Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘faith’

Sep 30

4 Comments

Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ September 30, 2013

Ray Bradbury

Commit to a regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if possible — is key to staying in touch with how you make meaning.

What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention or practice plan — and ink that time in your calendar. The scheduling part is important, because as you know, if you try to “fit it in” around the edges, it generally won’t happen. An intention as simple as “I will write for 20 minutes every morning after breakfast” or “I will sketch a new still life on Wednesday evening” is what it’s all about. If appropriate, use time estimates to containerize your task, which can make a daunting project feel more accessible.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post. We use a broad brush in defining creativity, so don’t be shy. We also often include well-being practices that support creativity, such as exercise and journaling.

Putting your intentions on “paper” helps you get clear on what you want to do — and sharing those intentions with this community leverages the motivation of an accountability group. Join us!

:::::::

If you’re an artist or writer with little ones, The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years is the essential survival guide written just for you. Concrete strategies for becoming more creative without adding stress and guilt. Filled with the wisdom of 13 insightful creative mothers; written by a certified creativity coach and mother of five. “Highly recommended.” ~Eric Maisel. 35 pages/$11.98. Available for download here.

Aug 16

1 Comment

Meme of the Week

E.L. Doctorow quote

Happy Friday.

:::::

Jun 23

5 Comments

Bonita Rose: Thoughts on Worthiness

Today, I wanted to write about something I think all of us struggle with at some point in our lives. The feeling of feeling worthy.
Feeling deep inside — your own worthiness.
Self-worth. Self-esteem.
So many of us struggle with our own sense of self.
Our own identity.

The world often wants to make us into something we are not, something we just can’t be. Some of us conform and live a mediocre life. We settle. We think to ourselves, that this is the only way to live. Everyone else seems to be living this way, why not us? We decide it’s just the way things are.

Dare to dream?
“Why should I?” we sometimes ask ourselves.
The doubts creep in. The negative thoughts we meditate on consume us. We feel ourselves even deeper in that well of darkness, wondering if there is ever going to be a way out.

And then one day, we wake up.

Through divine intervention or from life’s circumstance, we suddenly wake up to a new day. We look in the mirror, and suddenly realize the life we’ve always wanted is there, just waiting for us to grab it. It was there all along. We just had to open our eyes to see its magnificence. To grab hold of the opportunity.

Read more

Apr 1

3 Comments

Robin: Missing Germany


 

As a Valentine’s gift for my hubby this year, I put together a photo book of our time in Germany. My hubby and I have very different takes on the experience. His time in Germany has been the most fulfilling time of his life. I feel very proud and happy to support him. At the same time, I would say it was one of the toughest periods of my life.
 
Something silly started to come to the surface as I was putting the book together. This realization that I have not really picked up a camera since I have gotten home to Arizona. I have a few theories. One is I felt so isolated in Germany. I felt like the camera was some sort of reminder to look for the loveliness. I also think I was keeping some record that I was still a part of the world.
 
A new theory is that the place IS beautiful. The seasons changing, the greenery, the history, the architecture all seems to sit in STARK CONTRAST to our residence in the United States. I will admit it. The desert DOES NOT inspire me. My creativity is more of a discipline here.

 
So what do I do with that?

Mar 15

3 Comments

Robin: Transitioning

my family (minus our two older boys — ahem — MEN!)

I have had a whirlwind of change going on over here. I can’t believe that hubby was here two weeks ago on leave.  And in those two weeks, I have said “YES” to a couple of major things:

These things feel like they are bringing me back to my purpose. This year marks 4 years since I graduated from Fuller Seminary and I have struggled in my heart and on this blog the reasons for why I even took that step. This year seems to be the year that this all fits. Josey heads off to kindergarten in a matter of months. The stress and tension I used to feel over finances and loneliness due to hubby’s deployments are starting to subside a bit. And I feel a bit more settled in my identity.

I LOVE that I can connect creativity with my faith. I LOVE the idea of putting the two together and helping others to do the same. The process of writing the creativity workbook really made some things click as far as next steps. And I am VERY PLEASED with this new direction.

Feb 10

1 Comment

Bonnie Rose: Treacherous Roads

Once upon a time, there was a woman that was going down
a new road.
An unfamiliar road. Her friends at first, were right alongside her, cheering her on. Applauding her. Supporting her. Uplifting her. Believing in her. They were cheering her on. 

This road looked dangerous.
Unfamiliar.
Almost scary.

ND roads, Feb 6, 2011

But this woman —
she believed in herself.
She had FAITH.

She took the time to listen to that still small voice deep within her soul. She wrote feverishly in her daily journals. She wrestled with so many ideas and thoughts.

She knew the road looked unfamiliar.
And she also knew some of her friends would fall away. Stop supporting her. Go on with their own lives and their own plans.

She knew she had to go down this road
herself.

And make her own decisions.

ND roads, Feb 6, 2011

And despite the disappointment she felt, knowing those friends were no longer beside her, she pressed on. She pressed on. She gained more faith in herself daily. She grew stronger.She started to believe in herself even MORE.
She walked down that dangerous road with more purpose, with more tenacity than ever before. 

She recognized the people along the way that were only there to sabotage her plans. Inside deeply, if they were to stop and think, they wanted her to fail. They wanted her to not succeed, for it would make themselves look better. These people would indirectly try to thwart her determination, they would try to rain on her parade. These people would try to squash her dreams.

As she walked on the dangerous road past them, all she could do was walk by and smile. Just smile. These people were once her friends and now, were becoming part of her distant past.

This woman grew stronger.
She recognized those people in her life that truly had value.
Lasting value.

The people that were still there, cheering her on and helping her along this dangerous road.
This unfamiliar road.

ND roads, Feb 6, 2011

At times, she couldn’t see what was to come, but these friends —
they held her hand, and assured her that THIS is where she should be traveling.

So she pressed on.
She pressed on.

ND roads, Feb 6, 2011

They gave her even more FAITH.
They truly believed in all she had to offer the world.

They saw the value of her person.
And they celebrated it.
They celebrated her.

HER.

And this woman?
What did she learn?

She learned to follow her own path, her own road, no matter how scary it looked. For she knew she had good friends and people in her life, that would be there if she fell down. If she took a wrong turn. And these same people would be there for her when she reached her destination. They believed in her. They so believed in all she could be.

IN ALL SHE COULD BE.

This woman learned to press on.
And believe in the woman
she was becoming.

XOXO

[Crossposted from A Life Unrehearsed]

May 26

9 Comments

Robin: The Hamster Wheel

I have a friend who recently quit her job in retail management because she felt like it was zapping her energy (she might have said something like siphoning her life force — she is very poetic!). She said her immediate response to the new stage in her life (you know, after the thrill of sticking it to your boss) was sheer panic. Did she really decide to take herself off the hamster wheel — the one that tells you where to go, when to go, how fast to go, and how to think about on any given 8-10 hour work day? Quick, we must find another hamster wheel!

If you have ever taken a plunge like that, then you know. It feels like you are drowning in possibility. Problem is, you do not know how to discern anything outside of the schematic of a structured work environment. My panic came in the form of motherhood. I waited several years for the little girl in my arms, but where was the constant ringing in my head coming from? I felt like I was a retired Pavlov’s dog unable to generate anything more than DO NOT GIVE IN to the desires invoked by the bell which is GO BACK TO THE HAMSTER WHEEL. Too much time to fill and no one to tell me how to fill it. Well meaning friends who have heard me “lament” (a pretty word for moaning and groaning) said, “finally Robin you can write like you always talked about.”

But how can one create in a state of panic? I felt forgotten in the world. Forty years old in a play group with a toddler surrounded by the other “20-something” moms. Many of whom were joyfully talking about their “next baby” while the one in front of them is barely a year old. I am college educated and full of life experience, stuck in a world filled with The Wonder Pets anthem playing in my head and not much else. It was getting difficult to get out of bed.

So as I embark on this thing — this facade I still call it even as I make myself write — I have no choice but to wake up in my life and EXPLORE. I see that my panicked friend and I could help each other. She actually has her undergrad in art so she has the foundation to re-imagine a life of openness to love through her creativity; more fully with her heart and mind.

As I continue to journey DAILY, I hope I can inspire and encourage others on the way. I do find from past attempts on this creativity kick that, very similar to my walk with Jesus, that I am “simply A BEGGAR trying to show other beggars where the bread is.”

photo credit

May 18

2 Comments

Kelly: The Things They Say About God

catch

[Cross-post from my personal blog] The girls and I were eating breakfast Friday morning when Livvie noticed that the roses they gave me for Mother’s Day were dying. I told them that, yes, unfortunately flowers die; things here on Earth don’t live forever. Then out of the blue Sarah said, “I miss Kitty.” Admitting I missed her to, I asked her what she thought God did for us after Kitty died. “He sent us Tink.” Yep, he sent us Tink, the sweet little stray kitten that appeared under my van one day on campus. This turned into a longer conversation about God and angels and how Kitty is up in Heaven with Mommy’s Mommy and Daddy’s Mommy. Sarah said that we never really die; we just become angels (this out of the mouth of a soon to be six-year-old). And Livvie responded with “Will you still be our Mommy when we are angels?” Me? “I will always, always, always be your Mommy, even when we are angels.” Then Livvie looked outside and said, “Maybe when God made our river, he sat on our dock to rest. I think he sat in the pink chair.” Indeed, he probably did.

We are not a go-to-church-every-Sunday family, but we do believe in God and try to instill that faith and those values in our girls, and sometimes their clarity of it all truly astounds me. I know they say the two things you should never bring up in conversation are politics and religion. Oh well, here’s my two cents. 🙂 I don’t care much about politics, but I’m thankful my girls are finding their faith.

Newer Entries »