Do you ever find yourself longing not for a different life, but a deeper life?
One where you know deep down in your knower exactly what it is you have to offer the world and your life actually reflects that?
Where you’re able to make the work of your hands count in a way that fulfills both your duties and your soul?
Where you find the courage to unapologetically pursue the things that make you come alive right now in the middle of your daily routine?
Where you’re fully awake to the possibility lurking just beyond the borders of your comfort zone?
What if you allowed yourself to believe (just for fun, just for a minute!) that God made your heart to leap with creative delight, to embrace risk and adventure, to jump and swell and stir at the idea of living a bigger story than the one you’ve been living?
What if that didn’t have to look like some big, scary, upheaval of your normal life?
What if it was as small as recognizing and valuing the important work you’re probably already doing?
What if it was as big as believing that you are already called, already qualified, already invited, and fully capable of taking that same mundane, daily, work in front of you and making it into art?
What if it was as freeing as knowing that the “art” you have to offer the world- you know, the art that NO ONE ELSE CAN MAKE, and the art that the world SO DESPERATELY NEEDS, is actually as mind-numbingly, soul-tinglingly (yes I’m sticking with the word tinglingly- and I dare you to say it 5 times fast) simple as doing what you love and what comes naturally to you?
What if exercising your basic human right to Creativity was actually a spiritual practice? A way to honor not just yourself, but others too, and even God?
What if “Creativity” could be anything, anything at all? Like inviting someone over for dinner and making them feel welcome not just in your home, but in your life?
Like crafting a play, a song, a story, or a joke? Like bringing order to chaos within a spreadsheet or a home? Like a keen sense of humor that intuitively knows how and when to make people laugh?
What if hatching brilliance could look just as much like cooking dinner on a Tuesday night or rearranging a living room as when Lin Manuel Miranda wrote the broadway musical Hamilton?
What if art is art because you are you, and it’s all up for individual interpretation and delight?
What if it all matters so much more than you ever knew?
What if today your art looks like a diaper change that turns into a tickle fight, but tomorrow your art looks like 10 minutes spent doodling on a blank piece of paper, and five years from now your art looks like starting a business or painting with watercolor or tap-dancing on your head? (Okay, that last one isn’t a thing, but just roll with me?)
What if you didn’t put your art in a box?
What if you didn’t make it any smaller or bigger than it wanted to be?
What if it was re-defined by showing up to the work in front of you fully as yourself, by appreciating beauty for the sake of beauty, and by allowing yourself to dream and dare and delight in the middle of your right-now life?
What would that look like, even?
P.S. Do you want me to ask your more questions? Because I can. I can totally do that.
What if exercising your basic human right to Creativity was actually a spiritual practice? A way to honor not just yourself, but others too, and even God?…..So good and true. Thanks for making me think!