Holy Week {...and I've been sitting on a big secret...}

I have been sitting on a big secret. I have a story to tell you that you might not believe.

It is a story of perseverance, and connection, and the arts. It is a story that can't be explained by natural terms.

Some years ago, I wrote a piece and titled it, "The Inescapable Laws of Creativity". I worked so hard - persevering through much resistance - to get these thoughts down about it. I published them to my blog…

…to very little response. This didn’t bother me, because I write for the same reasons I make art: to scatter seed.

My personal symbol of creativity (you can ask The Preacher, because I want to get it tattooed on me, but he won't let me) is the dandelion. (Arrows, too, but that’s another metaphor.).

Maybe it is because the mature dandelion and I have the same hair. But more than that, they speak to me of influence. Dandelion seeds float out into the world, and you have no control over where and how they land, take root, and FLOURISH. Like the mustard seed spoken of by Jesus, the dandelion seed is invasive.

Come to find out, that small seed “The Inescapable Laws of Creativity”, floated unbeknownst to me, while this middle aged woman slept and cried and laughed and “grandmother’d” and cooked and ate and made art and prayed and lived my life - that seed floated far and wide and landed in the heart of the unlikeliest person I could have imagined.

A few months ago Mujahid Ur Rehman, a young Muslim man, living in South Africa, a nature photographer, was out walking alone. As he walked, he was pondering his own creative practice. Suddenly, the words "inescapable laws of creativity" kept coming to his mind, over and over.

Those words would not leave him. So he went home and googled them...

...and MY words came up, first in his search!

So he clicked on the link and the link took him to my blog. My piece on "The Inescapable Laws of Creativity" moved him so much, that he contacted me via Instagram to ask if he could use my words for a creative project of his own.

I know, right? Who does that anymore? Well, Muji does. (I can’t tell you how many times I have had my words {word-for-word} ripped off, or concepts that I have worked hard to develop are co-opted by someone else and passed off as their own “special idea” or their new “project”. I have also had my art closely copied. Usually by Christian women.) The level of respect that Muji communicated to me has given me so much hope and even courage.

So, as I said, Muji contacted me via IG’s “messaging” feature. Now. You need to know something about me: I never (as in n e v e r) open a DM from a man I do not know. ha. But for some reason, on this particular early morning, I did. I tapped the notification - and cringed, not knowing what would come up.

Instead of something awful, I read the most respectful, polite request to use my words in a creative project.

I visited Muji's Instagram feed, and right away I saw his gift. He is a very gifted photographer and video story teller. So I anxiously gave him permission, not knowing what would happen.

What has happened has been the beginning of a sweet creative friendship.

And a gorgeous, dramatic creative collaboration.

The result of seeking to walk out our art practice in an ethos of respect and permission and trust has been a greater, deeper, better understanding between a young Muslim man and an old(er) Christian grandmother.

That, all by itself, is an unbelievably good story. But. It gets better!

Muji enlisted his wife Naseema as the actress in this video. Dear, dear reader…watch the video.

I don't know about you, but I feel like can see into her spirit in this video, and it makes me cry every time. What a precious woman. She just so happens to be an ARTIST....and a physician. (Naseema, I am in awe. You are amazing!) And she graciously took time off to help her husband with his project. The two of them (plus someone they paid to work for them) traveled quite a distance to a remote location...

...just to tell this story. Using my words. Using his dramatic ideation. Using Naseema’s delicate, detailed watercolor art.

Please watch, and if you can, tap the "thumbs up" on this video. (Please sign in on YouTube and even start a YouTube account, if you haven't already, JUST to be able to click the "thumbs up" on this one video!)

It is a labor of love - no one has been paid one dime or dollar to create it, except the helper that Muji and his wife Naseema paid, out of their own pocket.

Friends, here is my point: THE LIVING GOD is using the arts to bring people together in ways we cannot imagine.

Hey, you. What have you been sitting on, too afraid of small beginnings, or too afraid to surf the learning curve it takes to start blogging? What have you left unsaid, because you are playing a deadly comparison game, or because you think you can’t stomach the anonymity of pouring your heart out, only to have no one read?

Allow me to show you my early blogging analytics. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and no one read for years. I can give you fifty solid reasons to blog, even if no one reads - but this post is already too long.

If I may challenge you one more time: Put your words out there.

Blow the dandelion. Watch what happens. Your words might just land on the heart of someone on the other side of the world, and gently lift them out of a creative rut.

Sharing your words will for sure get you out of a creative dry place.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for watching. Thanks for SHARING THIS POST. Please share it widely and with great love.

By doing this, you and I and Muji and Naseema can collaborate together - each of us a part of what God is doing in these days!

PS. the art Naseema painted will MOVE you...but it's mine. I am purchasing it from her - so step off. ;)

Day 40 of Lent - Palm Sunday

For the past 40 days of Lent, I have been moved in my own spirit to lean very hard into disciplines of delight. Rather than fast in the usual sense of Lent, I have “added to my faith, virtue” :

2 Peter 1:5 says this: And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge…

In the Greek, that word “virtue” is tied to courage and action. This is the spirit in which I was led to practice Lent - to be in a mode of courage and action. So each and every day, I have both picked up the paintbrush, in some form, and I have picked up the “pen” here on this blog. And it has changed me, fundamentally.

The “confirmation” (to use a word that is so popular with evangelicals) that, in engaging such an ambitious Lenten practice, I am actually doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing - the confirmation has come radically and very supernaturally - I will tell you that story tomorrow.

Tonight, I want to hone in on the real Gospel. The real Gospel is all about what Jesus did for me, not what I do for Jesus. My picking up the pen and the paintbrush has not been something I grit my teeth and forced myself to do for Jesus. No! Rather, I have picked up the implements of my art out of a state of utter, glorious, overflow.

To illustrate only one example out of very, very many, I want to share with you what I believe to be a bad translation of the above 2 Peter 1:5 verse. The slightly “off” translation is the New Living Translation, and here’s what it says:

2 Peter 1:5 in the NLT: “In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge

That word translated into “virtue” which then was translated into “moral excellence” actually means “manly valor or courage in the right”. Virtue is simple - it is to be men and women of action, whose actions are fueled by the courage to do what is right. And because we serve a God of vast diversity, what valor, action, and courage looks like for one, will be different than that of someone else.

To add to my faith virtue, was to put in place daily non negotiable paintbrushes and pens of discipline and delight. It took courage. And God has rewarded me again and again. The rewards have not been small, either.

Today, the Preacher and I spent the entire day, until almost 9 PM in the company of friends. Jerimiah preached at Harvest Church - this dear friend brought an excellent word of freedom. You could feel minds and hearts being opened up by the Gospel at church. Then, after church, minds and hearts were blessed with some sweet fellowship as he and his sweet wife, their two sons and brand new baby girl came to hang out all day at the culdesac.

Man, when grace people get together, the net effect is never a net negative. It’s a net positive. And the mutual strength we receive and we give is solid and sustainable. I encourage you to find Jeremiah Johnson via his social media Facebook account. {live link}

Tomorrow, I get to wake up, happy that it’s Monday, and do not kid yourself - I will be excited to choose what my next 40 days will be. “What will be the next thing I commit to do each and every day for 40 days, until God has His way in me? Tomorrow, I also get to return to the keyboard and tell you an amazing story of artists and God and God connecting artists from all over the world to make something very beautiful. Please tune in!

In the meantime: go add to your faith some sort of courageous action. Something that says to your own soul and to a watching world, “Jesus you are WORTHY. God, You paid it all. My overflow is my worship.”