Lament of the Christian Artist

Overwhelmed today with the question--AGAIN--of what God has promised me. I'm studying the story of Balaam and his donkey, which I did not want to study this week. I put it off again and again. I even wrinkled my nose at it when I saw it sitting by my computer, and checked facebook instead. I finished it without putting forth too much effort and went to bible study not really understanding it, not sure what God was saying to Israel, or to me, with the exception of his steadfast promise: Blessed are you, my people; I am sovereign over every single thing. There was, I admit, a bit of a *yawn* response from me. It's the same word from God week after week, chapter after chapter.

But as I listened to my friends answer the same questions with such profound insight, I sat up a little straighter and reread some of those prophecies from Numbers

"The God who can predict outcomes is the God who is the author of history," my teaching leader said.

I believe this about my God. With all my heart, I believe this. But the old, persistent question came to me, like a dilapidated neon sign that blinks and splutters but never quite goes out.

What did you promise me? Am I to understand your words in light of eternal victory? Or in light of my small life, which only has purpose because you give me a job to fulfill? Do you promise to use me as a writer of stories that are worthy to be read? Do you promise that I will become a published author? Is that your promise to me?

When I got to the car with these questions in my mind, I groaned and asked God if he was tired of hearing me ask because, frankly, I was tired of asking. "If this is not your promise to me," I prayed, tearing up as I drove down Abercorn, "take from me this dream and set my heart on another task, another mission, another way I can be used." I am willing to do that. I trust him for that.

But if it is his promise...if it is his promise, I will strive toward that for a decade more. Two decades. A lifetime. But I cannot spend a lifetime chasing a fool's errand. I must know if my prayers are the prayers of a self-aggrandizing bag of hot air, or a (semi) talented writer who really may one day achieve publication.

It struck me on the drive home: what if I'm not the faithful donkey, with his eyes to see the Lord's angel, but I am really Balaam, who is so single-minded, so determined to go his own way that he will beat the gentle faithful one into submission? How do I know I am not a diviner, trying to create the path I want, and blind to the path God has actually set me on? How do I know the set backs and discouragements aren't the voice of the donkey, who sees more clearly than I, that God himself is blocking the way?

"The story of Balaam abounds in comic irony," my commentary says, and I suppose if I were a Jew, a recipient of the promise, on the other side of victory with Moab, I would see the humor in it. Though the promised Redeemer has come, and God's completed Word sits open in my lap, I don't know who I am in this story.

Have I kicked someone under me? Neglected them? Despised them for interrupting my course, for keeping me from my writing desk, and my pursuit of my own glory?

I want to say that I am not Balaam. Balaam sold his soul for riches from Moab and died by the sword because of it. Balaam was willing to take a bribe. Balaam exacted revenge through wicked means when he didn't get his way.

God knows my heart. He knows it beats for him. He doesn't really need me to tell him how desperate I am for a word from him, a hint of a promise, a glimmer that I have heretofore missed because I blinked.

In asking God for an answer, I am taking a risk. I did my best, most prolific writing when I was not concerned with agents and contests and contracts. For so long I have successfully pushed aside the fear that it would be wasted, that no one would ever read it. I have convinced myself to write something down, anything, even if it's terrible, knowing that I can go back and fix it later. It has been enough to keep my fingers on the keyboard through 4 1/2 manuscripts. All without knowing for certain if this was even God's plan for my life. Without the assurance that this is his promise to me.

I stubbornly hope despite the odds.

I look at books from the library sitting on my bedside table. I see their paper, their ink, their cardboard spine, covered in that awful plastic film. I see the cover art and the dedication and I think, "This is impossible." I'm just a housewife. A nobody. Every author was at one time, I suppose. Every author wrote a terrible first draft and stuck with it until it got better...and then the clouds parted, and the heavenly chorus sounded from above, and God set them on their path to the promised book deal.

I realize now that I am still on the pendulum that swings wildly from total narcissism to crushing self-doubt, only now it has become unhinged and swings in a new direction that is a combination of both. Narcissism and doubt.

I'm sick of thinking about it. I'm sick of thinking about myself.

I won't quit. It's not a question of my quitting. It's a habit now, to turn my brain to story mode in the car, or the shower, or on a walk, or lying in bed. There is a drive to finish that will keep me at the computer every available minute of the day, even if the answer is no.

Until I am sure the answer is no.

The things that have gotten me to this point, the ways God has worked things out for me, kept me encouraged, spared my crooked little flash drive, protected my time and my health, put inspiring things in front of me, kept my computer from crashing, built me up, torn me town, taken my hand as I rebuilt again, shown me things that made my work better, given me a husband who allows me to indulge in what I have always tried to pass off as a glorified hobby, plucked me out of my old life and set me down in one of calm, and peace, and ease, so that I have an over-abundance of time to develop my craft, which I have grown to love so much--I have not imagined these things. They are not the outworking of my over-confidence, or my ambition, or my own feeble attempts.

Can I say that being a writer--an actual, legitimate, recognized, (dare I say it?) published author--is his promise to me? A promise that I should fight and claw and scratch and sweat to obtain?

God has brought me to this point and until he tells me, "No," I am powerless to stop trying.

The Prayer of a Christian Writer

You know how hard I've worked. You've been there, all those dark, lonely hours while I pinged away at a keyboard. You helped me tell the story, sustained me with time, a computer that didn't crash, a crooked little flashdrive that has never been lost. You watched me type the first word and the last word, and You knew when I changed the first word through 16 revisions.

You know how my ego has swelled with every compliment and You know how hard I have fought the battle against pride. You've seen me struggle to make myself less when my heart cries out for recognition, admiration, and fawning praise. You know how I yearn for that "someone" to notice me and make my dreams of success come true.

Don't give it to me. The same way You denied Moses when he asked to see Your face in Exodus 33:18, because You knew it would be too much for him.

If You don't go with me on the difficult road to publication, don't send me. Don't let my ears be tickled with compliments that will skew my view of myself. Don't let me hear encouragement that will push me farther than You want me to go. Don't let others whisper empty promises that deliver false hope.

Just go with me. That's what I ask. You and me. Knowing You are there and You are pleased is worth more to me than a contract, more than the pleasure of seeing my words in print.

To be published, respected, and influential--those are good things and You will guide me toward that in Your time, in Your way. I am not like the others. There are talented aspiring writers in the great big world who don't know You. They clamber for attention and due praise, and buy followers, and fight for room on a tiny stage. But I do not cross my fingers for luck when I query. I do not receive rejection bitterly. I do not blame. I do not pout. I do not lose hope as long as You are with me.

Your ways are different and your presence separates me from the pack.

Your presence is all I truly want. More than success, more than royalties, more even than sincere praise. Because those things don't guide my steps. Those things don't linger. Those things don't care about the souls of my potential audience.

So, with humility, I ask for Your presence so that Your presence will supply the boldness I need to move forward in this pursuit.

With All Due Respect, Taylor Swift, Get Over Yourself

Taylor Swift made the blog rounds the other day when she pulled her music off the streaming site Spotify, because, as she put it, streaming services undervalue artists. You can read about it on the website Acculterated. It breaks down the the math to show that streaming a million songs is the financial equivalent of selling 500 albums. I guess I can see why she's miffed.

I love Acculterated and I almost always agree with their bloggers. But this one has me struggling to care.

I call myself an aspiring author, which is code for: an undiscovered writer who's not getting paid. You'd think I would stand up and cheer for Taylor, to defend my own craft and the hallowed royalties that might be mine one day. But I just can't.

I'm a student of history and a lover of perspective and even though I'm an amateur at best, I can see without too much straining or effort how shallow and shortsighted is her position on art. She predicts that individual artists will determine the worth of their art and hopes they don't undervalue it, as if art and its worth is a new thing, yet to be determined.

As long as there have been human beings, there has been art. Cave walls, stories around the campfire, folk songs, stained glass windows, poetry. Being paid for what artists create is a very recent phenomenon.

Let's just go back, say, four hundred years. Only a handful of artists in a given generation were noticed by their king or their pope and commissioned for their work. That's it. Don't you think there must have been thousands of sensitive souls, crooning, writing, thinking, dancing, and creating whom no one knew about? No one paid them for their art. No one outside their immediate circle even cared.

Had they no value? (I'm going to borrow a quote that I found on Pinterest, a site so full of free art it has profit-driven artist quaking in their shoes and stealing hours from their craft to devote to fighting inadvertent copyright infringement and insisting on sourcelinks and other things enjoyers of their work don't think about when they notice a pretty picture and pin it to a board to show their enjoyment of it.)

"And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see -- or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read."

This was written by Alice Walker, a successful author, whose work has been recognized, celebrated, read widely, and bought and paid for. She deserves every cent, but read that quote again. She is describing generations of creative souls whose art, or "spark," never made it into the public sphere. Their beautiful thoughts and words and creations were never noticed, certainly never paid for, but were simply passed down. Perhaps Ms. Walker sees herself as the benefactor of all those thankless years that came before her.

Thank God that creative spark was passed on even though no one paid our ancestors for it.

The centuries that have passed have been kinder to artists. Gradually, the super wealthy began to pay for art and to preserve it, though the art itself was still almost entirely inaccessible to the lower classes. Books were unaffordable, traveling to see great architecture or installations was difficult, theater was rare and infrequent, music was limited to what they created in their homes.

When radios came about and public libraries popped up in every city, art was no longer limited to the super wealthy. A common person could read a brilliant work like Robinson Crusoe (the author died penniless in 1731, by the way) or listen to any type of music. FOR FREE. Anyone could take a work of art into their home and love it, be edified by it, read it or listen to it again and again and again. And they didn't have to pay for it.

The world has changed again in the last half century. People on the bottom rung of society have money to spare on cheap music, books, netflix, and other places to enjoy art. So many of us have internet, which makes virtually anything free and accessible. We have more artists creating more art than we can possibly absorb in one lifetime.  The best ones achieve god-like celebrity status. Even the mediocre ones are growing fat and rich off the populace who love them. It's a great world in which to be an artist.

Except for one teency thing. You know what, Taylor? Your music is not my thing, but my girls enjoy you and since you pass the mom test, I let them watch your music videos on youtube. They sing along and hum the tune you created for the rest of the day. But I've never paid a dime--not one single dime--on your art.

Sorry to disappoint. Sorry if this means I'm cheating you out of income that you have earned. I really am. (I am staunchly against pirating. Simply put, that's theft.) I don't dislike the notion of artists getting paid but I happen to be a non-employed starving artist. I have the luxury of choosing not to work so that I can use my time honing my craft instead of pushing papers around for a boss who will pay me money that I can, in turn, spend on your craft. I've chosen to forsake disposable income. It's not been an easy choice. We give up a lot for it. But I can still be exposed to the art I love because so much of it is out there legitimately for free.

Does this make the world better or worse? As an enjoyer of art, I assure you, it's better. I've never spent a dime on Alice Walker's art either but I've read her writing and watched the film adaptation of it, and I see the world differently--better--because of it.

But what does this mean for me, an aspiring author? Shouldn't I be more protective of other artist's work?

Not really.

Confession time: I write and I write and I write. No one knows how much of my time, mental energy, and prayers are poured out for my craft. I will continue to write until I have the confidence to hold it out, hesitantly, apologetically, to another human being. Maybe one day I'll receive a royalty check. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll die penniless and unnoticed.

I don't really care.

That's not why I write. That's not how I validate my art or my worth. A true artist creates for his or herself, for God, and, yes, for that ethereal "someone" out there who will one day say, "I enjoyed that. I 'got' that. Thanks for making it."

Art is beautiful. Art is a gift. Art is a way we honor our Creator who is also an artist. I am in awe that we live in such an affluent world that talented artists can become as wealthy as their patrons, even surpassing them in wealth a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times over. It's all good. And so is the accessibility that we poor, we low, we struggling masses, can take advantage of. The world is better because artists have released their work, their sweat, their tears, their creativity, into it for people like me to enjoy at little or no cost.

To artists, big and small, successful and unknown, famous and obscure, please don't hoard your gift and keep it hidden away until someone offers you some money for it.

Get over yourselves.

The Author's Life In the Digital Age: Is This the End or Just the Beginning?

There was once a time when starving artists were literally starving.  There was no money to be made in the arts and there was very little exposure but creators created anyway because there was something beautiful or honest or thoughtful in them that needed to come out.  If the king liked your work, you were lucky enough to perform/paint/write for an audience.  If he didn't, you created in obscurity.

As society progressed, performers began collecting wages and gaining notoriety.  There was even the possibility for a young person to dream of one day being an artist.  One of my favorite stories to read my kids is I Dreamed I Was a Ballerina by Anna Pavlova, a famous Russian ballerina who was born in poverty in St. Petersburg in 1881, who saw her first ballet as a child.

A generation later, Hollywood began making actors famous and it only took one more generation for artists to achieve godlike celebrity and wealth.

The progress was similar for writers.  Many of the great works we study and admire today were written by people who died in poverty but thank God they wrote anyway.  I often wonder how many brilliant minds went untapped and unnoticed because it was virtually impossible be noticed back then.  Writers from the beginning of the 20th century until now have enjoyed unprecedented pay, recognition, fame, and copyright privileges and I'm glad they have.  They deserve every bit of it.  What a wonderful age we live in when art is appreciated and the creators of it are revered and paid for their work!

This article on The Guardian - From Best Seller to Bust: Is This the End of the Author's Life? reveals a serious lack of perspective.  They are scared of the future, of making a living in the digital age.  I can understand that.  Their way of life is in the process of being turned on its head.

But as an aspiring author myself, one who has never made a dime on anything I've written, I really don't care about the fear of the giant publishing houses after the credit crisis of 07.  I don't need the king to approve of my work and offer me a 6-figure deal.  If I can scrounge together a few people who enjoy  my work and anticipate when the next book/blog is coming, I will be thrilled and feel as if all the time, all the self-doubt, all the toil, will be worth it.

After all, as a writer who happens to also be a Christian, I am nothing.  I am a worm that crawls the ground.  All of my words, all of my thoughts, no matter how well I string them together, are filthy rags.  They are my offering to Him, who created that which I can only try (and fail) to accurately describe in my own art.  If someone wants to pay me for them, well I guess that's a bonus but I will not look at the plight of the publishing industry in the digital age with fear.  I will consider it a gift that a lowly, obscure worm like me can put my words out in the great big world even though Penguin, Random House, Tyndale, and all the rest have never heard my name.