The Creative Mind

During the past few days, I’ve been in a bit of a slump.  I’ve been sleeping a lot, lazing around in all my free time, and just generally feeling low and grumbly.  I couldn’t figure out why exactly—things are winding down for the year, so I don’t have very much to do.  I’ve already decided not to worry very much about finding a job or an apartment (at least in theory) and I don’t think that’s the cause.  For a long time, I thought I was just being sulky, as every human being has a right to be every once in a while.

But there was more to it, as I’ve discovered today.  Thinking about it this morning, I remembered the last time that my slump lifted—when I started to rearrange files on my computer in preparation for a new writing project.  Seems strange, but it’s true: even doing that little bit of work gave me an energy and an optimism I had been missing.  I realized then that this listless feeling has persisted because I am a writer who is not writing. 

Pearl Buck once described the creative mind as a creature of sensitivity, someone who absorbs everything around him or her in acute detail.  This “cruelly delicate organism,” Buck says, also has the need to create, as a way of sustaining the self, for “without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…”  I am like that.  I have a need to make something beautiful, or if not beautiful, at least powerful.  Be it words or music, something has to come out of my soul every day, or my subconscious mind feels like it has failed the world.  For a writer, or for any artist, the worst feeling in the world is the absence of motivation and inspiration.  Even writing this little bit soothes the itch that I couldn’t scratch.  Now that I am aware of the consequences of ignoring this need, I can take better care of myself. 

How interesting it is to me, that humans have evolved beyond simple survival—to continue to exist, we must feed our minds and our souls, or we will waste away in a feeling of meaninglessness.  It’s too bad that we don’t know how to sustain our mental and emotional needs as well as we could.  Maybe if we did, the world would be a happier place, or at least an easier one to understand.

Private vs. Personal Faith

In my church, there is a beautiful stained glass window directly back from the pulpit.  It is enormous, running almost to the ceiling of the hall, and the colors are brilliant on a sunny day.  It portrays Jesus in a red robe, sitting against a stone wall, and five children are gathered around him.  This morning, I had a chance to study this window for quite some time, and it got me to thinking.

Four of the children in the window take up the center of the piece—they kneel before Jesus, touching his robes, and Jesus holds the youngest in his arms.  But the fifth child is the one who interests me most.  Alone of all the figures in the window, her face is not seen—the child has turned towards Jesus, her back to the viewer.  I say “her” for convenience, but it could as easily be a little boy.  The child kneels off to one side, and one hand is reached out towards the hem of Jesus’s robe, but if she is actually touching the cloth, it is a very light contact.

I think of that child as representing most of us Christians in the world.  Society these days frowns upon intense religion—it is seen as fanatic or obsessive, and it is embarrassing to most of us.  I see the images on facebook (“share this photo if Jesus is welcome on your profile!”) and I quickly scroll down past it, telling myself of course Jesus is welcome on my profile, and that it’s enough that I know that.  Others don’t have to know.  In effect, I am a “private” Christian.

It’s not just Christianity, either.  There are other religions in which people take—or pretend to take—only a casual interest.  We tell ourselves that as long as we know, as long as we remember what we believe, that’s enough.  And to an extent, it is.  Faith as a positive force in the world is meant to make people better within themselves, and “private” faith is sufficient to accomplish that.

But in another sense, there is no such thing as a “private” faith.  The ideals of the modern society shouldn’t shame us into silence, but they do.  We are like that child in the stained glass window—when we turn towards spirituality, we turn away from the world, and our reaching for better things is tentative and surreptitious.  But why?  Very few of us really are fanatics or obsessive, which is the conclusion to which society tends to reach.  When we have these beliefs that make us reach for the good in the world, that make us want to support it and lift it up to the light, why should we feel the need to hide them?  Private faith, also, is dangerous, because it means we are the only one aware of it, and so we are the only ones who can maintain it.  When faith is secret, it is so easy to go against our principles if it is more comfortable or convenient to do so.  I know I have in the past, and probably will in the future.

There is such a thing as too much religion, of course.  That’s the entire reason that our culture shies away from faith these days.  But there has to be a happy medium between fanaticism and atheism.  Consider this, then, my official turn to face the world: I am a Christian, which does not mean I scorn all other religions or even the lack of religion.  It is a personal faith, but not a private one, and yes, there is a difference.  Faith, after all, is not just a crusade to improve the world.  To me, it is a battle to improve the self, and I’m proud to say that I will keep up that struggle for many years.  And if enough of us own up to that struggle—thereby holding ourselves accountable for it—well, we will brighten the world just by default.

Sunday Friendships

One of the really nice things about being a singer is getting to sit with the choir when I go to church.  I like being part of the music, but more than that I like to look out at the church family while I’m there, so that even if I don’t get to talk to everyone, I still feel like I’ve seen them and made sure that they’re doing all right.  And from that vantage point, I notice things that I wouldn’t if I were part of the congregation.  For example, the last time I was in church, I saw two girls sitting together.  One of them was Jennifer, a peer of my younger brother’s, about eighteen years old now.  The other, Gracie, was much younger, seven or eight.  Gracie was leaning over to show Jennifer something, and there was a big smile on both of their faces.

I kept thinking about that scene for a long time that afternoon.  I wondered why it kept coming back to me, until I remembered when I had been Jennifer's age.  Back then there was a younger girl, Natalia, who used to sit with me every week.  We would draw on our bulletins, pass notes, and play MASH to predict where we would live and who we would marry (using a highly illogical system to choose from severely limited options, of course).  My younger sister, too, had an older girl, Kerry, to look up to, and even further back, I can remember my own weekly heroines, Katherine, Kelly, and Lindsey.  These relationships were all very important to us at the time, but as the years went by and the girls on both sides grew older, the connection began to fade.  Now I find it awkward to talk to Natalia—her interests have changed, as have mine, and more than that we’re both so busy now that it’s hard to get in touch.

I think it’s important to connect with older women, no matter what your age.  Years bring wisdom, and even a simple connection with someone more experienced in life can be beneficial.  But with two relatively young girls, the relationship has a sweetness that cannot be replicated later in life.  The young girl admires the elder and therefore is happy just to be her friend, while the elder girl is flattered by and often grateful for the attention.  It's almost like picking out an older sister, someone who doesn't actually live with you and therefore still has the appeal of the unfamiliar.  The mutual affection is simple, but strong, and unmarred by any of the drama that too often comes with more “mature” friendships.

Thinking of my own young friend, I am glad and proud of both Natalia and myself—she’s growing up beautifully, and I think I’ve done pretty well.  I do miss those days, though, when we were the closest of friends simply because we were what we were.  Very little in life comes quite so naturally as that.