This morning, as I sat on the front porch of our home in the country with the red tin roof, I was struck with the awareness of the peace and sheer joy that awaits me there, everyday, right outside my front door. Inside the house, I am a full-time caregiver to my elderly father, a wife, and a mother – a woman of many responsibilities – but out on the porch I am a child of God who only wants to listen to the symphony of bird chattering, and feel the soft summer breeze caressing her cheek. I just want to be still and breathe deeply.
We all need a quiet place to refuel and tap into our creativity. For me, it’s the front porch that overlooks the flowerbeds, and the yard and the fields beyond the road. There’s something sacred about the atmosphere that makes me more alert and receptive to hearing the Inner Voice who sparks my creativity.
Porch sitting refreshes and nourishes my spirit. It invites me to slow down and contemplate life. I love to read my Bible there. Without time in the Word, instead of experiencing flowing waters, I find myself scrounging around for rocks of inspiration in parched riverbeds, run dry through a drought of my own making.
It makes me sad to think of how many mornings I’ve had to forgo the Lord’s invitation to find rest as I jump into the duties of the new day. I often wake up too late, and punch the imaginary time clock that rules my life, marching to the ticktock of the never-ceasing minute hand. Caregiving is exhausting, and all consuming, but I wouldn’t trade what I am learning about life for anything.
There have been other seasons of life when it was easier for me to freely write and draw, but for the last six years, I have been “creatively challenged.” Inspiration is hard to come by when you can’t quiet your soul. Most days are lived in a state of urgency, caring for my elderly father who is in the last stages of Parkinson’s. My life revolves around urinary tract infections and the possibility of my father contracting pneumonia.
One thing I know, if there is anything that will rob you of creativity, it’s stressful, life-draining cares and responsibilities that stretch out far across the horizon with no end in sight. Sometimes it feels like my creativity is all bottled up inside, and I’m afraid to uncork it, to express myself because of the effort it will take to put marks on the page. I don’t even know where my art supplies are anymore.I used to keep them in a basket so they would be all in one place, but I think I lent them to my youngest.
I am often challenged by my kids to draw, but I don’t want to invest the time and energy it takes to do it. Somewhere, buried deep inside, the creative spark lies waiting, but I fail to search it out and kindle the flame because I am too weary to trust that the process is reward enough in itself. And so, I allow distractions to pull me away as I gravitate toward the path of least resistance.
We creative types process life intuitively through our senses to ultimately make sense of our lives, so whether it is pain or sheer exhaustion that robs us of the ability to feel, we may find ourselves muddling through the muck and mire of everyday routine where only our darkest thoughts collect – a depressive existence at best, and a place where the air is heavy and suffocating.
Creating takes a certain amount of vulnerability and being willing to get in touch with our innermost emotions, especially during times of stress and weariness.When we eventually commit our thoughts and perceptions to the blank page, we find the process of capturing and retelling our story, therapeutic and healing. And that might be the very thing that will get us though a hard time.
Next time you find your self resisting the urge to create, seek out a place of solitude and beauty. Listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. Be at least willing to get your story out, to write it down, to feel the creative tension, and look for the analogies the Lord drops into your spirit.
Just sit and take in the world around you until you can hold it no more and it has to spill out onto the pages of your journal. Find a place where you can be still and breathe deeply.