The Creative Call by Janice Elsheimer

Author:Janice Elsheimer [Elsheimer, Janish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56508-2
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group

FACING THE FEAR

In order to start breathing out regularly, we also have to overcome fear of failure. One reason artists become blocked is by using inertia to avoid feeling like losers. This behavior is all about self-protection, about playing it safe. No matter what your talent, all you have to do to avoid rejection is to never produce anything that could be rejected. Every day of my life I fight my tendency to avoid writing or piano practice, and I know why I do: I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I finish the book or the poem or the musical composition, I'll have to put it out there where others will judge it. What if no one likes what I do? What if I never get anything published? What if I mess up when I play for other people?

What I have learned by pressing on past my fears is this: When I acknowledge my fear, I deprive it of its power over me. My friend and pastor John gave me this sage advice when I told him I was writing my first book:“Writing this book isn't about getting it published; it's about you and what God wants to do with you in your life.” Franky Schaeffer writes in Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts,“Remember that as a creative person, the important thing is to create. Who sees what you make, where it goes and what it does is a secondary consideration; the first is to exercise the talent God has given you.”3

Every time we hesitate to begin for fear of failing or seeming frivolous, we must fill that moment of hesitation with prayer. Then we must follow that prayer with action, with doing something, anything that will get us moving forward in the practice of our art. The musician might practice some simple piece he learned as a child or warm up with scales and arpeggios. The visual artist can go outside and do some quick sketches or throw some scraps of paper down and put together a simple collage. The artistic gardener goes out to the garden and decides,“I'm not going to try to redo this entire bed. I'm just going to deadhead the petunias.” You get the idea. When we practice our art as servants to the work, whether the work is successful or not becomes secondary to the work God will be doing in us through that art. Franky Schaeflfer makes no apology for what he sees as job one for artists:“Produce, produce, produce! Create, create, create! Work, work, work! That is what we must do as Christians in the arts…if we are to exercise our God-given talent, praise him through it, enjoy it, bear fruit in the age in which we live.”4

EXERCISE2: WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Circle the number before each fear that applies to you. Leave the lines beneath each statement blank for now.

Fear that my family life and social life will suffer if I spend time on my art

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