It was my first attempt to write something on spirituality. I gave the brief essay to a trusted friend one day when visiting him. He was someone I viewed as a mentor. I asked for his feedback. I was stunned when I later saw my work in the trash can by his desk. He never commented.
That was almost forty years ago. Since then, I’ve published eight books. While I’m not up for any literary awards nor do I anticipate nominations, I appreciate that I often receive positive comments about my writing. For me, writing is an important creative outlet. I’ve also expressed my creativity through preaching and teaching. It’s a bit ironic: I find writing to be the most important expression of my creativity, but the awards I’ve received have been for teaching.
I know the writing I did forty years ago was not very good. I’ve re-read some journal articles I wrote in the 1970s and 80s and, well, it’s been difficult not to grimace at the quality. To think someone actually published them! What I realized was that it took time to find my voice in writing. Finding my voice required me to be at home in the core of who I am in order to express what I know in the depths of my soul.
Today, I can recognize when my work has a soulful quality. Sometimes, I’ll write something and do a fine job, but I know it doesn’t have that deeper kind of resonance.
I’ve thought about my experience of creativity and what I can observe about my friends who express themselves creatively. Among my friends are actors, singers, and dancers, a novelist, a crafter of guitars, and even a professional magician. They seem to have begun as I did with writing: trying, getting some things right, dealing with the frustrations of attempts that weren’t good quality, and then a transition occurs to something new. The transition comes when moving from doing the art to the art becoming part of self.
In my writing and teaching, I began with a focus on the mechanics. Was I using all the correct elements of grammar and style when writing? Did I create a lesson plan which not only presented content but conveyed that content in a variety of ways for different learning styles for my classes? In time, the criteria of what I should do fell into the background. Instead, the work became an expression of something deeper in me.
Part of the change which enabled my work to become more soulful was a change in me. It had little to do the craft of writing or teaching. Instead, I began to live in a way that was less compartmentalized.
I came out as a gay man when I was in my early 20’s, but I kept being gay very private for several years. As an ordained minister, I often avoided telling people I was a minister in “secular” contexts. In short, the various aspects of myself were kept fragmented and, in a sense, I lived out multiple identities. I remember when dating someone who wanted to visit a church where I was preaching, I asked him to drive separately and me meet-up with me afterward at a restaurant. I didn’t want anyone at the church to know I was dating. Believing that the boundaries should be clear, I kept my personal life very separate. Living my life in a compartmentalized way prevented me from growing in an integrated way, which also prevented me from living in a soulful and creative way.
Somehow, over time, I came to a place in which I realized it was futile to try to maintain such clear distinctions in my life. For example, while I don’t “come out” to a class I’m teaching in research, I’m not concerned whether or not my students also know that I’m a minister or that I’m a gay man. I neither make it an issue nor do I hide it. In other words, over time, I’ve learned to live with greater consonance with the core of who I am.
When someone lives with consonance, the inner person matches what others encounter in day to day life. Sometimes we think of personal attributes radiating out from a person, like compassion or generosity. That’s consonance. The greater the level of consonance a person grows toward, the more soulful they become in day to day life. This is critical for creativity. Because creativity flows from our depths, being able to live in a way that reflects who we are most deeply empowers creativity. But when we live in dissonance with who we are, perhaps because of shame or because we are not comfortable with some parts of self, our creative expressions become blunted and don’t flow as they could.
None of us live in perfect consonance with who we are most deeply. Instead, the stress, strains, and expectations of our day to day lives can pull us away from our deeper selves. That’s exactly why I find spiritual practice to be critical for personal growth and creativity. Because of the time I spend in prayer and meditation, I am able to regularly return to the deeper part of my being so that I can soulfully engage in other aspects of life. That’s been incredibly important for expressing myself creatively.
As for the friend who literally trashed my writing forty years ago, while I see him on social media, we’ve not had contact in years. Today, I understand that he simply wouldn’t have an interest in my work. He’s focused on very different things. But remembering him is a reminder to me that I need to nourish the creative dimension of my life in ways that are right for me even when others don’t really understand.
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