Weekend Favorites, and Thoughts on Creativity

For awhile now, I’ve found it really hard to make time for blogging, or even just for snapping a few pictures. I think there are a number of things which affect my creative energy – just lack of energy, in general, but also state of mind. When I was blogging regularly, my mom said she always knew how well I was doing by how regularly I posted on my blog! There’s some truth to that – this last year, I’ve found that recovering from postpartum anxiety has made it really hard to create.

I’ve also found creativity to have a snowball effect – the more I do, the more I want to do. When I’m not making time for it, I do less and less.

The good news is that over the last few months, I’ve felt more creative energy returning – I’m writing blog posts in my head again.:) Now I just find myself back in the place of needing to make time for creating.

I’ve been reading The Gifts of Imperfection lately, and last week, I came across this:

“Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.” (Brene Brown)

That rings true with me. I’ve felt “clogged up” lately – everything in my life is better when I’m writing regularly, and searching for beauty in my everyday life. I’ve been neglecting something life-giving to me.

The issue of time in my life still remains, but I’m seeing how necessary it is to make the time, not because my blog is that outrageously important to the world, but because it’s one of my favorite ways to create.

Brene Brown also writes,

“There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t.”

I asked Ben what he does to create, and I liked his answer. He’s not into art, and right now he’s not taking much time for music or writing, although he’s gifted in those areas, but lately, he says he creates by coming up with ideas. I hadn’t thought about ideas being his creative outlet, but it’s so true! Ben comes up with ideas just for the sake of having an idea. Sometimes the ideas have to do with his job and are very useful, but other times, they are completely random – commercials he’ll never make, or plots for books I really hope he writes someday! I love the idea of creating being whatever you want it to be, whatever keeps things fun, new, fresh, and exciting.

So in the effort to keep things fresh and exciting, our family went on a little adventure last night, and I brought my camera. We created.:)

What do you do to bring creativity into your life?

 

We Were Made To Grow Things

I once read that anytime we plant something, we are participating in God’s act of creation all over again.

We are creating order from chaos, beauty where there was nothing. As Christians, we of all people should learn to appreciate new growth and the act of creating something beautiful, because it’s what God does. When we care for creation, we are loving something He made and loves, too.

I think that’s why growing a garden has always done something special to my insides. Fresh, soft, black and weedless dirt gives me a thrill. Planting something is a hopeful, joyous act.

I’ve never really had a vegetable garden before. We made one attempt before we moved to the Whiteshell, but we didn’t get our new garden ready on time, and most of what we planted didn’t ripen until it was too late.

Our yard at camp was extremely shady, so I grew hostas for the last five years, and the deer loved me for it. It worked out well – they left my hostas alone all summer, but would come to nibble them up in fall, leaving me with no plants to trim before winter.

Good times. But no vegetables.

This year, I desperately wanted a garden. I wanted to do good things to my insides, teach our girls the excitement of growing things, and eat our own vegetables.

But with a yard full of weeds, and no topsoil in sight, Ben wasn’t sure a garden was a possibility. Until we remembered a bunch of wooden crates we had in our storage shed. We filled them up with dirt, and at this moment, they are a big, beautiful mess of lettuce leaves, spinach, peppers and tomatoes.

I cannot describe the feeling I had when I made our first salad with our own lettuce.

We did this, with some miraculous help. We were part of bringing food into existence.

I came across a quote awhile ago which put that special feeling inside into words:

I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that wherever you go, the least plant may bring you the clear remembrance of the Creator. (Basil the Great)

It is so much more than plants or a garden. It’s remembering the Creator, and being reminded of how this whole thing began in the first place.

Been Thinking About Creating

Ben’s sisters are both off on wild, exciting adventures. They’re off to Europe and to the unknown.

I know that we’ll miss them, but I’m excited for them, and in a deep, dark corner inside me, I’m envious. I feel that way because they are going off to fulfill their dreams, and I often wonder what it will take to fulfill my own dreams.

I feel like I can’t quite figure out if I’m waiting for God’s timing, and for things to become “ripe”, or if I’m holding back because of fear, and all I need to do is start actively pursuing those dreams, there for the taking.

I’ve written about it on this blog before – my dream to speak and write and be the next Beth Moore and change the world. Sometimes I feel a little panicky because I feel like I’ll run out of time for all that and I should definitely be farther along in my pursuit.

Other times I feel like I’m still marinating, and like God has so much left to teach me as I stay at home with my girls, creating order in the midst of chaos, loving and supporting my husband in any way I can. There will be time for all those other things.

And in the meantime, I write.

It’s funny, because there have been times when I’ve questioned my decision to start a blog. I love doing it, but it can be really time-consuming. But I realize over and over again that I need to write. I need to communicate with people. So even during times when it feels like I don’t have time to blog, or have time to write, it’s what I need to do.

Sometimes it feels vain – like I consider all of my thoughts so important that they must be shared with the world. But sometimes it just feels like it is there inside me, and it needs to get out.

While I was having these thoughts, I came across this quote on a great new blog I found:

When you have a calling, when you have a gift from God, this is what I’ve learned about it.  Whether you do something with that gift from God or not, you carry the stamp of your gift, the weight of your calling, no matter how many years pass, no matter how many dreams you tuck away in the belief that you must have missed it.

You never stop wanting it, you never stop being it. It’s what you always loved to do and, yes, you do it every day without a single penny from anyone.  Even if no one acknowledges it.

You know in your heart of hearts that you can’t stop being this, doing this, anymore than you can stop breathing. (Emerging Mummy)

I love that. It’s like it legitimizes my need to write – not only legitimizes it, but…encourages it!

All our lives we all need to create because creativity is the life breath of our Creator Father and if we don’t create we breathe stale air and we wither dry. (A Holy Experience)

I blog to create! I used to paint pictures. Then I got a job, got married, had a baby. I didn’t have time to paint anymore, so I started scrapbooking. I had another baby. Even less time, so now I blog. The ways in which I create have changed over the years. Who knows what will come next.

What about you? Are you creating something? If not, you’d better start, cause who wants stale air?!