Lets begin an experiment in love.
Sometimes when I set out to create, I cannot figure out how to begin. I have often known what I want to have in the end and even some qualities of the whole work are knowable to me. But, the cornerstone… that initial component that everything else is built around often eludes me. Sometimes I even have the cornerstone in my hand and just before I can place it down, the cornerstone turns to sand. Likely the consequence of unresolved guilt and shame.
When sharing my art, I feel a greater nakedness than simply baring my flesh. My soul is an open house. I am paralysed by the fear of being naked and vulnerable to attack. Not wanting to face the onslaught of negative criticism, of being appraised, I cover up. Only allowing a little flesh to show and not the whole glorious soul. This is how I struggle as an artist to create thought provoking and beautiful work. An artist who wants to avoid feeling naked has to rob the world of ever experiencing what only he or she can create.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. — Genesis 3:7
Toss The Fig Leaves
I experience a similar issue with just being myself — the person I hope to become. I have an idea of what kind of person I want to be at the end of my story, the end of my life. I hope that through God’s grace I will become a mirror image of Jesus Christ. I also hope for earthly things. I hope to be irresistibly attractive and influential in my world. I hope to significantly affect history. I hope to have a respectable and fulfilling career. I hope to have a beautiful family, etc. These hopes are elements of a life story, a life story that I feel responsible for creating. But, how much of my story is within my control?
I am somewhere within my life story. I have made some deliberate choices that structure the narrative, like applying for college or telling another person that I love them. But there is so much that remains unresolved. I think of my most joyous experiences. Times when I feel like God and I wrote a chapter together. Where my desires and God’s desires were exactly the same and everything worked out as hoped. My most heart breaking experiences are when something that fills me with fire and light loses that life enriching energy. I press on in search of that lost feeling. To where the sun hangs over the horizon. Always toward the light and away from the darkness.
What’s the point of this? What conclusion am I trying to reach about personal narrative? Maybe that we are not writing our narrative alone. That somewhere we form deep bonds with others and they become co-authors with us. We help each other write our life stories. We welcome God into our story. For Christians, God is our cornerstone. Everything about our lives should be built around God, our foundation… the Giver of Life.
Here, I am. Here, we go.
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