Words

       Succulent are the words the world never reads.

       After sitting [for seven months] at the feet of Jesus in search for myself, I finally have a small ["sheep-brained"] understanding of my worth in The Creator. Feeling stifled in my dreams, and rutted in my step, I decided in August I would turn to The Illustrator of Vision.
     
      "Breathe in me new dreams, oh Lord."

       The vocalized aspirations of "Baby-Jade" surrounded art shows and publication [anything for the world's affirmation]. In my pride, it was difficult to surrender dreams that were [in my eyes] abnormally "large." After seven months of counseling, a redirection in community, and a various selection of God-Inspired tools, the scales began to fall away from my eyes. I was given vision and understanding.

        The Lord is my sustenance.
   
       "Stop drinking your own urine," She said.
       "After awhile,
        It becomes syrupy, and brown and disgusting.
        Then you get dehydrated...

        And you die."

        *Right on. I praise God for my weird friends.

        Have you read the book of Acts? I often stand in awe of the disciples: Their ability and energy to love the sick, the depraved, the dying. Our flesh is a hinderance to our ministry in a very real and physical way: We get tired, we get hungry, we get thirsty; writers run out of words. This is our humanity. We are composed of inconsistency. If we were perfect, we would never decline on the slippery slopes of melancholy. We would be unclogged instruments of God: Trumpets without pooling spit valves, Woodwinds without warped and fraying reeds, freshly sharpened Prisma colors, painters with endless vision: Without the tiring eyes of our depravity.
        Because we are fallen, our execution is hindered: We tire. We stifle. We end. Our disillusioned selves believe because we are artists, our creativity itself is a wellspring: That we are our own water source. When the tap is dry, static heat dehydrates our bones. We create forced scraps from whatever we have left: Usually our discouraged exhaustion or apathy. When the succulence in our craft is lost: We self-destruct--to feel anything. We forget The Lord is the grand provider/author/creator.
        The disciples were incapable of the miracles done through themselves. Their limbs were spirit led. They understood their tap was the Creator: An eternal flow of living water. I note this often: Creativity is not of our flesh--it is by the hand of God and because we are made in the image of God that we have the ability to create.
       What then does it mean to be a creator and a believer? The hardest and healthiest thing: Submission. Submission--not just once, but every day...with every breath. Note: It is important in this to have a healthy view of submission: The nature of submission, and what it means to healthfully submit to The Lord. We often talk about [what I refer to as] "The Martyr Mindset," at The Anchor:
      "I will give my ALL to God. I will have none. I will execute submission well by starving myself of joy--letting myself have nothing of what I want because I love the Lord enough to sacrifice myself."
      Aside from the fact that this is self-idolizing [as in: It is all about what we are giving up as opposed to fixing our eyes on The Lord], we cannot execute submission perfectly, and even if we could: Eternity cannot be earned through works. There is this great system called: "Salvation." Christ covered us with His blood when he died meaning: We have no work to do. He desires our hearts not our works. Our hearts are measured: Our actions [both good and bad] are only and always a symptom of the state of our hearts. I will be honest in saying: My "sheep-brain" does not fully understand this, and it never will. I am a product of humanity: Addicted to self glorification, and self-abuse. But I praise a God who loves me despite these things. He takes my human attempts at a concept I don't understand and He says: "Daughter, I'll teach you," and he blesses me despite my short-comings.
      If you're an artist who believes the Lord is calling you to lay down your gifts [but it's okay--He's done this before], you have a misunderstanding of submission. Submission is with every breath. It's not a "once a month," or "once a year," thing. When we submit, God takes our craft and turns it into something new. Our identity is no longer in our craft but in Jesus, He expands us: We become seekers, listeners, students, observers, and learners. My friend Francy once noted, when he's in the middle of a creative project with The Lord, the Holy Spirit will at times encourage him by saying: "How about you try this." Our pieces are spirit-filled: We are God-flooded instruments to send a message of hope to fallen humanity. Submission of gifts is not about keeping or losing them, it is about allowing them to be in a constant state of: Redirection, growth, and refinement. This is a scary concept for artists: To consider that we are not in control. We have something greater than control: We have the Creator of the Universe coursing through our veins. It is almost as if we forget He is good. He is on our side. As my friend Lydia says: "If the Lord wanted to get us...He could." I have equated the suffering my flesh feels in the strife of trusting God to pleasure. When God comes through [despite our doubt], I am affirmed in this.
     We must allow God to redirect our dreams. Consider: We are not confined to worldly definitions. God cannot be contained; our spiritual selves are as confined to worldly containers as we allow them to be. "Baby-Jade" did not know she could [and would] be a vast array of things. After seven months of tremendous healing and growth, I learned that I have value. This means: the gifts that the Lord has specifically woven into my being--have value. After much discussion with the Lord about the value of my passions--The Lord changed my dreams.
     It wasn't until two days ago, sitting on the tile floor of my third-story art "studio," that I vocalized: I did not--have never really wanted--publication. It makes my heart writhe and ache at the thought of prostituting my poetry out to the vultures of "publication-day." I was inspired in this to consider the auto-biography of Vanessa Carlton [that is located on her webpage]. Anyone who kept up with this prodigy pianist knows that she understood her value. She also understood the value of her art. After being on top in the 2000's and having several hit songs, she left it all: Hid away [by herself] in the snow-quilted mountains, wrote music to the sound of her own whisky-coated breath and the crackling unfurling of blazing campfires. Her new music sounds nothing like the Vanessa Carleton America became so familiar with; "success" [for Vanessa] was not fulfilling in at all.
     I am up in the rolling hills with her. We're shooting whisky; talking about love, sadness, "home," and the wind. I am writing in my coffee-stained, acrylic-coated, fray-edged, leather-bound companion. The bruised, and broken binding of it is revelatory of just how much I believe in its existence, succulence, value, and importance. The words between the closed-quarters--the poems in its privacy are more than enough. How small, vacant, cheap and sad trying to gain the world's affirmation through publication [now] seems. It is terrifying to admit: I do not want to be a glossy-covered best selling novel on the mahogany shelves of your local Barns and Noble. My dream is experiencing depth and intimacy with my creator through the art of composition.
 
     Succulent are the words the world never reads.