Lessons Learned…
Do You Bind or Liberate
the Creative Spirit?
Time.
Patience. Non-judgment. Safety. These things all are mandatory for a creative
spirit to feel free to create. A creative spirit comfortably and frequently
dwells in a place of great vulnerability. This place is one where wide open
emotions, wild imaginings, and novel, exciting connections intersect. It is an exhausting and exhilarating place
all at once. The birth of an idea occurs in a place where a brave creative
spirit is willing to take a great risk and expose his or her heart. For
example, a composing artist might be inspired by a landscape, an event, a
relationship, a life story, or any other of an infinite number of inspirational
sources, and then the seed of that inspiration takes root in imagination’s
fertile soil. While germinating, the inspiration, for a composing artist, develops
an identifying sound and a musical color which will ultimately be creatively
translated into a melody. Sometimes this creative process takes a great deal of
time, sometimes it unexpectedly bursts forth from seemingly nowhere, but in any
case, it cannot be timed, measured, demanded of, or really even controlled. It
just is as it is. Which comes first, the lyrics or the melody? There is no
standard recipe. There is no prescribed order or flow chart design. It just is. And when pen finally puts
creativity to paper, we see the fruit emerge. The fruit of this particular creativity
is a song. A unique melody. A unique combination of words. A unique color of emotion extracted from the
original inspiration. This unique musical
composition depicts the artist’s very own musical connection to the object of
inspiration, and to be invited to hear this melody by the artist’s hand is to
indeed be considered a trusted confidant.
Words need to be few in this moment of hearing a new song. One who snaps to reckless judgment, one who
values to the highest priority the narrow parameters of extreme efficiency, one
who typically favors status quo in general, one who is easily distracted and
unable to simply breathe in the awesomeness of newness, one to whom nothing is
ever quite good enough, these would rarely be the ones invited into this moment
of creativity unveiled. These are actually
the ones who bind the creative spirit within boxes of ordinary, predictable,
beigeness. Within these boxes creativity
suffers and dies, for creativity must be free if it is to exist at all. Be
gentle with the creative spirits in life, in your home, in your classroom, in
your workplace. They see the world a bit differently. They see possibilities
unnoticed by others, and possibilities stir hope. The gifts they bring to the issues of life we
all grapple with individually and corporately may just hold the promise of a
solution.
