Tuesday, June 30, 2015

'Painting outside the Lines', or as I call it, 'Ruining the Table'.

"An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." 
-G.K Chesterton


I’ve taken up poetry lately and it has quickly become a favourite writing medium.  This is a surprising turn since the poetry unit in English class was always a bit of a snooze for me.  But here I am writing poetry and not feeling a bit self-conscious about it.  I don’t have to worry about character development or plotting. I can splash wild emotion across stoicism. I can remain merely observational. I can be coy. I can be mercurial. I can change my mind. 

Sometimes a poem tells the truth, or it only seems to. Often it lies out of the side of its mouth, as though it wonders just how much you’ll buy of what it is selling. Writing a poem can be a way of hiding in plain sight, or running naked and wild across a page. Some poetry is so dense it is written in a code only the author can understand. This variety makes it one of the most liberating forms of writing.   I've found I love writing poetry that rhymes (I'm not ashamed of it.) and I enjoy reading it aloud; feeling the cadence of a juggernaut rhythm that builds and builds until it stops in a sudden thunderclap.  

It is also freedom from the grind of querying in pursuit of publication.  If you are a writer, you know that omnipresent pressure to publish can kill the creative impulse and make writing a nemesis to be bested instead of a companion in your solitude and a vocation worth pursuing.  Poetry is writing for pure enjoyment and catharsis. No one imagines that poetry will pay the bills (unless, perhaps, you are Leonard Cohen, but even he has to set it to music). It allows you to write without pressure to be anything or do anything. Rediscovering it has been a consolation. You can just marry interesting words and ideas together as though they were born that way; making unique creations out of peculiar words and unorthodox grammar and not be bothered about anyone’s response to it.
For example
you can’t 
watch time thickening 
anymore 
than you can
predict 
your own body language
on a date
or
the events of
a hypnogogic dream
that seems
to 
mean 
something

More than any other form of writing, poetry is more like life and yet, nothing like it at all.  A novel--though sporting crackling dialogue, vivid character development, shrewd plotting and thorough world-building-- is a tight highlight reel that (ideally) shows nothing of the winnowing process that is redrafting and editing.   Actual conversation when transcribed is full of "um's", "you know's" and a lot of dangling thoughts.  Life is filled with sentences that run ahead to nowhere, impossible interruptions; talking over your companion and zoning out because periodically your thoughts are more interesting than they are.  Our brains--magisterial creations that they are--filter out the filler and deliver solid understanding and a coherent memory of what would have been one hell of a mess on the page.  All of these competing signals and intentions can make for interesting lives, but you cannot write that way and expect any kind of coherence.

A character always needs a purpose for what they are doing or saying.  This is true of acting as well, randomly strolling around the stage for no apparent reason is amateurish.  People always have a reason for the moves they make.  Maybe it is expelling nervous energy, maybe it is to lean against a more comfortable area of the kitchen counter.  Writing scenes in which the characters have no apparent purpose is a dead giveaway of a greenhorn.   Even using narration to advance the plot or reveal important details can quickly prove irritating.  Because the reader is an active participant--a witness to the action--the narrator should only interrupt the flow if what they have to add is of total surprise to the reader.  If the reader can surmise the character is sad, it is nothing short of tiresome to be told that he was.  (One shouldn't assume sociopathy on the part of their readership…) So, writing in a realistic and comprehensible way takes a lot of work on the writer's part.  First you have to invent something out of nothing.  Then you can't just transcribe conversations as they really are.  You have to filter and edit and be the brain and the memory without feeling smart enough for the task that your own brain performs subconsciously every day.   You have to build stories layers at a time.  Develop character.  Create tension.

You have to write hard so that it reads easy.

But poetry isn't like that at all.  A poem is the art of implication.  She hints at the elements of a story, but keeps her secrets to herself.  It is freedom and the ability to express the raw edges of emotion and thought without having to make every line comprehensible.  It isn't an instruction manual that demonstrates how to move from one point to the next.  It's a beauty thing that is free to soar or plummet.

That being said, what I have discovered about poems through writing them, is that they are more interesting when they have limitations.  When there is a rhyming scheme or a structural confine, it makes for a more compelling poem.  Stream of consciousness writing is only briefly of interest to the person who wrote it.  A poem requires some rule or structure to create the truly delightful surprise of a brilliant turn of phrase.  A rhyming scheme means that not any word will do--and herein lies the magic.  The search for a word that fits the rule can take the poem somewhere the writer hasn't anticipated; because there are limitations, new avenues for creativity are opened wide.  The very existence of the limitation provides greater freedom for creativity, even though on the surface it looks like less.  Maybe that is why I never really appreciated the Poetry Unit in English class.  The rules for sonnets, odes or whatever just seemed arbitrary and hard.  I didn't know that they were the key to beauty.

How odd.

How contrary to our way of thinking to realize that it is the constraints placed on the medium that facilitate the production of an intricate and unique beauty.  Human nature rebels at rules and yet we recognize the need for them in some cases.  We want to drive on roads where everyone knows and obeys the law.  Our very lives may depend on it.  But what about other aspects of our lives? Our morality, our ethical code, the substance of our character?  If our lives are poems and stories that God wants to write, it follows that the constraints He has created are the parameters of beauty, not the shackles of oppression.   "Painting outside the lines" is a cliched anthem for freedom of expression, but if you don't know what you're doing, all you've done is stain the surface you're working on.  What if we looked at the moral law God has given for us to write our lives with and saw the variables of creative impulse and the unique challenge presented to each one of us with every choice to find the right action that explodes the poem of our life with unequalled splendour.  What if we looked at the constraints as that which facilitates our ability to be unique.  It is the rule that causes the our creative minds to push past easy and ordinary and find the truly exceptional and astounding.  Anyone can ignore the limitations.  It takes artistry to follow them.  Give ten artists the same constraints and equipment and you will find that they have none of them produced identical work.   The limitation is only the framework on which each one-of-a-kind creation will hang.

But it is a lie as old as the Garden that God wants to take things from us, rather than knowing that He is the one who has given everything to us--Including the parameters of beauty.


Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The Lionheart


In a time of universal deceit -- telling the truth is a revolutionary act. 
-George Orwell

Recently, while wasting my precious time browsing through a clothing store catering to those who wish to hide their clavicles under bed sheet sized ponchos with tags reading XXXS; (you pay a lot for that sizing schematic) I saw a shapeless t-shirt which proclaimed,

"Good things come to those who hustle."

I wanted to buy it because, man, I have hustled.  And gee, I want good things to come to me.  It sounds good on the surface; it sounds right.  If you want something you've got to work for it and all that.  You can't sit around waiting for life to happen to you; you gotta go grab it by the horns and wrestle it to the ground…   This is the wisdom of the day, and I can't even tell you how many times I have encountered it on blogs and in books about creativity and selling your art.  If you want to get anywhere, you have to hustle. If you want to be a success, you better get out there and sell your stuff.  You have to hustle for the world's respect and approbation.   You have to strive. You have to prove yourself.

Lately, though, has become abundantly evident to me just how often what is proclaimed is the exact opposite of the truth.  The definition of 'hustle' is wholly negative whether it is used as a noun or a verb.

Hustle: Force (someone) to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction; push roughly; jostle; hurry; obtain by forceful action or persuasion; coerce or pressure someone into doing something or choosing something; sell aggressively; obtain by illicit action; swindle; cheat; engage in prostitution; busy movement.

-- So -- basically, good things come to big jerks, high pressure salesmen, con men and prostitutes.  … At the risk of dragging Hitler into the conversation too early on, one could argue that he was an artist who hustled.

Ironically, hypocritically, impossibly--then--, we're advised to strive and hustle and then told that the path to peace and well-being is to achieve balance.  Promised that you can have it all, do it all, be it all, tolerate all--if you just balance precariously enough--as though every choice isn't made to the exclusion of others.  Stack the teacups ever higher, and then cut yourself with the shattered shards of the mess you made when it all comes crashing down.  Balance, for the sake of balance is just a yoga move.  Sure, you can manage it for a little while if you are devoting all your thought and energy to maintaining that position.  But people like to practice yoga on the beach or a mountain top, not in the middle of a hurricane.  And some seasons are plagued with hurricanes.

The world strives for balance because it has no ballast.

A ballast, according to the dictionary, is: a heavy substance placed in such a way as to improve stability or control such as in the draft of a ship; to give steadiness, to keep steady. 

Actual balance in a seaworthy ship is created by having something heavy--a ballast--deep within, below the waterline.  A ship is balanced or isn't depending on what has been placed inside it.  Interestingly, a ballast is often a tank of water that can be filled or emptied depending on the size of the cargo load. So, balance is bestowed by what you carry within you--what you are filled with--not by the careful stacking of burdens so that your life resembles an inukshuk that isn't meant to go anywhere or do anything.

The question begs to be asked: What are you filled with?  What keeps you upright when the waves would capsize you?  A quick google image search of "capsized ships" presents a eerie array of true stories.  All manner of vessels from cruise ships to cargo haulers to sailboats to ferries are subject to the danger. Every intention of a ship's designer founders when the ballast tank isn't filled sufficiently for the circumstances and the load that the ship will carry.

"If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." (Proverbs 24:10)  

This verse isn't meant as a condemnation for our lack of strength, but rather a reminder that if you are feeling faint, you need to grow stronger.  We need the continual filling of the Holy Spirt and the Word to be able to withstand what comes at us.  The very next verse gives an idea of just the kind of loads we are meant to carry in the storms of adversity.

"Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter."  (Proverbs 24:11)    

A half filled ballast tank might have been sufficient when you bore less weight, but it simply won't cut it now.  A half filled tank won't be able to withstand the adversity of rescuing those taken away to death, or to shore up the weak knees of those who are stumbling to their slaughter.

I see the family members of those Christians murdered within their church in Charleston extending forgiveness to one who only showed hatred and violence, and tremble at the transformation that God brings when His people seek to see the fulfillment of the promise that He works all things together for the good of those who love Him.  What is impossible for man is possible with God.

We were made for so much more than to hustle for temporal success in a ridiculous and meaningless balancing act.  We were made to run the race set before us with endurance.  We were made to bring light into the darkness. We were designed for nothing less than the heroic rescue of those being led away to death; to hold back those stumbling toward their destruction. Our purpose is valiant and great. Our design magnificent.  We are the Church and we have the heart of the Lion of Judah.

I see the pictures of those 21 martyrs on the beach whose faces weren't hidden like those who wielded the knife, but who, like the first martyr looked to heaven to see the face of the One who conquered death, and know truly who fears whom.

"The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion." (Proverbs 28:1)

 We are the Church.  I know of no greater courage.




Wednesday, June 10, 2015

The Cheshire Cat Grin


In the beginning, God spoke and everything that exists in the universe sprang into being.  He said, “Let there be light,” and light burst forth at 186,000 miles per second, both a wave and a particle.  He formed molecules to become water and flung the cosmos into space.  He set everything in place and set everything in motion.  He filled the earth with life; plants and animals.  From the smallest microorganism to the largest beast on the surface of the earth.  He filled the depths to the heights with the wonders of His creative power.

Then He made us.  

He breathed His own breath into our nostrils and made us more than the elements--the dust of the earth--from which He formed us.  He made us more because He made us in His image--to our infinite perplexity.  And, He makes us individually.  No assembly line construction.  No mass production.  An Artisan creating each individual piece with purpose in mind.  

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)

Almost as if we could remember back far enough, we might recall hearing the Spirit of God whispering over us in the womb and the very strands of our DNA knitting together in joyful response to His creative Word. Our very first cells dividing and multiplying at the divine voice singing into existence an identity which had previously only existed in the very mind of God.  An identity that was written in heaven in the annals of the works of God--if we would only be willing to be what He intended us to be.

“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:15-16)

It is an astonishing discovery to realize that there is a biography written about each one of us taking its place in the great library of Heaven.  They are stories about God’s intentions.  It is about the me that I could be; not the me that my rebellion might choose.  Because I always get a choice.  I can choose my own will. I can choose the ‘freedom’ of something else than what God intends.  I can choose to write an autobiography and turn away from what the Author of Life wrote for me before the stars were born.


“What sorrow awaits my rebellious children,” says the LORD.
“You make plans that are contrary to mine. 
You make alliances not directed by my Spirit,
thus piling up your sins.
Isaiah 30:1(NLT)

I have done this.  I have looked for my own solutions and tacked on a ‘thank-you-God’ at the end to add a spiritual garnish to the meal of my making.  I have groped around in the dark to find the limits of my personal sovereignty.  I could continue to choose my own way; to write my own poky story.  But even with the greatest of intentions, even if I work really hard to be good--it is just so small.  Trivial to the point of inconsequential.  My view is too limited, my resources too meager, my story too insignificant.  To say nothing of sin and the death that it brings--my way is just too small.  Too broken and foolish.  Too frail and given to selfishness and fear.  My way is a small, stunted story that doesn’t need telling. A story that feels like a humiliation in its meaninglessness.  It is the despair of MacBeth in his most famous speech:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is here no more: it is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. 
(MacBeth, Act 5. Scene 5)


The story that the madman tells is not worth hearing.  The idiot’s tale is much ado about nothing.   All sound and fury. Chaotic and meaningless.  But somewhere else--somewhere much more else--there is a different account.  There is a story about me worth telling.  And more than that, there is a story worth living. I can resist God’s call to be more, and diminish to the pygmy stature that I choose for myself and harvest the consequences.  

The World offers fortune telling soothsayers to read signs in the entrails of slaughtered animals or in the swill that follows a cup of tea because deep in the heart of Mankind, we want to find meaning in the story.  We want direction to know that we are going the right way.  That is why fiction offers its protagonists the convention of a spirit guide.  We need the wise old fellow in the pointed hat, or the cheshire cat grin to point us in the direction that advances the plot.  In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice has the following exchange with her enigmatic guide.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“Oh, I don’t much care where--” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

As an author myself, I can tell you how difficult it is to make characters and circumstances intersect in a strategic way that advances the story.  It involves holding a hundred different strands in your mind and keeping track of each one, weaving them in and out of the narrative with just the right amount of tension; just the right amount of exposure, and at just the right time. It requires identifying which strands are dead ends and need to be discarded before you spend months trying to make them work. It is complicated and nit picky work that involves a wide view for the big picture and precision attention for the smallest of details. In the best stories, there isn’t any bloat.  Everything that happens, everything that is said or done, happens for a reason--it contributes to the overall picture.  Nothing is pointless.  Everything has meaning. It always strikes me, then, that Scripture describes God as the Author of Life; and here is the natural world thriving in a balance of synchronization, woven together in a mighty design of epic proportions.  Each life a strand with a story in heaven--a story of what could be--but so often isn’t.

For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  
(Matthew 7:14)

Life rarely feels like stories do--the intersections are much further apart and we can’t see how people have been strategically placed or the role that they play.  Suffering always feels pointless.  We want meaning but we balk that Someone else might have expectations that we follow His design.  So, we--like children--figure we’ll go anywhere but there.  Alice’s Cheshire Cat--exasperating as he is-- reveals the flaw in Alice’s thinking. Getting anywhere is easy.  Getting somewhere requires direction and a purpose.

“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do --some--don’t ever want to.” 
- The Cheshire Cat

But if God is the Author and there is a story written for me to live (if I’m willing) then it follows that it is possible to live a life of strategic intersections; so that the you see plot, instead of a random aggregation of matter + time + chance.  If there is a story written in heaven about you, then it is possible to have everything that happens go somewhere-- mean something--build toward the purpose of the grand design, rather than the feverish tangential trail of someone who doesn’t care where they end up. 
These are all lovely thoughts, but if we don’t know how to do it, it is still just the the aimless striving of a rodent on a wheel.  I’m not really interested in behaviour modification.  I’m interested in transformation. I’m interested in being a dynamic character who is not the same at the end as she was at the beginning.  I’m interested in discarding the bloat of an aimless autobiography in order that I might live God’s biography of me.  I’m interested--desperate, really--to hear what He has to say; to have the Holy Spirit actually speak to me.    

 “Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.”
Psalm 119:73

In John 16:7 Jesus told His disciples, “But the fact of the matter is that it is best for you that I go away, for if I don’t, the Comforter won’t come.  If I do, he will--for I will send him to you.” (The Living Bible)  It boggles the mind to consider that Jesus says there is something better for us than to have Him physically present with us on the earth.  What is better--He says--is to have the Holy Spirit.  But the Holy Spirit gets held at arms length because we’re worried he might show up and be weird. But God didn’t call us to weirdness. He calls us to holiness.  He called us to be like Him.  

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 
“This is the way; walk in it”. Isaiah 30:21 (NIV)


And He promised that He would show us how.

I Wouldn’t Answer Me Either

“He does me double wrong that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.”   -William Shakespeare, Richard II,  (Act III, Scene II) I ...