don't stop, don't break, you can delight because you have a place

last tuesday i think


so i'm sitting here listening to "majesty snowbird" on repeat. it makes me feel like i have to do something besides work. i have to fake play piano on my desk and write my blog on lined paper. something about other people's creations, when they're ones i love, makes me feel like i have to create too - it resonates. i think it's why people paint landscapes and write odes - true beauty and goodness, i think, inspire action - a response. it says in the bible, "he who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't, sins" - i think that relates to our creative response to God. it's a sin not to create when inspired because to do so connects you with God, the head of all creation, and not creating separates you from him, taking away your ability to process and even to connect with others. i don't think i'm a great writer or musician, but taking the time to write and play makes me feel whole.

for me, music and books create a longing for something more than what i experience now - heightened beauty, hope, awareness, whatever. i feel a sense of something more significant to life than what i realize normally. cs lewis says that our unfulfilled desires only exist because there is a possibility for those desires to be filled, someday, someplace. music reminds me of that - it makes me aware of the longing, and gives me a glimpse at what the fulfillment will be like.

when i lived in bellingham, i spent many early summer mornings driving to work past boulevard park and then on to chuckanut. sometimes the days were so pretty that i felt compelled to swim in bellingham bay. sometimes i felt like i couldn't turn off chuckanut, the day was so great that i should just drive until i was satisfied with trees and light and water. but there was never time - i was supposed to be somewhere else. one day i realized: i will swim in bellingham bay, and drive down chuckanut, as much as i want, for eternity, if that's what it takes, in heaven. there will be time to fully experience everything i've longed for here. the need to put off the things that my heart asks for will be gone.