2022, A Year to Create

Last year was difficult for many people for many reasons, and I am no exception. I lost my job in the midst of COVID uncertainty, I moved back home so that I could afford to student teach in the fall, I lost my first car in an accident caused by a drunk driver, and my grandmother passed away unexpectedly. While hard things piled on, I worked tirelessly to keep up with school demands as I work towards becoming a teacher and I did my best to uphold prior commitments and maintain some remnant of my social life. When the year started, I had hoped to live with less yes and more value - to prioritize in a way that allowed for more rest and fulfillment. Alas, there was so little rest and so much stress. The only things I could afford to give up were the things that I most enjoyed. And so, 2021 became a year without a pen.

I gradually pulled away from my writing and my amazing writing group. I stopped hosting my creative brunches. I didn’t take on personal art projects. I hardly played for Musicians on Call. I gave up open mic nights. I abandoned my creative pursuits. Perhaps that was necessary, but I think it made me a bit miserable. And if I had to do it over again, I would look for a way to make room for creativity.

This year, I will certainly do things differently. My one-word mantra for 2022 is CREATE.

I am returning to creative pursuits and finding assurance in their lifegiving value from God.

From a pretty early point in my faith, I knew that God granted us different gifts that we could use to honor Him. I knew that His marvelous creation revealed Himself to us. In my 20s, I began to appreciate how God’s use of creativity in all of His beautiful forms of creation had a way of drawing us nearer to Him as we encountered and engaged with them. I have known these things for a long time now. The first time I heard the notion that creativity was not just something we enjoyed, but a trait of God reflected in us, it sounded too good to be true — like a man-made proverb that permitted me to assign undue meaning to something I did simply for enjoyment. And then I saw evidence of this notion in the Bible for myself.

The very first verse in the Bible: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) is soon followed by the Bible’s first mention of the Imago Dei (Image of God): Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)

And God did just that - after creating a series of amazing things out of nothing - light, sky, land, sea, sun, moon, stars, animals - God made man in His image and gave him dominion over the animals. And the first task God gave to man was to name all of the animals.

Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19)

Voila - an act of creativity! It’s not an arbitrary act either — it is God-given and God-glorifying. Somewhere out there, there is a theologian (probably several) who can cite you a list of verses that demonstrate what I have become convinced of: Creativity is an aspect of God’s character that is reflected in us, and the act of being creative can be good for that reason alone. Better still, creativity, for all of the aforementioned reasons, can stir my affection for God. I am not a theologian, but I am a writer, and a few years I came across a liturgy for fiction writers that so resonated with me and captured the nature of our relationship with God and creativity. It reshaped the way I approach writing fiction, and the way I understand all creative pursuits endeavored by Christians. I’ll share a bit of it with you and highly encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.

Lord, let me love this world into being
because you are the author of stories
within stories within stories and of poetry
within all of creation and you have made us
lovers and stewards of this same gift.
We who live out our small stories
within your greater story would also tell,
by your grace, such stories as would
somehow awaken hearts
 to wonder,
 to beauty,
 to truth,
 to love.

-Douglas McKelvey, Every Moment Holy

This is what I want from 2022. Whether it is my product, my process, or the ways that I am impacted by the process of creating, I want to create. And not arbitrarily, but with intention and an understanding of my relationship with God and creativity. This year, may I engage in creativity often and in such a way that awakens hearts to the wonder, beauty, truth, and love of God. Amen.

2017, An Invitation

Happy New Year!!

I have reflected on 2016, and now I am ready to dive into 2017. I have a list of resolutions for the new year, but I have learned to keep those to myself. Resolutions are typically admissions of areas in which you have either previously failed or would like to improve. Under the right circumstances and with the right measure, I am an open book, but I am not prepared to give the world (or the few people reading this post) a complete list of my shortcomings and insecurities. Rather than a list of resolutions I want to share with you a single word that sums up the way I am looking at this new year: invitation.

A new year is an invitation - an invitation to be a better you - healthier, happier, wiser.  It is an invitation to go anywhere and try anything with anyone. The beginning of a new year is bright and shiny, but at some point when that beginning ends, we may forget what a wonderful invitation it is. Here’s a little something to remember: the new year is an open invitation - when the novelty and excitement have worn away, we are still welcome to try new things, resume old hobbies, and embark on those personal journeys that will improve and, or forever change us. I want to remain enticed by the invitation that this year brings.

I want to let go of my inhibition and accept every possibility that this invitation holds for me. I want to develop some level of coordination and learn how to dance this year. I want to stand in the spotlight and sing my heart out, even if it’s just for karaoke night. I want to trade a bit of my alone time for new friendships. I want to do something out of the ordinary just for fun, like finally getting that pink streak in my hair (am I too old for that?) or getting a tattoo. I want to make something really beautiful with my own two hands. I want to meet someone really beautiful (inside and out, etc. etc - I know what matters guys). These are not resolutions, so much as options on my invitation. In this new year we are invited to make every self-realizing hope that we have a reality.

Throughout my life I have declined many invitations, and the likelihood is that I will decline more still, but the new year is an invitation that I would be remiss not to accept with gratitude and intention. I hope that you will also say yes to everything the new year has to offer, and remember that you are invited to do so all year long.

Hello 2015

Around this time every year I think about resolutions. I guess we're supposed to think "Here's an opportunity for me to be an even better me!!", which is all good and dandy, but how long does that high last, and was last year's version of myself really so bad? Don't get me wrong - I'll be looking to make improvements and strides this year, I'm just not starting  the year thinking about flaws from my past. Rather, I'm looking forward to marvelous memories that await me in the year 2015.

I saw a New Year's craft on BuzzFeed and knew right away that I would need to make it, and since I loved the idea so much, I created a Facebook event inviting friends to do the same wherever they might be. I don't know that anyone partook, but I don't suppose that matters.The craft is called a rememberlutions jar, for the storing of favored moments throughout 2015, to be read at the end of the year. 

I made my jar, and I have already added my first memory of the year: "Crafting rememberlutions jar with Aunt Kethsia in New York." Simple as that seems, it was quite special to me. My Aunt Kethsia, who is actually the wife of my father's cousin, Jimmy, and a longtime friend of my parents, lives in  Lawrence, New York, where my family stayed with them these past couple of weeks. She has a fantastic craft room, and an upcoming blog (wink wink).

I've spent the past couple of weeks in a way that I could not have imagined. It was both trying and wonderful, and so completely unexpected. When I get the time, I'll try to post about it. I'm hoping that I manage my time in such a way that I get the time to devote to things like my blog more often. I hope to fill this jar well before the year's end and make several more, filled with awesome memories. Hello 2015!!

Update: Another Near-Resolution for 2014, Language

Between French and Spanish, I really should have been able to speak a language other than English by now.

I took French all four years of high school (in part because it sounded so beautiful and sophisticated and in part because my parents spoke the language, so I figured I would have an upperhand). Those 4 years were to little or no avail. My siblings took Spanish and everyday I see how much more pracitcal that was. I would love to know both, but language is not my gift and I have not yet had the discipline to put in the hours it would take me to learn. Here are two songs that I love, one in French and one in Spanish that I would love to sing if I ever grasped either language.

Here's to hoping I can sing one of them by the end of this year.

The Last Post on the Resolutions that I said I wouldn't have

So I guess I've come around on the matter of resolutions. I'd say I'm still keepin' it real and that these are more hopes for the year. This final one is one that I most defienitely should be able to manage: reading.

I used to read all the time. As a child, reading was my primary for of entertaiment, and even as I grew to gain more of those, reading remeained a favorite pass time. I read books well above my level and in copious. The effects were evident in my vocaublary first and foremost and showed in ertain knowldege that I had as well. Of course the more you read the better you write. All of these wonderful positive sideeffects of reading made me want to read that much more,  but aboce all else, I just loved a good story. And though I seldom read anymore, the fact is, I still love a good story. So why did I stop reading?

The first reason is an easy guess: time. I seem to have run out of it since leaving childhood. With age we take on more obligations than most of us probaly bargained for. And each new one seems to take just a little more time than the last. Growing up is some kind of adventure I guess, but sometimes, it's exhausting. By the time I see how much time I have left for the things you would like to do, it's hard to decide which activities will make the cut.

The next factor is the amount of obligatory reading you deal with as you get older. College first and foremost will require more reading than is humanly possible. So I develop a skill for skimming and half-reading that sill takes somewhere near forevier.

Thease two factor combined oftern mean that reading for pleausre seems less pleausurable and more like another task to be completed. Now I find my stories on tv and in movies. And those are great, but they do little for for my mind in the process. Furthermore, they leave little the imagination, whereas reading opens boundless fields for imagination.

This year I want to read more, and I intend to start with the book everyone has been telling me to read (for two years now): The Faulit in Our Stars, by John Green.

Image courtesy of Cannonball Read 5

Year's End Toast: A Few Thoughts Going Into the New Year

This is not a post containing New Years' optimistic cliches about fresh starts and positive changes that we can make in the coming year. Forget that - well, for a minute anyway. In my experience thus far, those January hopes and dreams that I ring in with the new year seem to wither and die before the year is half over. Of course I could work up my resolve and be diligent enough to carry out the plans I make at the onset of a beautiful bright new year. I could do my best to keep  my annually renewed dreams in tact, shiny and not tarnished by the darker days that will surely be ahead with as much familiarity as the glorious sun-shining days. I just know that no year is without it's hard times and that the second wind we seem to catch on the first of every year rarely carries us all the way through the whole year. I'm not pessimistic, just realistic (well there's a cliche for you).

In that spirit of realism, I commit to this single resolution for the new year: I will let less of my words be unspoken and I will strive to know people more.

I wrapped up the end of the year cleaning my room - the literal nature and the symbolism of that are so much deeper than you know. In the process of doing so, I came across so many letters/cards/notes that I had written and/or started writing  to others, and I was struck by the number of thoughts I had on those sheets of paper which had remained with me rather than going to those whom they were intended for. Those letters were a physical manifestation of even more thoughts inside of me that I had kept to myself which would have been better spent if they were shared.

One of the letters I had written was to the sister of a young man who had passed away this past summer. He had been friends with my sister and especially my brother brother in high school, and we had in fact lived across the street from him for a period of time. I knew of him more than I knew him and it never occurred to me what a shame that was until his passing. He was a beautiful loving soul from what I hear and I will never know more than that. This haunting thought was more of a regret than the letter that I had failed to give to his sister. It is with that bit of heaviness in my heart that I decided to make it my mission to know people better.

I think mine is a large enough resolution to try to carry out over the coming year and I do hope that I will. "Smaller" hopes (which I will not yet call resolutions as my determination does not seem high enough yet) include getting in shape and loosing weight this year, improving my situation in school this semester (that's a whole story in it self), strengthening my current relationships, and getting more deeply rooted in my faith.

As I enter the new year with my realism and my hopes, I also look back on a year in my life that has been unlike any other and I celebrate the person that I have remained - that is of course the best of me, and not the worst, rather than the person that I have yet to become. There is something to be said for remaining true to who you are every year, even as you strive to be a better person, especially in worse times. It is with that sentiment in mind, as well as the recollection of the past year that I have had, that I wrote this short song, titled "Year's End Toast".