Keeping the Creative Soul Pure

3 – Anger and Fear

These seem to go hand in hand. I am afraid of losing the place I thought I had (or should have had), a place that now seems to be occupied by others, and so I become angry. I am angry at those who have what I don’t. I am angry at the public for giving it to them. I am angry at myself for not being more_________… compelling, appealing, talented, productive, intelligent, winsome, etc., etc…

And finally I am angry at God for making me the way he did and setting up the “system” so that I could not succeed the way that I thought I should.

And with that, the light has gone out within me. Anger has snuffed it out…and the likely next thing to happen is that I will either sulk or fritter my time away in meaningless activity. Either way, the creative fire has died.

The ancients called that last state of affairs, in which the light dies out (or grows dim) in us, sloth. For them, it was more than mere “laziness” as we tend to think of it. The laziness was a symptom of the deeper disease, which was the soul-death that comes when God’s love is not working in us the way it should, when we—by virtue of the fact that we gave ourselves over to ambition, comparison and fear (which, as you may have guessed, is but a way of talking about the three “deadliest” sins: pride, envy and wrath), lost track of our divine purpose in life, which is love, creatively expressed through our unique and God-given personalities.

If our art is going to be any good, I have found, I need to be healed. Daily. I need to be personally whole. And that can only happen when the Love that made me touches my soul again, freeing me of the self-regard that inaugurated my disgusting plunge into soul-death. The great C.S. Lewis wrote:

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to the love of telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about him. For it doesn’t stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower—become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations. (The Great Divorce, p. 85)

The scene, of course, is from a conversation between one of the spirits in heaven and an “artistic ghost” who had come up from hell to tour the countryside of heaven. He wanted to paint it. But the spirit insisted: You have to learn to see again…light was your first love…you loved paint only as a means of telling about the light…you have to fall in love with the light again (p. 84).

It is helpful to remember, sometimes, why we got into this (whatever your “this” is) in the first place. It likely wasn’t to make money or have a big house or become famous or any of that foolish nonsense. It was because you SAW something and just HAD to tell about it. And the whole joy was that somehow, some way, by some miracle you could neither contain nor explain, the fresh wind of eternity blew through the form and touched those who beheld it, bringing both you and they indescribable joy.

THAT. Right there. That’s purity. When we have it, the art flows. When we lose it, the art suffers. Always.

Accordingly (in this blog post that has already waxed entirely too long), here are three things I’ve learned that help me keep my soul (and my art, such as it is) pure:

1 – I must daily fall in love

I need to cultivate the disciple of awe and wonder for awe and wonder’s sake. I need to listen to music that moves my soul and read books that excite my imagination… I need to head out, as often as possible, into Creation, work whenever I can under God’s blue sky, draw deep draughts of Colorado air… I need to look with fresh surprise upon the faces of my wife and kids and friends…enjoying them for who and what they are…that they are…miracles of the Almighty…

I need to remember that my entire existence is a miracle… That I am because God is and from that place allow my spirit to be touched by his Spirit in a co-mingling of light and love and laughter that brings me back to life… I need to fall in love…again…and again…and again…

I need to do all of this, I must add, not for the purpose of “making” something…this is a trap that too many creatives fall into…we start experiencing deficits of inspiration, and so we head out into nature or listen to music or read or whatever with a view towards “doing” something with it

Dangerous territory. It is crucial—CRUCIAL—to let the prodigality and utter gratuity of beauty be what it is. I need to be willing to be inspired…and then do nothing with it. I need to shed tears…and never tell of them. I need to have my breath taken away…and let go of every idea of working it into a sermon—letting it all be a precious, intimate secret between my soul and the Lord who loves me.

I need to see the Face, and not “use” it for anything beyond the grace of the moment.

Which leads me to the next thing…

2 – I need to be grateful

Nothing, I have found, murders the creative impulse in me quite like a lack of gratitude. Conversely, when I am thankful…when I have cultivated gratitude…something in me comes alive.

A sense of entitlement will blind you to the glory all around you all the time. You need to find ways…I need to find ways…to say “thank you” as often as I can. Karl Barth once said that if the only prayer we ever prayed was “thank you,” it would be more than adequate.

God has given us life and breath and a capacity to see and know his glory and love and has surrounded us with friends and family and the sheer wonder of existence…

…and we mock him with our ingratitude. St. Paul said in Romans 1 that such a lack of gratitude, of acknowledgement of gifts undeservedly and yet joyfully given, is what has thrown the human project completely off-kilter, blinding minds and deadening hearts and plunging us into chaos.

If I want to see, if I want the creative impulse to flow through me like a cataract of sheer joy… I have to say “thank you” as often as I possibly can for as much as I possibly can… when I do so, I find that the art goes into seemingly inexorable motion…

And finally…