Creativity in everything

It is impossible to understand what a blessing church is in the life of a Christian until one has gone without it during a difficult time. When BJ and I moved to Frisco, we had a horribly difficult time adjusting, and we just couldn't find a church that felt right after the near-utopia of our experience at Nugent. However, last December, we stumbled upon a church filled with good, loving people, and we've been there ever since. They have helped us emotionally and spiritually through a whole slew of difficult situations.

This coming Sunday, our preacher is going to be out of town for the Pepperdine lectureship, so BJ is getting to step back into the pulpit for a week. This is perfect timing because a lot of the churches that BJ has applied for are requesting recordings. Since this little fill-in gig is rapidly turning into an audition for several job prospects, BJ has been putting a lot of time and effort into his preparation.

Last night when I came home from my closing shift at Micheal's, BJ asked me to listen to what he had down so far. I was happy to oblige, but as soon as he set down at the computer, his shy bone kicked in. The next thing I knew, BJ had the lights off and me laying down with my eyes shut so that he wouldn't get self-conscious. We giggled a little over the absurdity of the situation, but the trick worked, and BJ was able to recite the first third or so of his sermon to me.

While I was laying in the absolute dark listening to BJ's words said with his own peculiar accent and inflections, it occurred to me that being his wife is a role I absolutely relish. Hopefully this isn't overly prideful, but I am extremely proud of my connection to a man that can articulate God's word so giftedly. Laying on the bed after a long, tiring day at work and listening to a sermon is exactly the way I want to end my day, and I want to end a whole lot of days in the same way. Being casually mentioned in sermons when the point calls for it is a fascinating experience.

There is a sense of rightness about it all, like this is in fact how BJ and I should spend our life. It is a feeling similar to how I feel when I paint a watercolor or write a perfectly worded line of poetry; like I'm living the way God wanted me to live, I am becoming the creator he intended me to be. It occurs to me that being BJ's wife requires a huge amount of imagination. In order to appreciate his words and ideas and to help him develop them more fully, I have to be creative and in tune with the Creator in a way that little else requires me to be. It is as if my training in art unknowingly prepared me to be a preacher's wife, to not only hear the words of a prophet, but to see them clearly and realize them fully.

I've been reading Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, and it has been helping me better understand my role in life as an artists. What I am finding as I read it is that being an artists is an all-encompassing vocation that will shape every aspect of my life. Here are a few words from the book that articulate far better than I can the realization I had while listening in the dark to BJ's sermon:

"What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint or clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts or having some kind of important career. Several women have written to me to complain about A Swiftly Tilting Planet. They feel that I should not have allowed Meg Murry to give up a career by marrying Calvin, having children, and quietly helping her husband with his work behind the scenes. But if women are to be free to choose to pursue a career as well as marriage, they must also be free to choose the making of a home and the nurture of a family as their vocation; that was Meg's choice, and a free one, and it was as creative a choice as if she had gone on to get a Ph.D. in quantum mechanics."