To make art is to make love with the sacred. —Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy

Mirabai Starr considers the leap of faith required to accept the invitation to creativity:    

A miraculous event unfolds when we throw the lead of our personal story into the transformative flames of creativity. Our hardship is transmuted into something golden. With that gold we heal ourselves and redeem the world. As with any spiritual practice, this creative alchemy requires a leap of faith. When we show up to make art, we need to first get still enough to hear what wants to be expressed through us, and then we need to step out of the way and let it. We must be willing to abide in a space of not knowing before we can settle into knowing. Such a space is sacred. It is liminal, and it’s numinous. It is frightening and enlivening. It demands no less than everything, and it gives back tenfold…. 

The thing is to allow ourselves to become a vessel for a work of art to come through and allow that work to guide our hands. Once we do, we are assenting to a sacred adventure. We are saying yes to the transcendent and embodied presence of the holy. [1]  

Artist Scott Avett describes the sacred conversation that takes place in his studio:   

Painting is like living, though. An idea is born, an invitation accepted, and a devotion sustained in a mysterious gift of joy and suffering, from its inception to its end. It is in the deepest and darkest moments of this mystery that I may feel the heaviest of doubts, but I long to create faithfully. To create faithfully, I am asked to follow an idea into darkness, not knowing where it will go or what may come of me. To enter into this mysterious exchange is faith itself…. 

Here in the studio, the directions I can go are endless. The ocean of images and sounds is bottomless. The list of tools to make a single mark is infinite. All of this to say one thing, “I am.” I have created many forgettable works under different proclamations: “I will,” “I want,” “I can,” “I should,” and “I need to” are a few that come to mind. These are the echoes of a world obsessed with “doing it right.” I jump in and try my hand at this rightness, but I cease to exist in these moments. I disappear into aspiration and become a stranger to myself and God. In a word, I leave. When I return, however, I arrive in the present. I catch a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. I am actually invited to do this at every moment, but I slip away again and again. I hide from God, behind my proclamations, until I consent once again, and all these claims fade into the eternal “I am.” It is the “I am a child of God” “I am.” Everything I do hinges on this very truth. [2]  

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

You are My beloved child. I chose you before the foundation of the world, to walk with Me along paths designed uniquely for you. Concentrate on keeping in step with Me, instead of trying to anticipate My plans for you. If you trust that My plans are to prosper you and not to harm you, you can relax and enjoy the present moment. 
     Your hope and your future are rooted in heaven, where eternal ecstasy awaits you. Nothing can rob you of your inheritance of unimaginable riches and well-being. Sometimes I grant you glimpses of your glorious future, to encourage you and spur you on. But your main focus should be staying close to Me. I set the pace in keeping with your needs and My purposes.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Ephesians 1:4 (NLT)
4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

Proverbs 16:9 (NLT)
9 We can make our plans,
    but the Lord determines our steps.

Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Ephesians 1:13-14 (NLT)
13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

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