“To make art is to sing with the human voice. To do this, you must learn that the only voice you need is the voice you already have.” –117, Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

To create is both risqué and revealing.
It is to let the robe of “having it all together”
Slink off
To reveal the scars of the past
And the present blemishes
As well as to expose
The interior’s most guarded intimacies.
In the process,
One must be vulnerable and raw,
Perhaps unattractive and inarticulate,
And that’s okay.
For in spite of it being
A very scary thing to do,
For the soul that was created to create,
It must be done.
So in that place of discomfort,
Where the robe lies,
Where the silence screams
And the stillness prowls,
To accept oneself is to begin the process.
For the comeliness of creating
Is not in photoshopped perfection,
But rather resides in the curves of humanity,
The curves of the body already possessed:
The little extra here, the lack over there,
Those lines, these bends,
Within this is beautiful, beautiful body,
Which gives way to fertility and life,
That is where the richness lies.
For to create is to embrace and bare it all,
To bring the contents of the heart
Into the view of reality
And to celebrate the beauty of different.

To my true child in the faith,

May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy and peace.

The clock strikes midnight as the tip of my pen meets the paper.  My body is spent and eyelids heavy.  My circadian rhythm demands that I wrap it up and call it a day, but I can’t.  I can’t go to sleep because my heart for you is pumping out seismic disturbances, sending tidal waves of concern through my veins.

Up until this point, all you have known are babies and birthdays, school work and work schedules, deterioration and death and funerals.  Nothing more.  Nothing new.  Time moves me along at the same rate as it moves you, and every day that we live is one day closer to our death.  All is meaningless for nothing lasts.  At least, that is the case for those who don’t know the truth.

But you however, you have begun to become acquainted with the truth.  You know and are learning what I teach and how I live.  You know that at the core of me the conviction is real just as I am confident that the seeds in you are growing and are taking root.  Believe me, Timothy, when I say that this is more real than reality and the words you hear and read from Scripture are powerful and alive just as they are true.  You are beginning to know this, and you know better.

So why are you doing it, this thing for which you apparently need my advice about but know what I am going to say anyway?  I understand that this wild, crazy, radical faith thing often times doesn’t make sense here in this world.  I get it, for I too live and am currently confined to the same physical limitations.

Still, my dear Timothy, may I share a little secret with you?  You weren’t actually built for this world.  You were built for somewhere else and for something more.  You were built for Someone, and that Someone loves you far beyond that which you could ever know or understand.  That Someone cares deeply for the murmurings within the darkest parts of your soul as well as the raging battle at hand that you think he purposefully cursed you with.

Oh, my child, if only you knew how much I also care for you and desire that you would experience the truest and fullest of life!  If only you would trust me on this one, not because I know everything, because I don’t, and not because I am better than you, because I am not.  Rather, I wish that you would trust me because I am better than me.  And with Jesus, you too are better than you, better than who you were and who everyone else expects you to be.

Now I am not one to judge.  You know my heart, and you know that I don’t.  I am, however, called to love.  Therefore, it is on love that I stand and speak up with as every other “friend” encourages you to wade with them a bit longer and a bit deeper down the sewage systems of this life.  Point being, Timothy, I am not writing to condemn what you want nor is this to scold you and say that this is bad and that is wrong.

Rather, I want to challenge you.  I dare you to dream, to imagine a bigger and fuller life, to ask for more than you thought possible, and to expect to be met and matched and outdone by our good God.  For to echo C.S. Lewis, “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.”

All that said, I know a lot of things don’t make sense right now.  Nevertheless, fight for that spark you felt two years ago on that Sunday morning and fan it into flame.  Fight, Timothy.  Believe.  Dream.  Ask.  Persist.  Put down your mud pie and walk with me, work with me, and watch what will happen.  There is much to be done before our all-expense-paid holiday at the sea.

May God’s grace be with you,

Paul.