The discipline of thinking outside the box.

Recently I've been noticing God's little nudges to remind me that I worship a creative God.  During Lent I actually re-decorated my room in some creative ways (incomplete, unfortunately).  During a discipleship meeting with a student we went over how we were made in God's image in the first few chapters of Genesis.  Last week at my upstate staff meetings it came up during my retreat of silence, group time and prayer sessions. Our spiritual director read a number of excerpts from a book on Sabbath, but this quote stuck out to me the most:

"Emptiness is the pregnant void out of which all creation springs." --Wayne Muller

It struck a chord in me because I actually had a really hard time focusing during my retreat of silence.  I wasn't looking forward to that or the "Great Silence" we always have that night all the way into the morning through breakfast time.  It wasn't because I was afraid of silence or don't like quietness - I'm an introvert, of course I enjoy silence and quietness.  At first I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't want to be in silence.  It wasn't like I was trying to avoid silence by distracting myself with busyness or noise or wasting time.

I felt like I have been hitting a good rhythm in life of learning to say no, learning to practice Sabbath and quietness and stillness (especially through my morning and evening routines), not over-burdening myself with tasks or the weight of responsibility that isn't mine to carry.  It's just that I've been by myself and practicing silence and solitude a lot as a new staff worker that I was, as my dear co-workers helped me discover, in fact just plain discontent with the emptiness that rang out into the silence.  I've been longing for more.

But that Muller quote, along with all the other things popping up in my life remind me that God is such a creative God and that He created me in His image in such a way that I have the capacity to create something new or take something old and make it my own.  In fact, all of us humans have that capacity.  I sometimes get frustrated when people say, "I'm not creative," because I think by believing that you deny the creation God designed you to be.  Honestly, I do think it is a discipline we can develop.  It's something we practice and learn.  I don't think I would be so inclined to creativity if it wasn't for the way my parents raised me.

Creativity goes a long way with problem solving, too.  You have a problem because you have a goal but there are obstacles or rules or limits that prevent you from achieving that goal.  Creative problem solving steps in when you seek solutions that work outside the limits presented before you.  Creativity thrives when you go beyond what is expected.

I think it's part of the reason why I thrive with structures and systems.  You can't think outside the box if you don't know what the box is.  You can't move beyond limits if you don't know what parameters you're limited to.  It's why it's important to learn the basic rules and structures of any form of writing or art (which is usually associated with creativity) - you can't break the rules if you don't know what the rules are.

The sad part is when the only thing stopping us from being creative is ourselves.  It's like we look at the fence that's blocking our way, say, "Well, I guess we can't get to the other side," when really all you had to do was be willing to do a little work to find the gate that was never locked in the first place.

It's funny because as I was working on this post yesterday, I decided to look at Donald Miller's latest post, which was about being a creator rather than a critic.  I liked the post a lot because it's sometimes how I feel about people who complain or whine about an issue they see but don't seem to do anything about it (which, trust me, I've been guilty of before).  I don't know if it's my optimistic outlook, but I usually believe and hope that there is an alternative solution.  Sometimes it means changing our attitude when we can't change our environment or people around us.

So being creative is not always something we're instantly good at doing.  It takes practice and work and a different kind of mentality.  It means faithfully showing up even if you don't get the inspiration you hoped for.

If you're willing to take on the challenge start somewhere, this website has some interesting places to start.  But you don't need some website to tell you ways to be creative.  Just take your current situations, problems, issues, and identify those limits.  Think about where you are/what you anticipate will happen and then think about where you'd like to be.  Make some observations and brainstorm some alternative solutions.  Take ownership over your situation and turn it into a chance to do something you haven't tried before - you might like what you find!

I've still got a lot to learn,  I'm discovering that creativity can sometimes be an ironic part of my life.  But at least my balloon of discontent silence is slowly deflating.  Emptiness allows space for new life to spring up!  That's exciting.

It's time to try it.

Something has changed within me,
Something is not the same 
I'm through with playing by the rules 
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts 
To close my eyes and leap

It's time to try 
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity 
And you can't pull me down

I'm through accepting limits
'Cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change 
But till I try, I'll never know

--excerpt from Defying Gravity, from the Broadway show, Wicked

The origins of a writer.

In the middle of the week of NYCUP's Spring Break Plunge, we watched the documentary Waiting For Superman, which talked about the brokenness of the education system by following the stories of a few children trying to get into charter schools.  I was excited to watch it because it's one of Pam's favorite documentaries and she has been encouraging me to watch it for a few years now.  I was surprised to find that it was actually pretty similar to The Lottery, a documentary on the education that we had watched at last year's NYCUP.  But one of the things I appreciated the most about Waiting For Superman were the little animations that visually further explained the breadth and depth of the systems and concepts.

By the end of the film I was shaken.  What in great heavens could I possibly do to be a part of restoring this extremely broken system?  The issues were so complex and so deeply ingrained in our nation that it seemed impossible to tackle or even make a dent.

But as these question marks of anxiety and worry swirled in my mind, Jonathan Walton called us to a time of prayer.  He reminded us that our God is bigger than this vast issue - He is sovereign.  Jon called us to pray and praise God for the ways we had been blessed - for the people who invested in our education, for those who made sacrifices on our behalf and those who believed in us.

My mind was blown by the deeper understanding of how great our God really is.  This issue was no surprise to our mighty Lord.

So as we started praying, I started counting some of the many ways God had blessed me over the years.  I realized how I managed to have such a good slate of teachers growing up, but as we prayed I focused particularly on one teacher and my parents.

A note I wrote to myself at the beginning of 5th grade.

Even though have many reasons to be grateful for my parents, I thanked God specifically for parents that really taught me to think outside the box and strive to go beyond what's expected of me.  Bringing me up that way really set a foundation for my inclination towards creative problem solving, crafty projects, optimistic/hopeful outlook on life, and encouragement towards others to do the same.

I give credit to them for instilling that in me in such a way that gave birth to my love of creative writing.  You know how in elementary school you'd get a list of spelling words and for homework you'd have to make sentences out of each of them?  I think I didn't really enjoy the assignment because it seemed boring.  A single sentence doesn't tell all that much.

My first recorded story made out of spelling words.  What a terrible story. ..and terrible grammar.

I don't know where the idea exactly came from, but one day in the fifth grade (I guess, since I don't have any previous record) I decided it would be more fun to write a story out of my spelling words.  It was obviously a little harder because now not only did I have to come up with one sentence, but I had to come up with extras in order to put the sentences together to make sense and flow together in a story structure (not that I necessarily consciously thought about these difficult factors).

All right, there's some improvement here.

I don't know if I asked my teacher for permission or I just did it and continued doing it ever since she approved it.  There were definitely a few times where I was too lazy and just wrote single sentences.  But for the most part my spelling notebook was filled with random stories built with spelling words as the blocks.  I think this was around the time where I started gaining more interest in not just reading stories, but creating my own...and not because it was some homework assignment.

Look at that, I wrote a terrible poem with my spelling words!

Even though I had all really great elementary teachers, I particularly praised God for my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Hamilton (I wrote a previous blog post about her here), simply because of the influence and impression she made in my life.  She was a tough teacher that clearly loved her students believed the very best in each of them.  She taught us how to take notes in a lecture setting (she literally read history textbooks to us and we had to take notes on everything because she would give us a quiz on it afterwards), taught us about the life cycle of a fruit fly, gave us 20 pages of math homework nearly every day, and made us memorize poems and recite them to her for a grade - even on the bus on our field trips.

A stanza from one of my favorite poems I had to memorize in the 4th grade -
I actually turned the first stanza  into a fun song to help me memorize it...
I still remember the tune!

When I was moving all of my stuff to Binghamton last summer, I found that I still had about 1/2 (maybe a little less) of the poems I had to recite in the 4th grade.  I'm really glad I found them but wonder where the other ones went.  But every time I look at these I think about how much Mrs. Hamilton believed in me and sacrificed her time to continue developing me and other students.  She gave up her lunch time to give us "advanced readers" more experience in reading books of a higher reading level.  It's where I fell in love with Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables when we read with the girls and read The Hobbit when we joined with the boys while we ate the mini chocolate bars she'd hand out before we got started.  It was definitely my favorite part of the day.

From my elementary school autograph book

I really believe Mrs. Hamilton inspired me and shaped my character at such a young age of my life that many of those things have become a part of who I am.  I probably should give her credit along with my parents for laying the foundations and tilling the soil of my love for writing and desire to create characters, worlds, and stories that people would be inspired to be a part of as they read.

I want all kids to have a chance of having good teachers like Mrs. Hamilton.  Where would we be without them?  I praise God so much for the wonderful education I've been given.  Our God is truly a great God.

I miss this.

Do you think Rochester is windy enough?

Cape Cod 2011

Good ol' books.

It makes me really happy when I see people reading books.  I mean actual paperback or hardcover, large print or small print, keep-turning-the-actual-page-of-paper rather than click-the-button-that-simulates-the-idea-of-turning-an-actual-paper-page.  In this world of iPads, e-readers, nooks, kindles, mp3 players, smart phones and flip cams, I do enjoy the smell and touch of holding a good old book.

Please, don't ever think about buying me an e-reader of any kind.  My dad offered to get me one as a graduation gift last year and in my head I was yelling, "Nooooooooo!!" in those super manly and deep, slow motion movie kind of ways.  It is not necessary and not desired.  The covers of books open the doors that let my heart in to a whole new world where it can make its home in the spine of the book, and e-readers simply don't have spines to do that.

I'm currently reading, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins.  It's a book that's about two inches thick.  Most e-reader owners would argue, "You see, you can buy or borrow an e-book and you wouldn't have to carry so much weight!"  But I don't really care.  I love the weight.  I love the scratchy sound the pages make when I turn them.  I like that it's fat.  I like fat books.

E-reader owners may also argue, "But with an e-reader, you can also carry lots of e-books without carrying around tons of weight."  Sorry, but I'm one of those human beings that can't literally read two books at once.  When I sit down to read, it's only possible for me to read one page at a time.  And yes, I guess I understand that if you want to put one book down and continue another to "read at the same time," I used to do that a lot when I was younger. Some parts of one book would be slow or too heavy so I'd want to take a break and read a lighter, more engaging book.  But again, I'd pack maybe one or two books with me.  I wouldn't need a hundred books to choose from.  If I read a hundred books at the same time I'd never finish one.  Sometimes we just need to pick a book and stick to it.  Do you think our inherent "need" to get a taste of many different books in one sitting says something about our society's issues with commitment?

I've been traveling a lot over this year, and it's amusing to find that most of the weight of my bags usually comes from the number of books I bring with me.  And though I'd like to bring just one or two, I'm usually at a point where I'm close to finishing one and would want to start another and may also finish that one so I'd want to have maybe one more, just in case.  Obviously because it was better to have an extra book that I didn't get around to rather than finish two books and have none to start.  Of course it's a little frustrating - I don't like carrying a lot of heavy stuff - but I totally think having real books is worth it.

Nathan often does the same thing - except he often packs way more books than me because he's a super fast reader and I'm super slow, so he'll knock out books at a faster turnover rate, which means he needs to carry more books.  But I think it's funny how we both do that.  I half-joked and told him once that when we have kids and they're old enough to read and  we need to travel somewhere, we'll probably always need to pack a separate luggage solely for the purpose of holding all of our family members' books.  Good luck to the family member that has to carry that bag.

I could go on and on about books.  But I will pause here and take a breath.  I only wanted to say how happy it makes me when I see people read real books because I don't see it as often anymore.  I did see a guy reading an actual book on the subway the other day, though, which is what inspired this post in the first place.

Please, go read books if you can.  There's something for everyone, whether you're a big reader or not.  They're great.  Go to a library or a bookstore and just read something.

Oh goodness, don't get me started on libraries and bookstores.

Check this out.

I'm reading through Proverbs and came across this verse:

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.  --Proverbs 11:3

I wish I could say it was this verse I read in high school that really changed me, but alas, it is not.  It's cool, though, that it affirms what I learned about uncovering my duplicity because this verse reminds me that it is an ongoing process and discipline in my life that I want and need to uphold, especially as life changes.