When starting down a new road we inevitably have to walk through sludge.  The sludge is the steps we take when starting a new project, long before things are crystalized.  We must keep walking long before we can be sure we are making progress.  We must keep walking when the mud is up to our knees.  We must keep walking.  Don’t let the sludge be an excuse to keep you from moving forward.  Walk on!

To believe despite what we see is real hope.  Reality goes beyond what we see before us.  Despair and optimism are really just two sides of the same desire to control certain realities.  We can not control some realities.  But other realities reside in our head, in how we choose to shape them.  The attitudes we express, especially to things outside our control, is how indeed we are part of shaping their reality.  This co-shaping of reality is life that is truly life!

Our story is wrapped into a bigger story.  We can’t eject ourselves from the bigger plot-line.  We were born into it.  It is part of us.  We must learn to embrace it.  Own it.  Own that we are intertwined with a whole lot of things we did not decide.  In doing so we can free ourselves from the need to be original and instead find our rightful place in The Story.  Our belief in it is not a fantasy, it is harbiner of reality.

Life is full of cyclical patterns, which it turns out is great for storytelling (think chapter breaks, episode cliff-hangers, etc.).  We need cycles, otherwise life is simply too overwhelming.  Cycles make hard things endurable.  And patterns give us those page breaks and chapter endings we need to sort things out.  That building of anticipation and unknown is one of the best things about life.  Don’t try to squelch that with control.  Enjoy it instead!  Immensely.

We are all connected.  Intricately woven together.  But when we get focused on someone’s random version of success we miss that. We end up looking for validation where it can not ultimately be given.  You have what you need, and the connections you need will come.  Trust that.  Trust your path to get you there. It will!

Artists need communities.  We need others who know the isolation required to create.  We need others who know how to explore their scars and turn them into something beautiful.  We need the consistent encouragement that what we are doing matters.  That it is part of a bigger plan, one written before the world began.  And, if such things are possible, that we are actually invited to be a meaningful part of that creative plan.  Whoa!     

A Storm is coming. One that will break apart what we think we know. One that will reduce us to our core, unique self. Let go. But hold on. Hold onto the real thing. Hold onto the thing that is revealed by the storm. That is the whole point of the storm after all. And release the seeds that remain. Free them into the world. Loose them to become the tiny installments of hope they are. This is the army of light.

We do not get to nor do we need to hear the entire symphony to play our part.  In this way life feels like a cosmic waiting room, a trial for the real event.  But in the act of dying to ourselves we get through the door and into the real adventure.  Hold on tight.  You really are part of a celestial, even eternal song.  The deep completion you seek is found in the reverberating notes of life you alone can play!

Security must go if we are to really grab ahold of what is coming.  When we take our moment that is all we can do. There is nothing else.  Trust life.  Trust that you are here because God knew you needed to be here.  You have a purpose.  And fulfilling that purpose is the most important thing there is.

Arriving eventually is inevitable, if you keep going. You will finally get where you are going. But the final part of the journey comes with its own unique fears and challenges. Still it is inevitable to happen if you keep going, and will produce such good fruit you can hardly yet imagine. It will be worth it! Trust that the process is actually leading you somewhere very good.

Are we willing to let go of all our assumptions and simply reach for the sun?  Are we willing to simply be, and sense the nutrients coming in from the soil?  Are we willing to be blown by the wind, but rooted deeply, trusting our vine connection will provide the life we seek?  This week simply breath in the plain wonder and receive the miracle of God-given inspiration.  Recognize the incredible power of what is taking place when we do nothing but receive.  Breath deep.   

We are somewhere on the verge of what we know and what we don’t know.  To stand in that perplexing state, respecting the tension, is very hard.  Yet it is our calling.  If we are truly going to break new ground, we must hover there.  One hand holding each side.  Tension.

Eventually we arrive.  We get “there.”  We get to the place we have been heading.  The waiting is over.  But before we get “there,” don’t miss what is happening.  Something new is being birthed right before our eyes.  Something from deep inside us, something that has been churned in us from the beginning.  Life is creating something new.  Slowly but deliberately. We are in the story and yet are seeing it being written right in front of our noses.  Don’t miss it.  This moment right here will only happen once.

The Hebrew verb for to change can also mean to sprout again.  Its derivatives speak of rebirth, transformation, even resurrection.  We are being invited into this process.  Something inside us in being born, or reborn.  As we release our work into the world something also dies.  We lose something.  But each time we do it anyway, we say “yes” to the Giver of such gifts, and to a future supply.  We will indeed sprout again.

At a certain point a pregnancy must end in birth (even if it is a miscarriage).  What has been born inside you must come out.  Hold on tight!  This process of birthing and releasing is not risk-free, nor easy.  Neither are your creative births.  Each creative birth is like a re-birth, initiating a new normal.  We must let go of the life we knew (before birth) to enter a new world (post-birth).  This is the way, and it will be worth it.   

Our birth into the world reveals much about the way we should go in it.  The trauma of birth is an exceptional analogy for rebirth - for getting through the hard times, the perplexing times,  the disorienting times, the times we get so close but then run into a wall.  Birth finds a way.  Into a future worth the pain it will take.

How many times do we get stuck on a corner, when our sight-lines are temporarily blocked? “But I don’t see it.”  Maybe our senses are not trustworthy measures of the truth?  Thankfully there are other ways to discover the truth.  There are things beyond our senses.  There is an invisible world of faith.  Thankfully it communicates with ours.  It guides the willing, leads to trust, and is real as real can get.  And it really will get us to our next bridge.

What is holding you back?  This week we focus on how bridges get us across a barrier that if unnamed remains untraversed.  The goal is to keep moving.  Movement creates its own energy.  Don’t stop moving.  As we do, we give opportunity for new connections to be made, both in our own internal wiring and in our external relationships.  Take that step and watch what happens.

This week we stare down the bridges in our lives, those things that get us from our current road to our next one, and then the next.  We are going somewhere.  We see the vision.  The goal.  The end.  But we need the bridge to get there.  The only way to our dream is to cross that bridge.  Only there can we experience the cadence of purpose

Music in an escort into other worlds. It is our guide into emotional spaces.  There are things happening in art and its expression that we can not totally figure.  There are things happening beyond what can be measured.  Beautiful things.  Even amazing things.  In this final blog in our series on music, we will consider what would be missing in a world without music, the pixie dust of imagination.