To stack the woodblocks for The Scarlet Letter in the corner cupboard with her sketch pads, pencils, and watercolors gave her an intense pleasurable feeling of being ready to live.~Wallace Stegner (From Angle of Repose)

This week I watched a movie, Where'd You Go Bernadette?, adapted from the novel by Maria Semple. The protagonist had experienced the knocks and bruises of life, and in the midst of her pain stopped creating. When she ceased creating, she simultaneously cut ties with herself, intensifying the pain. Have you ever experienced this?  Have you ever asked yourself, "Where did I go?"

It is easy to lose ourselves in this culture. We can get submerged in the voices that define creativity and art. "Making art takes too much energy. One must have huge swaths of time to create." "You must be 'good enough' to sell what you make." "You must be like J-Lo (or insert anyone famous here) if you're going to sing. paint, write, or act." "You've got to have a lot of money to really be creative." "You must have a huge following on Instagram and TikTok." "You would probably need to quit your full-time job to really have the time to create anything." 

The list goes on and on and on. We become submerged in the cultural voices and sink.  What if it's really not that way at all?

Sometimes I've felt selfish that I consider being creative a necessity in my life. There is so much pain and loss in this world. What purpose does being creative really serve in a world where volcanoes are spewing orange lava and fires and murders and floods abound? Amidst the pain of the world, it's easy to get lost from ourselves too. But what if we allowed ourselves to float to the top of that deep resevoir of voices that speak so negatively? What if we let ourselves come up for air? What if we asked what moves us? What if we asked what we consider beautiful? What would that look like? 

"I love to write letters," a young mother said. "I like pen and paper and envelopes. I like buying colorful stamps at the post office and placing them on the letters. I'm now connected with a church that provides letter-writing opportunities with persons in prison."

"I'm a doctor and teach a class at the local university. Not only do I teach techniques of surgery, but I also consider these men and women in my class persons who need mentorship in starting their own practices. It takes a lot of creativity and thinking outside the box to start a practice now, especially with so much student debt."

"Every time I lead a therapy group," a counselor told me, "I bring a beautiful image to show the participants. It's amazing how something beautiful can reduce anxiety."

"I love making homes beautiful," a woman who works for a cleaning company said. "I consider my artistic touch leaving the faucets sparkling. I make sure all my cleaning products have a gentle fragrance. I love the way I feel when I leave a house and know my clients will later walk in the door and feel so good to have a clean, fresh home."

A teacher told me, "I love reading the classics out loud to my class of sixth graders. When I read Black Beauty to them over several weeks, they never wanted me to stop reading." 

A home schooling mother said she plays one note on her violin and allows the vibration to resonate in the room. "That one note can bring me so much peace and pleasure."

In the process of releasing our creativity, it's like playing that one note on the violin. We not only find ourselves, but we also emit a sound that carries the presence and heart of God.