Chapter Five: Breathing In
I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving! I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to share this blog with you and hope it is ministering to your spirit.
Breathing In opens with a little muse-ing. Some history on the muse gave a good background for the following thoughts.
According to the author, by 1674 the Holy Spirit replaced the mythological nymph of inspiration as Muse. (p.71-72). Elsheimer writes that, "This... is the same Spirit we call on today to inspire us, as artists, to become co-creators with God." (p. 71) "God has given us our talents and the Holy Spirit, when called on, will breathe life into us so that we will know what to do with those talents... Our art is not necessarily Christian in content, but it is centered in the truth that the Holy Spirit reveals." (p.72)
Ms. Elsheimer exhorts us by writing that the as we answer the call to create and respond to the invitation to co-create with God, three elements become vital in the process: "creator (artist), inspiration (Holy Spirit) and medium of expression (our creative language)". (p.74)
I love the quote from Isaiah used in the same section. This same verse planted the seed from which this ministry grew: "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19)
My heart did a flip at the thought that God, the Master Artist, wants to breathe His Holy Inspiration into us. It is our job to reach out and simply receive it. (p. 77)
Have you ever just written or painted or danced without an agenda to see what what would happen? After a quick write exercise, Ms. Elsheimer shared this observation:
" ...just as God doesn't always answer our prayers when and how we think he should, he doesn't send us great, inspired artistic ideas on demand either... What we call artist's block often stems from reliance on oneself as a source of ideas and energy apart from our reliance on the Holy Spirit...Of course, our own humaness can get in the way." (p.78)
By far my favorite morsel from this chapter is that when God call us to create and inspires us, it is because His Spirit will last within us and what we create will also last because of that. She also encourages us to think of ourselves as artists and overcome the discomfort of calling ourselves as such so we can begin to pay attention as an artist does. (p. 79)
Sharing a common theme with this ministry, she aptly shares that using our senses or what another author calls, "absorb(ing) the world around us and learn to see that world anew with eyes of child-like wonder" is very important. (p.80)
"We've defined "breathing exercises" as putting ourselves into places and positions where we can feed our sensory receptors and open our hearts to the inspiraton of the Holy Spirit." She also encourages us to get specific about a project, write it down and go places which will make sensory impressions on a similar theme. (p.85)
Her conclusion to this chapter is perfect. We are to stand at the ready in expectation with humility since we never know when the Spirit will send a new message. If we make time to receive it and do these things, we are on our way to becoming the artists He created us to be. (p.86)
How did this chapter spur you on creatively? What things can you do to "breathe in" the inspiration the Lord may have for you this week?
Humanness
Interesting thoughts overall that require more digesting. Here is something for discussion. I have trouble, I think, with the author's comment that "our humanness" gets in the way of creative flow. Many Christians apparently hold this view, which seems to imply either that a) my will and God's will are naturally opposed to one another, so if I am experiencing trouble then I am obstructing God's will with my own; or b) that human-ness is bad in some way, which I believe is more of a gnostic view (body, matter, humanity bad) than an orthodox Christian view (body, matter, humanity created and redeemed by God). Also, aren't faithful Christians subject to the same struggles as the rest of the world, and therefore possibly subject to writer's block as well? God is the Creator of everything, and I don't want to imply that He is not involved in inspiring artists, possibly even unbelieving artists (if every heart is in His hands). But I think we can over-simplify and see EVERYTHING as a spiritual issue and a sin issue, and perhaps that is not always the case... My two cents. Any other thoughts?
Thanks for your comment.
Hello Anonymous,
Yes, it is an interesting topic. If we are to just keep our humanness out of His way, then why would He, knowing that we would fall into sin, create us anyway? I wonder if He doesn't want us to wrestle with our struggles and discover how He can be active in them, work through us in spite of them so we can then express that through our artistic medium. King David comes to mind. He battled with sin more than once and found himself drowing in depression often, yet was used of God to write astounding poetry and rule a nation. It seem that it comes back to a collaborative relationship with us, His Holy Spririt infused in our humanity and manifested through the gifts He gave us. Thanks for your perspective.