“Something that moves you”

I’ve been thinking.

Thoughts flit around in my brain all day. I teeter on living exclusively in the recesses of my mind. I dream of , as devised in Robert Farrar Capon’s magnum opus “The Supper of the Lamb” — “[not being bothered], I am creating the possibility of the Bach unaccompanied sonatas.”

To put it in simpler terms, I want to make more things. I’m pent-up. Hurling creative gushes at a brick wall. Can’t even soak it up, that wall. Little poems and major symphonies are swimming and swarming and I have to get them out!

I’ve reached an uncharted territory of gratitude for my faith recently. This innate urge to create, to exercise that finer calling, humbles me before God and brings me nearer to Him. After all, He created everything, created me, and created me to desire to create. I’ve been brought closer to an understanding of His love for me, pondering this.

I want to write a book. I’ve deposited this dream on bucket lists and podcast titles, notebook margins and novel annotations, since I was 15. I want to dig up more of the love of God as I form something that I love. To make something is to acknowledge love in a profound way—for we don’t exhaust ourselves in that undertaking unless through earnest love.

I want to build a home. I mean this in every sense of the phrase. Adorn it with beauty, raise a family within it, tend a garden that feeds every mouth and every soul. That was a lofty way of sharing one of the deepest convictions I have ever had.

I want to compose a symphony, in a less literal sense. I’ve imagined a grand body of work, a divine showcase, a memorial to the gift of dance. I imagine it so full and vibrant and energetic, that in my mind it is a symphony. A large-scale composition that invites the spiritual to invade the public, to plant seeds on deaf ears so that misunderstanding and hurt and fear is overgrown with love.

“I wish to suck the marrow out of life”(Walden), only as a means of experiencing the God of the seas and the heavens that grounded us here. I want to keep asking: What shall we do while we share His glory? How shall we do it?

I’m a collection of the things I’ve tasted and seen. All of these things, pure and lovely, are revelations to glue inside our hearts. Reading “Discernment” by Henri Nouwen was a reintroduction to the beauty of the surprises of God, a reminder that he entrusts us with certain longings and memories and most importantly with His Word to guide us along on our pilgrimage.

Another thing I’ve gathered: I will never reach a finality in the journey of discernment. This has been all-together encouraging and frustrating, especially as I hold all of the aforementioned daydreamings and attempt to uncover my “calling”. “As long as we live, we are at sea, in motion, headed towards home” writes Robert A. Jonas in Discernment’s afterword. What to do as we sail?

“Something that moves you”. -Agnes in “Hamnet”

I saw the heart-scalding Hamnet last night. Those words struck me. I like the idea of diving after something particularly affecting, but I like even more the idea of following the pleasant aromas towards the throne of Christ. I choose to take it this way - “something that moves you” — towards the love of eternity.

For me, in this appointed moment in time, it seems that I’m to do this through creative outpouring, to summarize. I’m wary of my own ego, to be honest. But I trust the God I love and who loves me to see my efforts to do good, no matter how feeble, as efforts made to please Him. And even more so, I trust that in the handing over of my little life He will make my paths straight and continue to transform me.

I’m staying attuned. Submitting my wishes and longings. Making, taking in, celebrating, mourning… whatever it takes to move in where I’m wanted: near Him!

From one artist to another,

Mary Grace Rowell