September 20, 2007

• What does it mean to be an artist?
  There's
  an amazing book by one of my favorite writers, Madeleine L'Engle,
  called "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art." My 1983
  paperback copy of this book, one of the books that has helped shape my
  life, has been read so much it's held together with brittle masking
  tape.
  In her book, L'Engle reflects on the creation of art, and
  how all the art that we humans make -- whether with paint or music or
  words or other media --  is actually sharing in God's creative work,
  even when the artist doesn't consciously realize that he is in fact
  doing that.
  She talks about how artists have to tap back into what
  most of us left behind in our childhoods, that boundless world of the
  imagination, which becomes stilted and faded for most of us as we grow
  older.
  To create, to do what L''Engle calls "serving" the art we're
  called to bring forth, sometimes we have to let go for a little while
  of all the things that tie us to the adult world, like paying bills and
  meeting deadlines and trying to be sure we take our vitamins and get
  enough exercise and sleep, and fall back into the freedom of childhood,
  when we just PLAYED. When we forgot about the clock. When we climbed
  the mimosa tree in the vacant lot next door with our little sister, and
  the tree bloomed into a royal castle, and two little pig-tailed girls
  in dirty Keds were transformed into exquisite  princesses. Or when we
  could run down the steep grassy hillside so fast that by the time we
  were halfway down, our feet were off the ground and we were soaring up
  into the blue sky to play hide-and-seek among the clouds. Or when we
  could see the tiny lights sparking in the blue evening and know they
  were really fairies, not just plain old lightning bugs. Or when we
  could put a scribbled note on a kite string and watch it soar in the
  wind up to Heaven, a letter to God.
  L'Engle talks about how an
  artist has to listen. "And sometimes when we listen," she said, "we are
  led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always
  understand."
  Have you experienced this listening, this being led
  into places you didn't expect, into adventures that you didn't always
  understand? I have. I can't make it happen, but sometimes it comes as
  an unexpected gift, and when it does, it's wonderful.
   The magic
  used to happen to me every once in a while when I was teaching a class
  in literature, or a Sunday School class. I'd be standing there in front
  of my group, teaching from the book or from my notes, and all of a
  sudden, hear words coming from my mouth and explanations and
  illustrations that were making the point I wanted to make much more
  clearly and eloquently than anything I'd ever thought of before, or
  written down, and I'd think, on another level as I continued to speak:
  "Where is this all coming from? I didn't even know I knew that!"
  Those
  would be the sparkling times in teaching, those rare and wonderful
  moments, when my usually unruly class would be spellbound for a few
  minutes, every eye on mine, and I'd have them in the palm of my hand,
  and know that what was in my brain and heart was actually making the
  hoped-for transition and flowing into their brains and hearts, the
  essence of communication, the heart of teaching. It was those rare
  moments that made teaching a creative act for me, and made me love it.
  I think those moments must happen often for very gifted teachers. They
  didn't come often for me, but when they did, they made me love what I
  was doing. In those moments, teaching became art. In those moments, I
  was listening to the Teacher.
  More often in my life, I've
  experienced this magic as I've been working on a piece of creative
  writing. Sometimes the work takes over, and it goes in a completely
  unexpected direction. The column or essay or the letter that I thought
  I was going to write, that I had started to write and maybe even spent
  a long time on, turns in a new direction, one that I had never even
  thought of as I began my task. It veers off on its own track, and I
  have to follow it. Sometimes I fight it, and try to stick to the
  original idea, but that never works. The old idea just lies there, cold
  and dead, and refuses to come alive, as the new one begs for me to
  breathe life into it and let it grow. I have no choice, eventually, but
  to give in and listen to the new flow of ideas coming from somewhere
  outside me, or maybe deep inside me. And when I do go ahead and listen -- even when it means throwing away hundreds of words I'd already
  written -- I never regret it, because what ends up on the page is better
  and more true than what I had thought of in the beginning.
  Madeleine
  L'Engle was right. Creating, whether it is teaching a lesson, or
  shaping a sculpture, or photographing a mountain, or weaving a blanket,
  or composing a song, or writing a story, is sharing in God's creative
  work. If He's given a work to us to create, we must say "yes" to it.
  Then we have to listen carefully with the ears of our hearts, to hear
  what He's really saying, and do our best to let that truth come through
  our work so that others can hear, through our creation, the true and
  loving voice of the original Artist.

  By Celia DeWoody
  Published in the Harrison Daily Times Sept. 19, 2007
  Copyright 2007 Harrison Daily Times
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  • 9:53 pm
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