music; I have to listen to it.” ~Pope Francis

Not long ago, I came across this beautiful quote from Pope Francis. I so resonated with it, and it keeps coming back to me as I contemplate my experience of both music and stories.

It seems to me that our deepest experience of either music or story comes when we fall headfirst, or perhaps heartfirst, inside the world that's been created. We find ourselves in the world of sound and harmony or the world of narrative and poetry, and while there, all we can do is listen, not think outside of the experience. 

When we're inside that subcreated world, listening is what matters. I think many of us have had the literal sense of being so lost (and paradoxically so found) inside a created song or story that it feels like a "coming back" to the outside world when the last note sounds or the final word is read and we close the book. 

Many of the best things we read or listen to do indeed cause us to think, but the thinking comes later, and that kind of more analytical thinking is a distinctly different kind of pleasure than what we experienced in our initial encounter with the work. We might think about the creation of the work itself: how did the composer, the writer, do what he did, and why? What thoughts or experiences inspired a certain bend or turn in the work that we didn't expect?  Frankly, I love doing that kind of thinking, but not everyone does, and I don't think we need to assume that a person who doesn't love it has had any less of a deep experience, though they may respond in a completely different way.

Just a few rambling thoughts this afternoon...more to come another day. 

Tolkien as Artist (Heraldic Symbols from Middle-earth)

We're continuing our study of imaginary landscapes in the afterschool arts program today. D. has been researching into art inspired by Tolkien – there’s a lot of it – and he’s also had a fascinating book and documentary video that showcase some of Tolkien’s own visual art.

I knew that J.R.R.T. had done maps, other drawings, and water colors. I had even seen a few of them (mostly the ones that appear on the covers of some editions of his books) but I had no idea how many lovely paintings and drawings he did. Not to mention some very fine doodling. As a somewhat prolific doodler myself, I was happy to see some of the interesting designs he created in pen and ink and watercolor.

One of the things that fascinated me most was to see that he had created heraldic devices, symbols for many of the characters and houses in Middle-earth. It doesn’t really surprise me to learn that he did, given the incredible amount of detail that went into the creation of every aspect of his subcreation: language, geography, cartography, legends, music. It makes complete sense that he would have colors and symbols in mind for his characters. But oh, I love them. As someone who likes to play with repeating designs, I find these symbols beautifully winsome. I think they have inspired me to try my hand at some similar symbols and designs for my characters in the Four Princesses.

They're all lovely, but I think this one, for Luthien, is one of my favorites:

(This is taken from the Tolkien Gateway site; as a non-profit, they use the image under fair use laws.)

"New" Van Gogh Painting Authenticated: Hooray for Beauty and Story!

Exciting news in the art world today: they've identified a "new" Van Gogh. You can read about the discovery and see the painting, "Sunset at Montmajour," in the NYT article here.

I found this news fascinating, and not just because Van Gogh is one of the artists of my heart. It seems amazing to me that a painting done in 1888 and hidden from view for many years could suddenly be unearthed from an attic, a little bit like finding buried treasure or something surprising and wonderful in an archaeological excavation.

It's making me muse about beauty. It's also fun to speculate on the details of the story of the painting's journey, just briefly sketched in the article.

The painting, with its incredible light-filled brush stroked sky, was beautiful from the moment Van Gogh painted it, and that beauty has never ceased to be, but it was hidden for years. It was sold from Vincent's brother Theo's collection in 1901, they think, when Theo's widow sold it to an art dealer in Paris. The dealer sold it to a collector in Norway. In 1908, someone told that collector it wasn't authentic and he stuck it in an attic where it was apparently rediscovered several years ago by the people who now own the house. The Van Gogh museum recently authenticated it, saying that techniques for authenticating paintings have improved greatly in the past century.

It makes me wonder...well...so many things! Story brain in high gear this morning. Why was the painting considered inauthentic in 1908, just twenty years after it was painted? Had Van Gogh's work recently come into vogue? Was there a rush of Van Gogh look-alike fakes? Did the person who claimed it wasn't authentic really believe it to be the work of someone else (probably) or did he or she have an agenda (fanciful fiction brain...)

And if you had a painting this gorgeous, would you stick it in the attic even if you believed it to be a fake? That's the part that really pulls me up short. If I had this painting in my possession, I can easily see being disappointed if I was told it wasn't an authentic Van Gogh. While it would change my perspective on the painting's ultimate collectible value, why would it necessarily change my view of the painting's enduring aesthetic value? I would never have stashed a painting like this in a dark attic, even in a fit of pique or melancholy (or so I hope).

Once in the attic, it sounds like it was forgotten (sort of like Old Bear) and sold off when the house was. Can you imagine the current owners' astonishment when they found it? I picture a rainy day, the kind good for exploring attics, and a canvas wrapped up in an quilt and tied with twine. (Yes, story brain in overdrive today, folks...hang with me...)

All of which again begs the question of how we think of beauty and value. Sometimes we recognize and celebrate such things, but sometimes we hide them or ignore them or can't see their true worth because of what we've been told is important or what we choose to believe about their worth. Sometimes beauty stays in plain sight and we still overlook it. If this is true of crafted artifacts, how true is it of the natural beauty in creation or the beauty of our fellow human beings? 

Story starter ideas:
Create a character who has come into possession of what he thinks is a rare and valuable painting, only to discover it's not by the famous artist he hoped painted it. What does he do next? (And how many possibilities could you spin from that?)

Create a dialogue between two people arguing over the authenticity of a certain painting. Make each one very vested in his or her position. Write the dialogue once where they reach an impasse. Write it again and have one of them persuade the other of his or her position.

Imagine the attic exploration that leads to the discovery of a rare and famous painting. Who discovers it and how? How does it make them feel? How might it change their life and circumstances?

Writing Gem #1: The Fun of Asking "And Then What?"

Sixth grade has begun in our homeschool, and for the first time, we’re building creative writing time into our learning schedule each week.

We’ve done bits of creative writing in the past, but this year I am intentionally working it into our schedule, giving it some priority time in language arts. And I’m so glad we are. Not only because I love writing and teaching writing, but because teaching writing craft (how does a writer think? plan? organize? brainstorm? choose?) is a wonderfully organic way to teach literature as well. When you’re unpacking how a writer does something, you’re teaching how to analyze writing. How and why did the writer do that? is a great analytical step; the creative step comes when we apply it ourselves and our work – now how can I do that when I write?

I’m using Boris Fishman’s The Creative Writer: Level One (Five Finger Exercises) as a springboard here at the beginning of the term, but because I’m a writer, I can’t resist adding plenty of my own thoughts and exercises. We’re having fun. Today we talked about plot points (or beats). Fishman presented an excerpt from Tom Sawyer, then presented the part of the plot we’d just read in 10 points. S. liked that; she liked it even better when I asked her to verbally give me plot points for Peter Rabbit (a great, well-built plot that is both short and memorable) and even better when we brainstormed the beginning of a story together and then she took off to create plot points for where the story might go next.

The delightful part of plotting, of course, is that you can take a story in so many different directions, and you can always go back to where a story branches into a new place and change its course.

That’s the gem we took away from today’s writing time. I’m calling it gem #1, because I suspect we’re going to collect a lot of gems this year, which I will record here in case they are useful for other young, growing writers and their teachers! Perhaps when the year is done, we will string them into a necklace.

Writing Gem #1: Writers ask “and then what?” when they are crafting stories. Stories can go in lots of different directions depending on how the writer answers that question.

Knitting Things Together

I've been thinking a lot about knitting this week. A friend of our's came to arts camp on Wednesday (yes, we are in camp season again!) and taught the kids how to finger knit. The sweet girl was having a very stressed day, and according to her dad, her (unrelated) stress was at its height during that session, so I half-way expected her to have not even taken it all in. As it turns out, she loved finger knitting. She has been enjoying it all week long; in fact, she knitted up a whole soft skein of yarn and turned it into a scarf and now wants to do more.

The timing here feels like such a God-thing. We are still navigating the repercussions (good but challenging) of her OCD diagnosis. Just that morning, the doctor had suggested we put together a worry bag that S can keep with her and turn to when she feels like she is getting stuck in her thoughts. We brainstormed a list of materials that could go into the bag. The doc (whom we really like) was suggesting a sort of tactile craft, beyond drawing. She asked the sweet girl if she liked to do anything like make friendship bracelets and S said no. We had been trying to think of something that would be enjoyable and easy to carry around in the bag. And it was that afternoon that she learned how to finger-knit. It's been wonderful seeing her take off with it. It's also been wonderful to see her come to new realizations that she has creative options when she gets mentally and emotionally stuck. Learning to put some of those into practice and make them habits is going to take time, but at least we're taking small steps in the right direction.

The lovely timing of the learning of the new skill, just when she most needed it, reminded me again how wonderfully God knits together the details of our lives. Even the hard places, which can sometimes seem knotted and tangled from our perspective, don't throw him off from finishing the beautiful weaving and knitting he's doing. I'm so grateful to know that every moment of every day, and all parts of our journey, are in his loving hands.

Praising Him For Pine Needles

We've been studying plant cells this week. Our own microscope revealed wonders to us at the kitchen table. The membrane of an onion really is a marvel of beauty when you look at its inner structure.

Then we turned to some micrographs online. And this one blew me away.

It's the cross section of a pine needle.

Let me say that again, just so you can marvel over it with me one more time: it's the cross section of a pine needle.

Is it any wonder that the world is so beautiful? This is the secret, inner life of a pine needle, the kind of needle lying by thousands on the forest floor, here today and gone tomorrow. This is the beauty of the inner structure that no one sees, unless they really go looking, with intention and attention. 

And who puts that desire in us to look? And who puts the desire in us to create beautiful designs? And where does our drive and ability to create such intricate, lovely designs (think Celtic knotwork, Tiffany stained glass, Van Gogh poplars) come from? From the one who makes pine needles look like this. Praise Him!

Writing Exericise: Fun With First Lines

This week during our morning writing time, the sweet girl and I have been looking at first lines. She’s been fascinated to realize how many different ways there are for writers to begin stories, and how that first line shapes so much that comes after it. We’ve looked at a number of books she loves and talked about how the writer’s choice affects the story that comes after, and how it hooks us into wanting to read more. We’ve also talked about how the story would be shaped differently if a different first line had been written.

We explored several kinds of “first lines” today – traditional storytelling lines; short lines that tell us just enough to keep us going; setting lines that put us immediately in a definitely described place; voice lines that grab us, sometimes with an exclamation and sometimes with a question, but that definitely give us a real sense of a narrator or character’s voice (depending on whether or not the story is told in third or first person).

As an exercise in writing different kinds of first lines, we picked the story of Cinderella. Here are some we came up with – first lines that invite you into a retelling of Cinderella in all kinds of creative ways:

“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Cinderella.” (We agreed that this was about as traditional and simple as we could get.)

“Cinderella! Wash the dishes!” (The sweet girl loved coming up with this one. An exclamation that probably would come from stepmother or stepsisters.)

“A young girl slept with her head pillowed on the cold stones of a sooty hearth.” (A line that gives a definite sense of place, and that presents some important details that could come in useful quite soon.)

“Cinderella always had to work hard because her stepmother mistreated her.” (A line the sweet girl came up with, one that presents a lot of information packed in right upfront.)

“Oh, how tired I am of all these chores!” (Cinderella’s voice the first one we hear.)

“Why is it that my stepsisters get to lie in bed all morning, when I have to get up at the crack of dawn to work?” sighed Cinderella as she climbed wearily out of bed. (A question to get things rolling, and one that sets a contrast and drops us right into conflict. Cinderella’s voice, but also establishing third person perspective.)

“The old woman was annoyed with her lazy stepdaughter.” (Stepmother’s perspective, one that will be challenged by the reality that Cinderella is not lazy at all, but working as hard as she can for an unreasonable and overly demanding taskmaster.)

“There once was a prince who longed to find a princess to marry.” (What if we started the story not with Cinderella, but with the prince? A whole different way into the telling.)

Playing with first lines is a fun writing exercise, one that gets you thinking about the many creative ways that writers and readers can climb inside a story – whether a familiar one you’re retelling, or a new story. 

It may be easiest to give it a try with a familiar tale. Choose a fairy-tale, folk tale, Bible story, or story passed down in your family – something you know really well – and then see if you can come up with at least seven unique ways to begin it. Sometimes you might want to spring a surprise to keep your reader going. Sometimes you might want to try a quiet, traditional line that almost lulls the reader (and then you can grab them quickly with the second line). Think about how you want to establish a character, a voice, a setting. Think long and hard about who is telling the story. It might be a narrator or your  main character, but then again, maybe not.

Jumping Back Into Story: Beginning With the End

On this third day of the new year, I’ve been cleaning, organizing, lesson planning, enjoying time with the sweet girl, and generally trying to get well (still congested, still coughing). Now that end of term grading is done, I’m also trying to get back into the writing groove, but it’s taking a little longer than I anticipated.

What is it that makes jumping back into something creative so hard sometimes? Writing is the thing I love to do beyond all else, and yet when it’s been a while since I’ve regularly written – especially fiction – I can find all manner of things to put off the jump.

I used to think it was because my writing muscles weren’t well exercised. That may still be true, but it’s less true than it used to be since I do other kinds of writing regularly even when I’m not actively writing stories. Still, there is a different part of the brain (and hands) involved in writing non-fiction and even poems, so lack of regular exercise may still be part of it.

For me, I think it’s more often the realization that my jump can never be as deep as I’d like it to be. Although I’ve gotten better at writing in small spurts, out of necessity, I still write stories best when I can dive and dive deep for long, long stretches of time. That time is scarce at best and non-existent at worst some days. Knowing that I can’t give the time or attention needed makes me feel like I'm always “holding back” when I start. When you know there is a good chance you will be interrupted seven minutes in (and twelve, and sixteen, and nineteen) it’s just harder to leap with abandon.

Some of my hesitation may also come from the simple fact that I cannot shut a door. My writing space is in a corner of our living room. Even late at night, often my best writing time, when everyone else is in bed, there is still something that feels not private enough about the space. Add in that my crowded desk is cluttered with books and papers connected to all the different hats I wear in family and ministry, and it sometimes just doesn’t feel like the writerly space I need.

But enough whining. I am here to say, on the third day of the new year, that I need to dive back into story soon. And today I found a fascinating blog that provided me with some creative ideas to jumpstart my WIP. One of the most audacious ideas I found there was the suggestion that I write my story's final chapter now. Yes, now, when I am nowhere near writing the actual end, and when I don't know everything I need to know yet. The mere idea of doing this scares me in a delightful way.  I think I must feel a little bit like my ten year old did when she recently managed a 25 foot rock climb in a gym. When she landed on her feet at the bottom again, she clutched at her heart and announced "That was terrifying...AND awesome!" I suspect writing my last chapter now would feel just like that.

But the idea is resonating with me. Perhaps because a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I sat down and worked on plot points for my WIP -- moving from the end to the beginning. So I already feel as though I've been building from that perspective in my mind.