Birthing Creativity

As a child emerges through the birth canal, his nerve sensors are woken up.  The act of applying pressure for a few minutes alerts numerous systems of the body to come alive.  Amazing, this birth process beyond words to describe the holy mystery of it all.  

All I know is that I’ve done it five times, pushed skulls & shoulders, bellys & knees and little feeties through my body.  Reached down and brought fully formed little people to my chest even.  Time.  Stands.  Still.  Glory be!

Only once the birth canal couldn’t wake up my son.  His little heart gave out in utero and his spirit went to dance with Jesus, be rocked by all the Mamas in heaven who always wanted a child but for whatever reason never got to Mother one. 

I can’t begin to tell you what that did to my heart to birth something dead.  The heave of each wave of contraction insurmountable knowing his eyes wouldn’t open to meet mine.  He would never nurse and coo at my breast.  Knowing I’d never play itsy bitsy spider with him smiling joy over his pop belly only to have him cackle at the end like his big brother did.  Who knew a baby could unlock so much room for love in a womans heart?  Or grief.

A part of me died with him that day.  Retreated.  Slunk into the shadows.

We named him William, which bore great significance for both my husband and I.  William Shakespeare for me since I completed an 8 year journey to finish my college education the day before he died.  I decided to quit college after too many unsuccessful majors and took a class not for credits but for my heart upon my dads concern and prompting and chose a writing class.  

Cathy Smith Bowers taught in a way that made my heart swell with possibility.  I made my  first ever A in a college class and went on to major in English with an emphafiasis on creative writing.  I wish you could see the way I just spelled emphasis.  Emphafiasis.  I laugh now and just move on.  But for years it haunted me with shame the backwards way I do things, pulling words that aren’t right but have the same first sound, not  remembering passwords, names.  I was on a stage last week telling David Wilcox a story so he could sing me a song and upon being asked how old my husband and I were, I claimed myself a whole year older than I really am.  Oh my!

Now though, thanks to my 3^rd child coming out wired like I am, I know that I’m dyslexic.  And I’ve spent the last year letting lots of shame come to light and be healed.  Waves of anger, sadness, confusion and acceptance have come over me at the oddest of times. 

Ultimately tho, it feels like I’ve been in that birth canal wayyyy toooooooo looooong trying my darndest to wake up my authentic self to have the courage to come out into the world.  And offer something. 

My heart.

When you’ve offered and gotten shut down or laughed at in front of others during formative years for truly trying but getting it way wrong, it doesn’t take long to figure out how to be quiet and just not offer.  To play it safe.  To hide.  To be safe.

But that’s not where we find true life, hiding in the shadows.  “Hide it under a bussell, NO! I’m gonna let it shine.”  I can sing it.  But I struggle to live it.

Yet, Abba is inviting me to step deeper into parts of me and offer and I want to say YES! with gusto and throw off the mask of caring what others think, if anyone even reads the writing, likes or shows up to hear me speak.  A tree was made to grow leaves.  I was made to nurture life, to write, to speak, to create with my heart and craft words that bring life and health to souls and bodies alive.  I want to do that. 

My husband and I talk about what it looks like to ‘train up each of our kids in the way that they are bent.’  “Jed is bent towards caring for living things and the environment, how can we best set him up to have what he needs to succeed in that way as an adult?”

Well, Abba invited me (through a mac daddy friend) to take a writing class this past winter.  I jumped, literally at the invitation.  It was called a Fearless Writing Workshop for Women.  We ate salty, almond chocolate, told stories, wrote them and read aloud.  It was the best part of my week for 6 weeks.  But I kept not writing.  Rather, sitting safely in the shadows reading Ann Voskamp, Mary Oliver, Sarah Bessy, Anne Lamott, Barbra Brown Taylor, Windell Berry, Sally Clarkson.  Souls that craft words in a beautiful  way that daily guide me, heros that have become friends I’ve read so much of their writing.  But, me?  Am I really old enough to really offer something?  Does it even matter?  So many words out there, blogs, books, websites, we live in information overload, I told myself.  “No one needs my stories.” 

"The essence of creativity is essentially risk, believing enough to leap into the yet unseen.  The theological terms for this is faith."            -Ann Voskamp

And then, I turned around to grin at her after picking her up from preschool and I felt like the last 4 years had slipped through my fingers it went so fast.    

It hurt in the deep middle of my ribs.  This realization of my littlest growing up.  Turning 5 next month.  5.  And this realization that I want to write more.  For her.  For them to have words and stories to look back on one day.

Then and there I drew a line in the sand telling myself I’m going to chronicle these crazy, messy beautiful days of home educating, shaping 4 healthy souls, reading galore, baking fresh, eating whole food, growing tender plants, having dance parties, living the ‘slow life’,  building chicken coops, going on bike rides, sleeping a consistent 11 hours a night….the kids that is.  But also the messy parts, the hard groans.

So, here goes nothin’.