Donald Miller's Blog, page 125

Three Characteristics of a Creator

Steve Taylor found out I was writing about creativity and the creative process and he sent me an e-mail containing some advice he'd received a while back about creators. His e-mail said when he first read it, his initial thought was "duh" considering its simplicity found merit in the list. Regarding a creator, the characteristics Steve shared are simply:

1. A creator loves what they do.

2. A creator knows how to do what they do.

3. A creator does what they do.

You're probably thinking "duh" as well, right? But when I apply this to my life, there is value.

1. I fell in love with writing during high school. I wrote an article for the youth group newsletter and received positive feedback and that was it. My love affair with words began. It was my new identity, and that impure motive, perhaps, turned into a genuine appreciation for the written word. I've not stopped thinking about how to phrase ideas sense. A love for the art is important, because without it, you won't pull through. If you want to the identity of a rock star, good luck. If you love music, you may get the identity but hopefully you won't care. You and your love will just make great music and enjoy life.

2. Malcolm Gladwell points out that the average "genius" is know genius at all, but has spent ten-thousand hours honing their craft. Steinbeck's early work has flashes of genius, but he rambles. Nobody is born great. It takes work. Lots and lots of work. When I first started writing, I wondered if I had something special, if I could be like Steinbeck. I was hoping there was some magical ability within me that would shine out and get discovered. But these are foolish thoughts. The best way to get discovered is to work very hard, very long hours and get good. People discover what is good.

3. And I've been offered jobs in video and screenwriting and other stuff that doesn't have a great deal to do with books. I've taken some of these jobs, but I've noticed I'm not as good at them as I am at what I do, I write books. And I have to remember that. A creator focusses, hoes the same land for decades and keeps the soil fertile. He isn't lazy, he works, every day, moving the plot forward. In addition, a creator actually makes things happen. Creative talk and exploration is not the same as the act of creation. A creator can hold in their hands what they've made. Little blog entries and practice poems won't do. A creator makes things.

So, I hope that helps. Here are some questions to consider. What do I love to do? Am I good at it, and if not, am I practicing and do I love the practice. And lastly, what am I making. Am I writing a book, painting a series of paintings for a gallery open, pushing songs forward for an album, creating a line of clothes for a fashion show, writing a series of sermons?

Lets go and create.

Three Characteristics of a Creator is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

A Creator Makes Progress Through Rest

"The classical violinist Stephen Nachmanovitch proclaims that Perhaps the most radical sociopolitical invention of the past four thousand years was the sabbath.

I think he's right. Often I wake up early and sit for hours at my desk without a break through. And then on a walk, it will come to me. Creativity is not like working with a jackhammer. You cannot force the creative. Something like God has to show up and work through you. I do not believe this is God, but I do believe there is a part of the creators brain that is God created and that your Cerebral Cortex cannot get to it by force. Your executive brain can till the cerebellum like a garden, but it cannot make fruit come at will.

When we stop forcing, the breakthrough often comes.

A creator then finds a rhythm. They certainly show up to their work. They put in hours harvesting what has come to the surface. They edit chapters, write blogs, polish songs, record their music and so forth. But they rest, too. They turn off their minds and let the soil work for them.

Walt Whitman spoke of the value of loafing. God rested. God told you to rest.

Have you ever heard a song that sounded forced? Have you watched a movie that was crammed into story form? Have you read a book and wondered if the author had a tight deadline?

This is a sad thing because each of those artists may have worked harder than they should have. They burned the soil so it wouldn't produce fruit. They did not rest the ground.

Have you ever wondered how Chic Fila thrives when they aren't open a full day of the week? This is for business leaders to. Your competitors will pass you if they rest. Get your rest and bear more fruit.

A Creator Makes Progress Through Rest is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

How a Consumer Thinks

I've said a lot this year about the way of a creator, but the creator has a binary opposite, and that is a consumer. There is also a middle ground, and that is a critic. A consumer wakes from their ways and becomes a critic, and when the critic gets through their fearful stage they can become a creator.

I heard something today and it reminded me of the way a consumer thinks. It's something the President said to the President of China, and it's something he has said to the Republicans.

"Do not view everything through the lens of rivalry."

Rivalry is consumer thought. We are taught to be for or against something rather than to understand an issue from multiple perspectives. We are taught there are only two sides to an issue. This is of course absurd. We think this way for one reason, and that is because it creates the most conflict and so sells the most advertising.

Talk show hosts cannot afford to be objective. They must make people angry. They must take sides. They must make you believe that something that belongs to you is being taken away. That's the fastest way into your pocketbook. You will pay them to defend you from an enemy that may or may not exist. They can't afford to be objective. They want your money so they have to make you afraid. They must oppose a certain and named enemy, and that enemy must be evil. If they don't do this, nobody will listen and they won't make money. We are drawn to sensationalism.

Pastors and church leaders who are well known often do the same thing. Not all of them, but many. If you aren't a Calvinist, you are evil. If you are emerging, you are evil. Only a fool would believe such a thing. But these pastors are not fools. They don't even believe it themselves. They just get fools to believe it and those fools buy their books and watch their sensational YouTube videos. We've all been had. The truth is not so black and white. Consumers are tricked into thinking the way they think but we musn't be consumers.

Critics see the difference.

Creators create a new and better reality.

How a Consumer Thinks is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

Twitter Blocked! Ouch!!

When I first started using twitter I'd never block anybody, thinking it broke some sort of unwritten code about freedom of speech. But then I realized I was going to get buried under a constant barrage of insults and jabs. So I started blocking people (I'd say I've blocked about ten) and I've had it a great deal better. In fact, what I realized was there weren't very many jerks on twitter, there were just a few, and it's easy to get them out of your life. So here are some reasons I block people on twitter. Feel free to apply some of these reasons in your filtering process, and add to them in the comments:

1. I blocked somebody because something I said offended them, and I didn't want them to be offended again. If somebody is "shocked" that I would offend all the lemonade manufacturers in the world by tweeting that my lemonade tastes sour, then I'm going to protect them from further insults by not sending my twitter feed across their i-phone anymore. Chances are when I get to my honest but not so wise thoughts about a growing theological trend, their head is going to explode, and I don't want their head to explode when I say something I really shouldn't have said.

2. I blocked them because they were disrespectful.

3. I blocked them to keep the peace. Don't you wish more people could end a situation respectfully and peacefully? Blocking somebody is a great way to do that. There are no words spoken, no escalation of tension, just a ghostly disappearance and a moving on to a more thoughtful conversation.

I'd say this blog is less about blocking people and more about deciding to respect ourselves. The digital world is a haven for people who throw out insults from the shadows. Lets not throw insults back. Lets just quietly move on.

Twitter Blocked! Ouch!! is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

Sunday Morning Music, Damien Jurardo

A little musical rain out of Seattle this morning. Enjoy the Northwest's Damien Jurardo:

Sunday Morning Music, Damien Jurardo is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

Remembering Michelangelo

Considered by many Italians as the "father and master of all the arts" masses turned out at Santa Croce to pay tribute to Michelangelo when he died on this day in 1564. He lived a very long life, nearly ninety-years, which was unusual at the time. He worked hard, even to the end as a sculpture, and often considered painting as trivial in that it was not an art that would last. He had a financial relationship with the Catholic Church, of course, who paid him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. They attempted to control him, dictating what he would paint, so he'd paint various characters from the Vatican into his work, often in humiliating positions.

Some facts about the creators life:

1485: His father opposes his wish to become an artist.

1488: Apprenticed as an artist and learned to draw.

1489: Accepted to art academy, studied under various masters.

1492: Returned home and, with the help of a prior, dissected cadavers, which was forbidden by the church.

1494: Went to Bologna and was hired by the church to create sculptures. Began reading the greats: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio.

1495: Returned to Florence.

1496: Went to Rome. Received first, minor commission by the Vatican based on a friendship with the cousin of the Pope.

1501: Was commissioned to sculpt David.

1503: The church gave him a permanent workshop.

1518: He bought a large home with the hope of restoring his lost, family fortunes.

1521: His contracts were canceled and he is poor.

1521: The new pope has no new contracts for the sculpture.

1530: the pontifical governor, Medici, ordered Michelangelo's assassination because of his various political stances.

1535: After establishing himself in Rome, and surviving tension with Medici, Michelangelo is commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel.

1538: Meets Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara, a widow, who he greatly admires. Under her influence he adopts the doctrine of justification by faith alone, near to very liberal protestant ideas. he renews his religious beliefs.

1541: Encounters astonishment and scandal over his nude figures in the Sistine Chapel upon its unveiling.

1555: Michelangelo is denounced by the church as a Lutheran, and the offensive nudes in the Sistine Chapel are clothed.

1559: The new Pope, Pius IV embraces him and the arts and gives the creator various projects.

So this is the life of the great creator. Are we as bold? As devoted? As hard working? As fearless?

Remembering Michelangelo is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

How Infighting will Kill the Church

Most of my friends who no longer attend church, and I should also add the overwhelming majority of my friends no longer attend church, have left over petty arguments about theology. It's not that they left because people didn't agree with them, they actually left because they got tired of hearing other people argue about theology. They wanted to talk and learn, and a very small group of people simply wanted to dominate the conversation with something they learned last year when they read a book. These friends don't mind being grounded or subscribing a theological grid, they just got tired of all the jabbing.

I confess I'm a kindred spirit. It's like having a dinner party and then one guy brings up a black and white stand on an issue and the tension enters the room and you really wish you could get back to that conversation about the Italian renaissance but you can't because now you have to agree with the guy about gun control or he's going to keep making everybody uncomfortable. Pretty soon you just want to leave. I don't blame people who want to leave.

Robert Gibbs was asked yesterday (I wrote this blog more than a month ago) about why the President would have a private dinner with the President of China knowing the country supported human rights violations. I thought Gibbs' response was wise. He said the human rights violations justified the need for a face to face conversation all the more. When you take a "if you don't agree with me i am going to cause tension" you rarely get anybody to agree with you, you just get a false feeling of moral superiority.

And on a side note, I am wondering whether the church in Europe died because of loose, liberal theology, or because the church got divided and people just got tired of the fighting. I think it's the latter, and I think if the church dies in America, it wont be because of liberal theology, it will be because people just don't want to come to dinner with a loud-mouth, arrogant theologian in the room.

P.S. I should also add I've started marking as spam the responses on this blog that are annoyingly preachy. The conversation has gotten much better. I honestly with more pastors could do that with their churches, not asking people to leave who have a difference of opinion, but asking people to leave who simply can't have a balanced conversation, and who feel as if they have nothing else to learn.

How Infighting will Kill the Church is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

How Stuff Gets Created

I'm learning the fruit of my creative effort often ripens instantly. I'll sit down and get thousands of words, but then a week later, working with the same discipline, will have nothing. But my job is not to make the words come. Who am I to make the words come?My job is no different than a farmer. I till the land. I fertilize the soil. I plant the seeds. Unlike the farmer, though, I am surprised when the green shoots sprout in the spring. I think perhaps it is magic, and it will never happen for me again. But the farmer knows if he tills the land, and is blessed enough to get rain, the harvest will come.

How Stuff Gets Created is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

A Creator and His Work are One

Ever wonder why the manmade world is getting uglier?

They are going to build a bridge in my neighborhood to span the Wilamette. There are proposed pictures floating around on flyers and we are to log on to such and such a website and voice our opinions. They are all bad, in my opinion. They are all very functional and they will work well to flow traffic. But none of them are attractive.

The ancient cathedrals, indeed, the ancient bridges and government buildings, the ancient piazza's were extensions of the city, were the clothes the city wore on a day designed to impress. These monuments were also extensions of their creators. Michelangelo and Da Vinci were sought after to create buildings and bridges both.

A great creator does not see his work as something apart from himself. What the creator makes is a statement about the creator, and a manifestation of their sensibilities, which is one with their experiences. Our modern buildings, our strip malls and stripped down buildings say of our culture we are one with efficiency, with selling goods and services. Was God being efficient when he created a woman, or was He being extravagant? Is a cloud the most efficient way to water crops, or is it functional and aesthetically brilliant? Are the sunrise and sunset more than a functional way to dim the lights?

Our man-made creations do, still, speak something of us. They are proclaiming we have lost our souls and our selves.

A Creator and His Work are One is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog

The Power of a Poets Line

Today is ST. Valentines Day, so if you haven't sent a loving sentiment to your mate, you can thank me for the reminder.

The holiday was first created to honor Christian Martyrs, and you can thank the Catholic church for that. It's unknown which of the St. Valentines it is intended to honor, as there are many and the holiday dates back to 500AD. The honor was removed by the Catholic church some time later, though it was still celebrated unofficially after.

Valentines day, however, was not a romantic holiday. It had nothing to do with love or lovers or intimacy or any of that until a poet borrowed the holiday and made up a little line to honor King Richard II on his first anniversary with Anne of Bohemia. It was Chaucer who said it:

For this was seynt Volantnys day

Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

(For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.)

It is doubtful birds go anywhere to choose their mates on February 14th, but greeting card companies owe Geoffrey Chaucer a debt of gratitude for giving us a notion as to where and why they were flying. They do seem a little intent today, don't they? And perhaps a little flustered and well groomed?

Chaucer, then, is the accidental creator of what we now know of as Valentines Day. I call him a creator because he spoke something into nothing. If there's no romantic spark in your life, perhaps you can speak a little something into nothing today, too. Call her up, why don't you? Tell her the bit about the birds. It worked for Richard II. And for Hallmark.

The Power of a Poets Line is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog