What a rich, worthwhile weekend.  Seventy-two hours of being immersed in stories, music and visual arts, all while surrounded by 100 of the nicest people you could ever meet.  Discussions about writing stories, telling stories, writing songs and poetry filled the church, punctuated by regular bursts of laughter.  After it was over, most of us left with the same uncontrollable urge: write.  Grab what is bouncing around on the inside, and wrestle it onto a screen, hopefully better than before.  The weekend was both a joy to receive and a call to action.  I now join the happy throng in sharing what stood out from Hutchmoot 2011 for me:

It doesn’t matter what you write, or how.  Just write. I miss writing on this blog.  Over the past year, I’ve been working towards a BA in Business Management.  It’s been fulfilling, but in the end, it’s nothing more than tent-making.  In one sense, I’m writing more than ever, but it’s about subjects such as operations management and economics.  My hope is that I can take the smidgen of discipline I’ve gained through my classes (i.e., “Sit down.  It’s time to write.”)  and transform that into a more disciplined personal writing schedule.

Journal more.  Put the blackest parts in there. I picture a label on the front of my journal: “Not fit for human consumption.”  It feels like I haven’t written anything outside of class for well over a year.  Now that I look back, I have written plenty, just not for anyone but me and God.  Out of my journal may come something of value, but after talking with Andrew P., I’ve come to value it more.  Journalling (Is that a verb?  Spell-check begs to differ.) is not a competition for more public forms of writing, but instead is merely part of the process.

Read more stories, but read better ones. Listening to the authors at Hutchmoot was like realizing that for the past few months, I’ve been living on cotton candy and popcorn.

Whatever I write, Jesus will peek out. / Jesus is waving from the arts more than I realize. Don’t worry about putting “a message” into what I write.  As long as I am feeding my heart and my mind properly, God will be glorified from whatever words I string together.  Similarly, thanks to Thomas McKenzie and Chris Wall for showing how Jesus is present in the arts, especially cinema, more than I dared believe.

God has provided “heart oxygen” for the journey.  Find time to breathe. I’m halfway through an accelerated business degree.  Often, it feels like all I have time to read involves organizational architecture and profitability formulas.  I need to take a crowbar and open up my schedule for Chesterton, Wangerin, Berry and others.

It feels great when people are praying for me.  Return the favor, pay it forward. Did anyone else feel like someone-maybe many people-was praying for us at Hutchmoot?  My wife and I didn’t notice it until afterwards, when a sense of shelter, protection and peace that had been present was suddenly not there.  Do that for someone else.

Listen to better music. There is a lot of what I’ve been listening to lately that, while not bad, hasn’t been terribly substantial.  After a week away from the electronic/ambient stuff I have been playing while at work, I miss it less and less.

Other people are hungry for the same things I am. Everyone there was struck at how wonderful it was to find others who treasured beauty, wonder and mystery in this life.  Take that sense of community and create your own group.

Eat better food. A group of us went to The Turnip Truck for lunch on Sunday.  I have made fun of stores like that in the past, but I also have to admit that the meal was fantastic.  Evie Coates created culinary works of art for us every day of the retreat.  On the other side, a couple of days ago, for some reason I stopped by Cold Stone Creamery after lunch; I felt horrible for 24 hours afterwards.

Work out of passion, not out of fear. Our plane had not yet left Nashville airspace before I looked at everything I needed to accomplish for my class this week.  The familiar urgency jumped back into my head and chest, so I started reading as fast as I could.  I want to finish my degree, and I want to the knowledge from my classes, but the material isn’t my passion.  Lately, my prime motivator has been fear of failure.  This works for a short while, but it’s not a healthy long-term motivator.

As I wrote above, it’s merely tent-making, and very necessary.  After being around a group of people who spend their time and energy on pursuits and crafts out of passion, I decided that someday I want to spend at least part of my time creating out of my own passion.  I believe that in Heaven, that’s what we will all do.  I want to get started here and now in preparation for eternity.

If you don’t like your material, you’re not done yet. There have been occasions when what I write or play makes me want to give up the craft.  This is especially true when I see someone who has taken the time time to hone their skills, and is excellent at what they do.  I picked up the message at Hutchmoot that the process of creation is more important than the output.  If I go into a project assuming that the first creation is merely an exercise, or a first draft at best, it’s easier to surrender to the creation process itself, instead of focusing on the outcome.

There were more messages, but reading for my class beckons.  *Sigh*…

I’ve got two topics for tonight:

1.)  I recently read a story about a young girl in a ballet class.  One day, she arrived at class to find that her instructor was in a corner of the studio, on her knees in deep, fervent prayer.  The students worried that something was wrong.  Perhaps a family tragedy had occurred.  Later, they realized that their teacher was praying for inspiration; for the creativity to teach well, and communicate a message from God through their dance.  She was also asking for favor, for the ability to create well.

I’ve been wrestling lately with a distinct lack of creativity.  I used to have thoughts on a weekly, or even daily basis that I couldn’t wait to attack here.  I loved wrestling with language, to draw out the truth that was shown to me, and to make it interesting.  Or, at least interesting enough that I would want to read it.  I loved the right mixture of verbosity to explain my points well, and terseness to keep the flow.  I especially enjoyed thinking of interesting turns of phrase, hoping that a literary hook would catch someone’s interest enough to remember what I wrote.

Lately, things have been dry.  Not so much a writer’s block, but more like a musician who has ran out of music on a printed page.  I just haven’t had anything that I thought was worth saying.

And yet, this is what I’m supposed to be doing.  When asked the question, “What would you do if you knew that you couldn’t fail, and money wasn’t an issue?”, my response remains the same as it has for a few years: I would love to be a writer.  Blog, article, book…it doesn’t matter at this point.  I love nothing more than seeing a glimpse of the Almighty, or life in His kingdom, and sharing that with others.  I live for sharing God’s truth in creating ways.

If I’m going to be honest, it’s not that I’ve had a case of writer’s block.  Truth be told, I’ve been lazy.  If this is my passon, then I should be seeking my Lord’s favor and inspiration, like a artist hired by royalty to create.  He supports me, and therefore my job is to create for Him.  God wants to speak through me, in a way that He created me uniquely to accomplish.  But, I suspect that he brought me to this point so that I would have to decide whether or not this is what I want to do, in my heart.  Do I love writing enough to earnestly entreat Him for my next idea?

Let’s find out what happens.

2.)  I thought about sharing this last weekend for Father’s Day, then talked myself out of it.  But, because of reasons explained above, this is all I have, so this is what I present to you…

Last weekend was rough, emotionally speaking.  It wasn’t my first Father’s Day without Ian, but that didn’t make it easy.  I’m no longer a father, and I have no father or even father-in-law to focus on.  In some ways, it feels like the entire country decides to hold a celebration, and didn’t bother to send me an invitation.

I was watching Peter Gabriel’s Growing Up concert on DVD (which is fantastic, by the way), and this song came on.  I never bought Peter’s music when he was in his popular phase, so I’m always discovering his genius late.  Anyway, he played the song Mercy Street.  The beauty of the music struck me first (Tony Levin, the bass player, is nothing short of phenomenal).  The chorus made me stop what I was doing, because I could hear God talking to me in the lyrics:

Dreaming of Mercy Street
Wear your inside out
Dreaming of Mercy
In your Daddy’s Arms again
Dreaming of Mercy Street
I swear they moved that sign
Looking for Mercy
In Your Daddy’s arms

I felt God saying that He saw the pain, frustration and grief, even if I couldn’t bear to look at it myself.  He had a place for me to fall into His arms, with all the grace I needed.  Even when I don’t feel like I want to be held, He’s there.  When I finally decide that I need Him, but it feels like there is a huge distance between us, He’s actually waiting for me with more patience than I can imagine, or than I deserve. When I need His mercy, it’s there.