When Did We Stop Being Poets?

My best friend & I have committed to a reading challenge for 2016: 12 books that have to fit certain criteria to fit in with other books we read in the coming year. We both thought it would be good to start the New Year out with "A Book You Previously Abandoned" (plus, #1 on the list was "A Book Published This Year," and there aren't too many in that category yet). She chose The Jungle by Upton Sinclair because she's a brilliant person like that, and I chose The Holy Wild by Mark Buchanan. I had read & loved his book Your God Is Too Safe last year and each chapter was like a fantastic devotional written just for me - it took me months to finish because each chapter left me so much to chew on and re-think about how I viewed God that I couldn't read but one chapter at a time.

The Holy Wild started similarly and then lost me somewhere around page 100. I couldn't get further no matter how hard I tried. For awhile, I was saddened, thinking the magic of the first book didn't transcend any of his other books. According to my Goodreads account, I began The Holy Wild on March 18, 2015. It has sat on my record player speakers for eight of those almost ten months, gathering dust and making me feel guilty every time I passed by.

But thanks to this challenge, I knew just which book to pick up. To be honest, my first thought was, "I'll hurry through it so I can check it off my 'To Do' list and then go on to bigger and better things. Stop looking for hidden nuggets of awesomeness. Just buckle down and finish it!" And that's what I did this morning: read from page 100 to page 189. And then Chapter 9 came along, "Where the Stones Sing - God's Creativity."

Buchanan starts talking about how everyone is born creative, but, somewhere along the way, we lose it. "When did most of us stop being poets?" he asks. I am definitely not a poet. But I do love being creative. Unfortunately, I often leave creative projects at the very bottom of my "To Do" list and opt for the more "practical" items instead: laundry, dishes, cleaning, grocery shopping, bill paying...all the things that are necessary and sometimes gratifying but almost always feel like the chores they are. "...the human desire - even need - to create simply mirrors the God in whose image we are made, by whose breath we are filled" (The Holy Wild).

I have the desire, but oh, to find the time! And then I read this, "One thing that stifles the artistic impulse in us is we try too hard. We also try too little. We neither submit to the discipline required, nor give in to the impulse to let go." Yep. That's me. Buchanan's done it again. Up until 2016, if I've ever had the free time to attempt a creative project, I've always sat down to it with the mindset of, "OK, I'm going to create!" And it has yet to truly work. Projects look half-baked. My desperate effort is seen, but true creativity is lacking. I'm trying so hard to fit into this mold of what I think "creativity" is that I'm neglecting (to quote Frozen) to just "let it go."

"Seldom do we play, and rare is our wonder, and I wonder how much of God is missing" (The Holy Wild). If I could recommend one chapter of a book for you to read, it is this one. Take time to play! Take time to wonder in the world about you. Take time to figure out mysteries and ask questions and rekindle that childlike wonder you had all those years ago. Today's challenge: explore a creative side of yourself forgotten or maybe never explored. Sing. Dance. Play. Bake. Cook. Draw. Paint. Garden. Collage. Read. Write. And the list goes on and on. Don't try to fit the world's mold of creativity. Make your own - that's kind of the whole point!

I'd love to hear what you do! What did you do today?