IDEAS

I found a quote from Neil Gaiman yesterday:

I like Neil Gaiman's answer, but even more so, I like the question. Where do you get ideas? 

That's a rather good question.

I've talked to a lot of people who are impressed by the fact that I like to write, and they say something along the lines of: "I want to write a book, but I don't have any good ideas,"

The truth may be that I am not exactly a helpful person, because I always say that EVERYONE has ideas, some people just don't know how to get them out of their heads. 

I've always had ideas. I remember when I couldn't read, and I ignored words because they meant nothing to me, I would sit in a very small corner between the fridge and the cupboard in my family's kitchen with the biggest picture book we had. I would sit and I would quietly say what I thought the characters in the pictures were saying - complete with different voices for each character. I was making up stories. I was full of ideas. 

That's never gone away; it's gotten stronger. I get ideas from many places. These are the one's off the top of my head...

1. In the shower (I don't know why, but showers are amazing for ideas).

2. Folding laundry (again...don't know why...).

3. Washing dishes (SERIOUSLY. I love washing dishes when I'm in a creative rut.).

4. Song lyrics (Who else has written an entire novel based off one song?).

5. Quotes.

6. Pictures.

7. Listening to people talk about their lives.* 

8. Books.

9. Long walks outside.

10. Single words.

11. Scenes from movies.

12. Memories.

13. * Heck, PEOPLE in general. 

Every new flower is a story. Every new song is an adventure. Ideas are everywhere. There is no limit to imagination. An idea can come from absolutely anything. I got a story idea from sea monkeys once. I have yet to write that book, but the idea seriously came from sea monkeys. 

I love ideas. They blossom from cracks in sidewalks. I once stood on a very small manhole cover labeled WATER and said, "This looks like it could be a time machine,"

See? An idea.

I have this terrible desire to make myself a T-shirt that says "I'LL PUT YOU IN A BOOK SOMEDAY" because every new person is a new idea, who could eventually wind up in another idea, and become a story. 

It's very true, what Mr. Gaiman says. Ideas do sometimes just come together like magic in an author's mind. But there's more to it than that. 

Ideas are everywhere. You just have to notice them. 

Pain and Greatness

This past Monday night, I couldn't sleep. Aside from having drank a large cup of espresso (don't do it), something had happened that was just making me feel so anxious and worried, and I had spent the whole evening trying to cover up that painful feeling of uncertainty. 

It wasn't even a big or important thing that happened. It was just that someone had not said something I expected them to, and it made me wonder if I'd done something wrong. But my heart is very sensitive, and that one little thing brought on all the things that had been bothering me for the past few weeks. 

When it rains, it pours. 

So I was lying in bed, trying to think of creative ways to numb the ache in my heart. And that was when God invited me not to run from my suffering, but to 'enter into it'. 

This is something I've been trying to wrap my head around ever since I wrote a very long, in depth paper on redemptive suffering. I started really wondering about pain, and how our pain can lead to healing. 

But, when we ARE in pain, the world tells us that the answer is to numb the pain, cover the pain up, make the pain GO AWAY. I believe that no one sets out to suffer. Sometimes people use physical pain to escape the deeper emotional and spiritual pain, but no one WANTS to suffer. That's why we have Tylenol and Advil, right? 

In contrast to what the world tells us, God tells us that we must not run from pain. We must truly experience pain by entering into it. We need to go into it and FEEL it, and see where its coming from. 

Pain, like fear, never goes away until you treat the cause of it. 

So I entered in. I let myself ask, "Why is this bothering me? Why would it be so painful if this thing I'm afraid of happened? Why am I trying to cover it up? And what about all these other things?"

I let myself cry, and I admitted to God, "I need You. I don't know how to make this go away. I don't know how to feel better. I don't know how to fix all these wounds and broken parts in me,"

I don't like pain. Especially emotional and spiritual pain. I avoid pain in ALL its ugly forms wherever I can. Most of all, I avoid things that scare me, because fear is more painful than anything else. 

The world tells me that's exactly what I should do. I should never just let pain happen. I should try and avoid it, and when it comes, I should cover it up right away. 

But, from now on, I am going to make every effort not to run from pain. Monday night was rough. I didn't want to enter into the labrinth of painful fears and wounds in my heart. It hurt, and I wanted to run away from it. 

However, after I'd just sat with the pain for a little while, I saw that it was OKAY to suffer. In fact, it was good to suffer in that particular moment. By not running away from it, by facing it, I was able to accept it. That acceptance made it much easier to bear, and I had a sense that everything would be alright. 

I remembered that pain goes away. If we face it, it has an end. 

Suffering is hard. It's painful. It's difficult to reconcile with what we believe about God's love for us. It's embarrassing to be vulnerable in our pain to others. It's uncomfortable. 

But Christ Himself suffered in the worst way in all of human history, so I will not run away from suffering anymore. I will unite my suffering with His. 

Because we were made for greatness, not comfort. 

Neglecting the Gift

* I know my last post was really deep, too, but these things needed to be said. 

Maybe I'll make a post about my boyfriend tomorrow to lighten things up.

You never know.

So I'm sitting on my bed, reading the daily readings. I start with the First Reading, because, obviously, that's the order things go in. I flip to 1 Timothy 4, and read verses 12-16.

Right there in the middle. Underlined with the dark black pen.

Do not neglect the gift you have. 

This line is very convicting for me. Unlike Timothy, my gifts weren't conferred on me through 'prophetic word' or by 'the imposition of hands' (at least, not that I know of...). My gifts are the garden variety, I suppose. I write, I draw, I paint, I take pictures, I sew, I knit, I -

- no, wait.

I talk about doing those things. 

I've had several very long, very irritatingly true conversations with my boyfriend about the fact that I never finish things that I write, and that's pretty much because I just...don't write.

I talk about a lot of things, but I mostly do the following things, which are neither constructive, nor do they make me truly happy:

1. Go on the internet/computer (a lot).

2. Eat.

3. Complain.

I know I'm far from being the only young adult/teenager who suffers from this horrible condition of procrastination and mediocrity, while at the same time dying to be amazing and productive. 

But, as Spider Man always says no matter how many times they retell his tragic story through animation and live-action movies: "With great power comes great responsibility."

 #secondfavoritechildhoodsuperhero

Translation: Spider Man's power was his 'gift'. 

So, too, with OUR great gifts, come great responsibilities. 

And its not exactly very responsible to neglect something only you have the ability to do, right? 

I ask you - what if Spider Man had sat around all the time watching movies instead of crawling up walls and fighting crime? 

Confession time:

I neglect my gifts. 

I shamelessly let them sit around, gathering dust in my closet and under my bed, because creating things and practicing things and DOING things - well, that takes work. And my natural, sinful inclination towards laziness and selfishness makes me want to avoid the work of exercising my gifts and just sit around doing nothing instead. 

I know better than anyone that doing nothing makes me unhappy. It makes me sick. It makes me feel genuinely repulsed towards myself. Because I was not made to do nothing; I was given a specific and very unique set of gifts that will enable me to do, quite literally, EVERYTHING I was put on this earth TO do. 

#mindblown

And I have first-hand evidence of how freaking AWESOME doing things can be.

I get to see a play that I WROTE being PERFORMED next month! I'm going to have to sit in the audience with a sock shoved in my mouth or something because if no one else laughs, I'll feel like an idiot. But this immense, beautiful blessing has only been given to me by God because I put in the work and effort to USE MY GIFT and write a short play. 

I am going to go back to Italy after only two years! Because I'm working my butt of to make enough money to go, and because I want to experience more of it. 

When we neglect our gifts, we are harming ourselves more than anything else. We'll never be truly happy. But at the same time, we are robbing the world of something only we can do/be. When we write our gifts off as hobbies (GUILTY), we are eliminating the possibility of ever letting the world see the glory of God in what He can do through us. 

My prayer in the midst of all these reflections is that I would stop neglecting my gifts. I pray that I would see how precious my time and talents are, and how quickly they will be gone if I neglect them. I spent the last two days downright sad and being very mean to myself, because, doing nothing, I was left feeling repulsed with myself. 

And that's not to say that we are only good if we are productive. That would suck. But it IS to say that because we are capable of letting God do great things through us, we should. 

It is the only responsible thing to do with these gifts we are empowered with - to use them, and to use them for the greater good, which only God can define. 

In the spirit of doing/creating things - I made this last night. I haven't had time with my suddenly very busy work schedule to make anything actually impressive, but I did have time to do some photo-editing with some song lyrics I really like. 

I am flawed

but I am cleaning up so well

I am seeing in me now

the things you swore

you saw yourself

Vindicated - Dashboard Confessional

Edited with my good friend PicMonkey.

(click to see larger)

God bless your weekend; use your gifts!

The Weight of Glory

source

"There are no ordinary people. 

You have never talked to a mere mortal. 

Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. 

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. 

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. 

We must play. 

But our merriment must be of that kind 
(and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) 
which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously — no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. 

And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. 

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

The Weight of Glory - C. S. Lewis