Breath of Life

My Lenten reflection on living on purpose has had some interesting repercussions. I'm in a creative writing class this semester (Very Happy), and it's the sort of class that prompts me to spill whatever is in my head. My poor teacher has had to read some rambles that might even rival the ones I post here. I was brainstorming, prompted by an assignment from my text book, about all the things I would like to learn. My greatest frustration and challenge this semester has been to own and invest myself in my work as an art major.

(Oh My Gosh, I Just Admitted To Being An Art Major On My Blog Where Anyone And Everyone Might See It! AAAAHHHH!!!)

*cough*
I have begun to realize that my eagerness to try new things and be open to the direction of my teachers has sacrificed my investment in my art work. I am going through the motions of creating art with little intellect and no heart involvement. Nothing I have made thus far merits posting on this blog or even bringing home. I would like to learn to try new things and follow directions while still making the work mine, and taking pride in it. Things I do for my own amusement are done too cautiously and carefully. They become too precious too fast. My class work never becomes precious.
The following is the result of my brain storm. I wrote out lots of key words that were relevant, but when I shifted to actually writing, the first thing out of my pen was some advise my dad once gave me about our lawn mower.

When you start this stubborn old lawn mower -- the kind with the cord you yank on -- you have to pull as if you would pull your arm right off. It’s the only way to get the darn thing going. You look kind of foolish, standing there giving your all to a lawn mower, but it just won’t settle for anything less than your whole arm, from the shoulder down. See, the more power something has, the more of yourself you have to give it before it will move. If you think a lawn mower is hard, try moving a human heart.

Learn to give everything, if you are going to create. That’s why you create, isn’t it; to move human hearts? It’s going to take a lot. Everything. Bleed all over the stage, smash yourself against your sculpture, spill your guts all over the page. Does that scare you? It should, but not more than the less dramatic giving. It doesn’t have to be violent. It can be the delicate touch of your fingertips on a spinning lump of clay; as gentle and steady as the rise and fall of your chest as you sleep. Even when you hold yourself still, to let the air move with the last fading overtones in the wood and strings of your cello, be still and will those vibrations as if your life depended on their echo.

Nothing exists without God willing it into being. He can do that all at once. But if you, mere mortal, want to make something beautiful, you’d better concentrate your whole life on that piece of silver you are beating into shape. You have to give it some of your life because, after all, it doesn’t have any life of its own. How will it move hearts if it has no heart of it’s own, beating life through it? It must use life borrowed from its maker, just like you do. You know, these are just black smudges on paper. You are the one that makes them mean something. You are the one that makes the air vibrate.

You have to give everything. No, more than that. Don’t just do it. Embody it. Be Giving! And when you want to start a lawn mower…