Photo by Tim Arterbury on Unsplash

This is the second article in a four part series from Meta about the beautiful and clumsy work of making art… and then trying to tell people about it. Find Meta’s website here!

There is a moment in ministry that, looking back, could have swallowed me whole. 

I had been ordained for about five years and was serving as a solo pastor in a scrappy and joyful congregation. It was my second call and less than full-time pay, so I was saying yes to every writing and editing gig I could find. My spouse also traveled for work and logged evenings and weekends like me, so every extra honorarium or stipend I could pull in went to offset childcare costs for our three little kids. We both had jobs we loved and every ounce of energy we had went back into making it work for our little family. For a few years I juggled and side hustled beyond my congregational call, but it wasn’t about being creative. It was about survival. 

One summer, when my babies were weaned but I was still very much in the trenches of this hustle, I decided to play with five days, a few hundred bucks and a wider definition of “continuing education”. I made a list of the hobbies I used to enjoy and a list of new opportunities I wanted to test drive. I would spend the week learning about myself and what I might need to flourish in a new stage of life and ministry.

It turns out I’m still pretty bad at golf and a fancy cooking class did not awaken my inner culinary artist. But weight lifting and hiking and painting and matinee movies made me come alive. I took myself on field trips to museums and flower shops and the big public library downtown. I hit tennis balls against the big green wall at the park and napped in my hammock and wrote stories for myself, a worthy audience. 

These little adventures were fuel for my inner artist. I learned things about the ways I was both changing and unchanged over time. I meant for the experiment to become an annual ritual, but it didn’t have to be. It found its way into my daily life and the rhythms of seasons in the form of rest and play and art that did not require deadlines or contracts or consumers. 

I took sidewalk chalking a poem just as seriously as writing a sermon. I scheduled creative meetings at the landscape arboretum or the local beach. I stepped outside each evening and looked for the first stars or the moon. These small acts disrupted my patterns of survival so that, even in some of the most intensely demanding years of my life, I could recognize the invitation to make and be made new everywhere.

By the time I started my third call, which was full time, I was finally booking freelance opportunities that recognized my gifts and getting work that nourished my spirit. Writing poetry was making me a better preacher, liturgy a better worship leader. And so I kept making beyond the boundaries of my congregational call. 

I blocked late nights and time off on my calendar for all kinds of projects. Some had deadlines and contracts. Others were favors for friends or words that needed to be born so the next poem had room to grow. I let the art interrupt my plans and it gave me back better plans. 

Nearly ten years ago, my husband Matt built a two story, 8x8 playhouse for our children in the backyard. When they outgrew it last year, we wondered what to do with the structure and decided to turn it into a little writing shed. The WiFi stretches from the house and shed windows provide a nice crossbreeze in the summertime and a small porch is my favorite place to listen to rainfall. My desk faces into the backyard where I can see squirrels taunting my dog and my garden growing out of control. I’ll have a little heater and a stack of quilts to keep me cozy when winter decides to show. 

The writing shed is home to layers of artistry, and not just mine. Matt’s creative artistry is design and building. He enjoyed every minute of the construction and reconstruction, the making and being made new. My children once fashioned forts and played make believe. Now they climb into the loft to read by lantern light or sit in the chair with a sketch pad or brainstorm characters for their world building game. When they make something beautiful in art class at school, they ask if they can hang it up in the writing shed. 

The permission and the process make room for more art and artists, more unapologetic creativity set loose in the world, more stewardship of what’s still possible and more holy play. 

The most common piece of advice artists give to their fans is to keep making art. Do not slow down to self-critique or be discouraged by negative feedback. Do not avoid your craft because you don’t know where to begin or underestimate the power of another medium as holy play. Just keep making with vulnerable and stubborn discipline that remembers this is who you are - you are created to be creative. 

In a world that wants to criticize and categorize and commodify everything we do, time and space to create for its own sake is a sacred revolution. I’m pretty sure it has been a key ingredient in my ministry and my marriage, my parenting and my personhood, a reason I wasn’t swallowed whole so many years ago. 

And so my hope for you, dear reader, is that you may know a revolution in the making - and being made new. Because you already have everything you need to be creative and generous with that creativity, playful beyond the perimeters of what sells or seems sensible. It takes practice making beyond the boundaries of hustle and survival…but imagine a church in which we are all free for precisely that.