The Tabula Rasa
The fact that the artistic process includes emptiness says something important, I think, about creation itself. Emptiness is part of becoming.
Spiritual Practice
You, Sounding Through Me
A spark of life or inspiration sounds through us into our creations and sounds through our creations into other living, breathing creations who are also sparks of life and sources of inspiration.
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Strange Humility
If even my agency is a gift passed along by my family genes and my upbringing and white privilege and happenstance, then any sense that that agency is mine is an illusion.
Consenting to the Cold
The most powerful, willful action springs from acceptance. In Minnesotan terms, we take the “bad” weather and make the best of it.
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Faith & Writing
One of the hardest things about creative writing, as far as I’m concerned, is the pervasive sense of getting nowhere. Sure, I might have a productive morning and crank out a few thousand words, but tomorrow I’ll cut half of them, and even if I don’t I’ll likely wait years before those words see the
Bowing to What Is
If we’re willing to be changed and if we’re willing to make change, we come alive. Why? Because life is change.
Practice, Practice, Practice
What Emily and I want for Gwyn is all that practice teaches: How with every new piece we’re a beginner, how repetition builds skill, how persistence pays off, how talent amounts to nothing without hard work, how to foster a work ethic, how to make mistakes and keep going, how over time and effort what seems impossible becomes possible. How any discipline (music, science, language, faith) opens into ever greater possibilities the deeper we go. How real transformation only happens with practice. How practice becomes the whole point.
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Adding to the “Sum of the Universe’s Order”
In our product-driven, results-oriented culture, we like to think creative work gains worth by its impact on an audience. Liz’s story illustrates that who we become for having done the creative work is an equally important “product” with significant “results.”
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Prying Open The Crack
If I never notice what’s happening, I can’t choose my response. I’m reactive. But if I first stop and observe, I can be deliberate about what’s next. I’m coming to think that inside this crack lurks the greatest arena of human freedom.
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Praying Like a Novelist
The secret to fiction is that the writer “turns from everything to one face…to find oneself face to face with everything,” as novelist Elizabeth Bowen put it.
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