Back to the Beginning

When I first started this column, I wanted to write about creativity, art, and aesthetic in everyday life. I have stayed loosely on that central theme, but have been moving too far away from it in recent months. Now it is time to re-focus, to make this a rifle with a fine-tuned scope instead of a shotgun with no choke.

One of the classes I took at the Houston Quilt Festival was on creativity. It makes perfect sense that anyone interested in fiber crafts would find it appealing to enhance or improve their creativity. What I have found, however, is that to improve your creativity is to improve everything about your life. Lately, I have come to know some folks who are members of twelve-step programs. Being an “inquiring mind,” I have asked lots of questions and even read part of AA’s “big book.” What I have found is that twelve-step programs have a couple of major components: One is getting to a place where you can live in the truth about yourself, your thoughts, the way the world works, and about other people; another is learning that you have to rely on a “higher power” in life as no one person has the wherewithal to manage everything alone. The programs tell you to define the higher power in whatever way is comfortable. I recognize that my higher power is God. The ultimate goal of a twelve-step program is to achieve serenity, which my computer defines as “the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.” That sounds pretty good, does it not?

In the interest of carrying on the creativity enhancement I started in Houston, I pulled out a book I bought several years ago, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. As I started reading and working through it, I began to realize that it is very similar to a twelve-step program. She even refers to the process of becoming an unblocked creative as “recovery”. Now, do not allow the word “artist” in the title of the book to throw you. I think most of us think of painters and sculptors and such when we hear the word “artist,” but there are many, many other types of artists in the world. Basically, we all have the opportunity and the capability to be artists…to do things in our lives creatively and artfully. Julia Cameron says that we were created by the Creator to create—creativity is God’s gift to us and using that gift to create is our gift back to God.

One of the keys of the creative life is attention. For example, one the of the greatest hurdles on the way to learning to draw is to learn to turn off what your conscious mind tells you and, instead, learn to draw exactly what your eyes perceive. Most of us go through the motions of life every day all caught up in our own minds and fail to pay attention to the reality around us. One creativity exercise I find helpful is to do some ordinary task, but to make a point of doing it with attention. I sometimes hang my laundry out instead of putting it the dryer. Believe me, this task is much more enjoyable when I am attentive to the sights of the trees and the grass, the sounds of the birds singing and the chickens clucking around me, the smell of the clean laundry and the country air, and the bending and stretching and the feel of the clothespins in my hands just like they felt in my grandmother’s hands a hundred years ago.

The more I am attentive to the details of my life, the better it all looks to me. I find myself saying prayers of gratitude throughout the day for when I am attentive, I see the abundance of good in my life and that puts me further down the road to serenity.  Attentiveness and focus on living life fully in the moment instead of constantly living in my head worrying about the future or rehashing the past helps me realize just how generous God has been to me. I hope you will give it a try, and I hope it leads you to a bit of serenity in your life, as well.