Ask, Seek, Knock.

ASK, SEEK KNOCK.

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? But it doesn't take a lot of time to arrive at the notion that merely asking or seeking or knocking once is enough. I'm reminded of the woman who wouldn't give up on bringing her case before the judge...and he finally give in to her demands for a fair hearing because she didn't give up.

Simple to say, "Don't give up. Never say never. Persevere." The trouble is in actually persevering! Tolerating disappointment, day after day, feeling discouraged yet aware that the emotions don't alter the need to put the willpower in gear.

How often do your emotions keep you from persevering?

One of my favorite quotes about writing came from a British writer, who said that the most important ingredient in being a successful writer was, "bum glue." In short, you glue your bum to the chair and write. Don't feel like it? Tough, keep writing. Uninspired. Just keep writing and fix it, add sparks and fuel and fire later, just keep at it.

Jesus wants us to hang in there, fight the good fight, to remember Churchill's fiery speech every day, and "Never give up!"

"Fight the good fight of the faith to which you were called...." Paul told Timothy. "Never give up."

Dancing in the Dark

I just read Derek Hough's biography-inspirational book: TAKING THE LEAD (2014).

This is sort of an executive summary mingled with my reactions and reflections:

Derek found himself driven by physical energy and by fear...
--where can the fear attack me?
--He found his way to overwhelm the fear was by just DOING! Life is NOT what happens to us, it's what we make of it.

Passion is not difficult: passion is that sense of "flow," of being "in the zone,"
[Or, says David: as my daily devotional suggested this morning--passion moves easily on the wind of the Spirit! It is when we're fighting the Spirit that we suffer severe headwinds. That's my experience!]

Kids act--adults analyze. Oops, then they over-analyze.
--impulsiveness is okay [granted, we need SOME kind of boundaries!]

Free yourself to have ideas, lots of ideas...[work/write/do a lot of things that may end up destined for the trash can...but having 15 crazy crummy ideas or 10 poor poems might just gestate one or two good ones, but we won't have any ideas if perfectionism keeps us paralyzed and over-analyzed! We dance our way out of the darkness by going, doing, being and living, and daring to fail and daring failure to try to stop us! I used to tell the patients whom I was counseling/coaching for habit disorders--"How did you learn to ride a bike...did you get on the first time and cycle around the block? Of course not! You got on and fell off. You got back on and fell off on the other side...over and over, until one day it all clicked! That's how we change, that's how we grow, and that's how we create.]

SEE the successes, don't visualize the failures.

Don't ask "Why?" ask, "Why not???"

Be an eternal student, always pushing to learn and grow.

I am created to create (p167), Derek says. [David adds, OF COURSE. We are created in the image of our Creator-God*. We have the mind of Christ**--of course we are creative! It is hellish perfectionism, self-hate, pride, envy of others, and the pursuit of boring, repetitive, mind-numbing TV that all stymie creativity.]

__________
*Genesis 1: 26 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=esV
**1 Cor. 2: 16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+2:16&version=ESV

Enthusiasm.

Muppets creator Jim Henson said: "Follow your enthusiasm. It's something I've always believed in. Find those parts of your life you enjoy the most. Do what you enjoy doing."

Right. But what if your degree of enthusiasm is not balanced by the same degree of skill? For instance, the poor slobs who appear for auditions for "...Talent" or "Idol" but who can't sing worth a lick, or who dance like a dork. All the judges agree, the audience agrees, but somehow, just because there's "enthusiasm" we feel as if the judges are being "mean."

Balderdash! By all means, follow your enthusiasm until it leads to something that you're good at! But, so sorry, that may have to be a hobby: being really good at painting cute little pink butterflies, or sketching really cool race cars...fun, but it is not likely to pay the utilities! There's a reason why a job is called "work" and a hobby is filed under "play." Happy that rare human for whom the job is a joy and never contains even a moment of drudgery--hah!

Oh, and while I'm on the subject: $15/hour for flipping burgers? Wait till some of them grow up (well, we can hope that happens, but I think we're seeing more and more people stuck in perpetual adolescence) and want to pay their employees what the market demands or the work deserves, only to be told by a power-tripping bureaucrat what the unarguable wage rate is and must be. Cannot these idiots do basic math--higher costs lead to higher prices. Duh. Sure, go find a study that says the opposite--it's out there, but, they're having fun with statistics, finding results to prove their point rather than doing basic facts.

Kills me.

Okay, back to the point--follow your enthusiasm, pursue your passion, and you might end up with the best job imaginable. Just don't bet the farm on it--remember, most of us came from peasant stock, and our forefathers worked daggone hard on the farm, at the gristmill, in the shop, in the orchards and vineyards, fishing or mining or logging! Their passion was to survive! ...and their names survive...Farmer. Miller. Smith. Carpenter. Viticulturist (okay, joking here). Fisher. Miner. Sawyer.

So, dream big, but expect to work, and work hard. Go, go, go!

A world without...

A World Without You.

"I could have imagined and created a world without you...but, then, the world would have been incomplete. Without you certain people would have never received your warm smile. Kindness that you could have offered would have gone unreceived, while kindnesses that you may have benefited from would never have blessed the giver.

"My world would have been incomplete...without you in it.

"Does this help you to understand why I am particularly fond...of you?"

(Signed,
....God.)

Creative kids, creative adults.

“The creative adult is the child who has survived.” 

Ursula K. Le Guin

My wife, who still insists, "I can't draw well," related this story:

It was fall, and for our art project the entire fifth grade class had to color a picture of a jack-o-lantern. The teacher proudly hung them all about the room. Everyone's. Except mine. She said it didn't look at all like a pumpkin.

* * * * *

Have a similar story? Maybe not to do with the graphical arts, but with writing a story or an essay? Or a poem? Perhaps you had an invention-- A GREAT IDEA!!!! TRULY...and it got shot down as soon as the words left your mouth. In fact, you could see their bloody corpses laying there on the classroom floor...alongside your ego.

Yes, persistence is a crucial ingredient in being creative. Particularly because most GREAT IDEAS!!!! are, to be honest, not that great. But, who knows if the next one, or the twenty-next or the five-hunnerdeth won't be a truly great idea--that's the reality...the reality that is both full of failure yet boundlessly wide and deep and long! Doubt my words?...just ask Thomas Edison!

Share a story, I'd love to hear one. Meanwhile, I've got a very short story...I am still writing a poem a day. Many of them are mediocre. Some are silly and would be quite entertaining...for the average nine-year-old! (As if that were a bad thing?) Some are, frankly, future compost. But, every once in a while, that flowing stream of creative juices hits an eddy current and stirs something up that is actually worth listening to. Hmmm.

* * * * * 

Here's the daily scrawl from 1/22/14:

Adult pretensions

  ...shed 'em.

Along with fruitless contentions.

  Come, let us make peace in all dimensions.

That is my intention:

  the absolute suspension

of adult convention,

  so listen to the child within

and celebrate invention!