 I don't know who is the creator of this image or their interpretation of it, but I love it.
Our art can begin with a particular meaning or purpose, and end with a completely different conclusion. Then, when we bring it out into the world every person that sees or hears our art, will give their own interpretation. So I don't know what this artist intended the meaning behind this image to be, but here is what I get! The music we play should follow the melody of creation. Echoing the perfect notes that creation has already given us, and bringing harmony to the world around us. Anything else is really just noise. When we are self-focused, entitled, and blinded to what is really happening around us; we create isolation, prejudice, and inevitably - death. So our challenge is to be connected to the world and to each other in it . Only then will create something mysterious, beautiful, and life-giving to all who experience it. Peace to you! Christy
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"God who created us continues to work creatively in us." - Eugene Peterson 
I decided about 2 years ago to begin to reinvent my life as I knew it. I stopped just filling up a calendar (letting being busy give me worth), and only put the events that really mattered to me and my family. I decided to fully embrace being a mom, full-time, because that is now my number one calling and that is enough. I decided I had to stop expecting a job-title give me my life's purpose, and to just needed to show up everyday and be who I'm created to be, wherever I am. My husband and I have decided to live simply, we are minimizing our closets, our cabinets, expectations, our wants. We now live on less. We want less distractions and more time and energy to do what brings us life and joy - not a life of "to do's" and pressure to buy or keep up with what someone else thinks we should do. It's been refreshing, fun, convicting to see where we've mistakingly put priorities. But we've have had to dig deeper into our creative selves to make it work. And it's been worth it.
Through this change we have produced things - music, bicycle saddles, crafts, jewelry, presentations - all things we love and are passionate about. We hear a lot of people say "Wow. You did that? I don't have a creative bone in my body!" And I catch myself saying that to others who draw, or bake, or produce something I can't. But folks I've realized this is just wrong! We have to stop telling ourself this lie! We've got it all wrong. Creativity isn't just something tangible that we can (or can't) produce - It's how we survive! We are creative... - in our dailyness, the mundane, our routines (I doubt anyone has the same way of making their way out of the door every morning!) - in how we welcome and show hospitality. - in the ways we rebuild, dig our way out of a pit, find light in the dark, dark times. - in how we let go of worries, even just for a moment. - in how we create space for others to tell their stories. - in how we hold, teach, and care for children. - in how we listen to the sages share their wisdom one more time. - in the songs we sing, when we hum and dance when no one is looking. - in how we fight for justice and what we hold dear. Our unique creativity is found in the way we laugh, grieve, love, hope, and doubt! Creativity is webbed in all of us, because our Creator, our God placed it in each of us. It is sacred and meant to be shared. The Native American culture teaches that the spider’s web weaves beautiful designs of its life. The web has hundreds of intricate patterns which catch the morning dew. It’s beautiful! They believe the spider, doing what it’s designed do, and whispers to us all to create. How much more then are we called to create in our everyday lives?! Not just produce, but create. And it will be beautiful. Grateful for a God that...
hears us, even when we are speechless. loves, when we ignore. brings friendships across tables. touches us through the arms of someone, and drowns us in Grace when we don't know how to react to any of it.  Most of the time when a new melody or lyric finds me, these two aren't far behind either. It is pretty amazing to watch - them grab an instrument, find a rhythm (sometimes all their own!), other times they learn the melody (insanely fast, better than many adults I've worked with!) and sing a long. They are 6 and 2. This picture shows the personality of both - she throws her head back and is all out there when the music starts. He listens, watches then finds his place. But both, instinctively know how to feel the music first. We can learn so much by watching the little people in our lives!  After searching for balance, order, and rhythm this past year - I still forget this.
When I'm trying to... make the "most perfect, fun day" for my kids, or when I try to force the right lyrics to music, or that moment I feel "so not connected" because I haven't made an effort to leave the house all week. or making myself sit in quiet and all I can think about is how much laundry I have to do, or expecting another Sunday service to give me some kind of sacred experience. I think I can find that happiness I'm searching for, if I just... trying harder, force words, expect relationships to just happen, work faster, or expect to manage this mysterious God in one hour, in one room. But none of it works that way, does it?! So tonight, on this rainy Good Friday (something feels very right about that) - may you give yourself a break, stop trying to make the "perfect" thing happen. Believe that tomorrow is new, that grace is already in it and you already have enough to make it through. Allow yourself the gift of order and rhythm, know that it isn't about how intense something has to be to feel real - but it is about how vulnerable you dare to be in real situations. In that, may you find your truth - and happiness will come. Blessings. 
"It took awhile to understand the beauty of just letting go" - Patty Griffin from Let Him Fly We let go of what traps us. Embracing what serves us - and maybe what we serve. Both will bruise us but the letting go & embracing will set us free to fly - if we allow it. We don't tame either - one doesn't control the other. But together they dance. In them, we find a rhythm to inhale & exhale by what we embrace & let go. CLW March 25, 2014  The house is quiet. After a week of hibernation, the kids are back in school, Marcus is at work, and I've just completed all the "have to's" on my work list for the day (well for the moment!). Now I have about 30 minutes before I have to pick up my youngest wild one. The house is a mess - dishes still in the sink, the floors are dirty, the door knobs are sticky, fingerprints and smears on the windows. But the sun is out, the birds are singing, it's WARM and I'm outside with coffee, pen and paper. The messy house is just a sign that we really live here and from the looks of the toys tossed about, we have fun doing it. Just sitting, with maybe the company of pen and paper, has been a practice I've tried to embrace the last year or so. I call it..."Shutting the Shoulds Up!" I don't have to allot large amounts of time to this practice, 5 to 10 minutes is fine. I just haveto do it every now and then. The world is busy telling us what we should be doing, our churches are very busy "suggesting" what we should be doing, the voices of our mothers and grandmothers even have our "should list"! I load myself down with too many shoulds and too many expectations that I think others have of me. My practice of "shutting the shoulds up" reminds me to come back to reality and my rhythm. When life with 2 little kids can wait...then let it wait! I've been reading and hearing people say over and over the last year this idea of 'you already have all you need within you, if you just listen'. I wasn't sure I really believed that...or if I really knew what that even meant, until today. Sometime when we do settle in with all our "stuff" and we get still long enough, you can hear what you really need to know. I think that is a God thing, call it what you want. There is something about the simple truths we instinctively did as kids - the very things adulthood seems to take from us. It really is still right there, within us. Blessings Friends, Christy The Horizon Fix your eyes on the horizon, child fill your lungs with the breath of peace guard your heart from growing cold leave no truth untold fix your eyes on the horizon, child seek the beauty in simpleness illuminate the darkness trust your heart it knows the way fix your eyes on the horizon, child awaken the sacred fear not the stillness embrace your true self fix your eyes on the horizon, child find strength in broken places meaning in empty faces we’re not all that different down here fix your eyes on the horizon, child By CLW, Feb. 5, 2014
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