Monday, August 27, 2012

The Treasure of Our Art



So I'm writing this book (Oh the audacity!), the one I've been dreaming about for years and years. I thought it would be an agonizingly painful process - you know, the tortured artist and all that - but I am having the best time. The people who lived in my head have come to life, and I like them. I plotted a story line for them to follow, but they occasionally have ideas of their own. So we take a little turn. Sometimes I'm just along for the ride. It's fun.

But here's the problem. A little something has been jumping up and down in the back of my mind - vying for attention. It says things like, "Why are you spending so much time writing.....fiction?" It's true. It does take a lot of time. I have a lot less time to visit blogs and leave comments. I'm sort of neglecting my friends.

It's also true that it isn't a deeply spiritual book. It's just a little story with some spiritual things mixed in. And the other thing is....I'm not really a writer. I think I'm just pretending. The odds of this book getting published are slim to none. It is taking a lot of time (as I think I mentioned), and I'm not getting any younger.

Enter the One who is the maker of dreams. He left me a little message this morning that I want to pass along to everyone who dreams a dream, who loves to create and sometimes wonders:

"To lay up treasure in heaven is to do arts which promote, or belong to, the kingdom of God, and what our Lord assures us of is that any act of our hands, any thought of our heart, any word of our lips, which promotes the divine kingdom by the ordering whether of our own life or of the world outside - all such activity, though it may seem for the moment to be lost, is really stored up in the divine treasure-house; and when the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, shall at last appear, that honest effort of ours, which seemed so ineffectual, shall be found to be a brick built into that eternal and celestial fabric."
Charles Gore

Carry on dreaming dreams and making art, and using the lovely gifts He has placed within you. Wrap them up and give them, a gift from your heart, to Him, and let Him do with them what He will. He may wrap a child in a blanket made with your hands; He may encourage a heart with a note you've sent; He may bring joy to the world with works of art you've created - He only asks that we do it for Him.

Blessings,
Linda