Courage protects inspiration

Inspiration can feel so real – so tangible – yet misty and finite. It slips though my fingers when I return home, exhausted, trying to find a way to keep the fire lit. Mountain Workshops blaze wildly with inspiration caught and shared, but I come back to this place full of people who weren't there and I try to protect that flame. I'm lucky to work in the field I'm passionate about. I like to write creative essays that relate more feeling than information, but I'm more passionate about the utility of beautiful, thoughtful writing. Art is important to every person because it connects mind, body, and soul through its subtleties. It connects us to a level of humanity we don't see when we're punching the clock or drowning out the chaos of home or neighborhood or love.

And I believe art and beauty and meaning find their root in a Creator – and in the ones made in His image. So when the pastor says to bring Jesus into my workplace, I hear Take the beauty with you wherever you go. Create, build, inspire because you are made like your Maker.

Sometimes the fire turns to smoke. In church, they call it a mountain-top experience – and valleys follow mountains. This week I've suffered a fun-hangover. In a crowd of like-minded, energized people, it's easy to stay atop that mountain. Coming home, being alone, it all feels like work again.

If I want to do this – tell stories, climb mountains, live a bold life – I have to protect inspiration. I can't be the grass that blows in the wind. I have to be the redwood. Quiet and strong, I create something new every day. I seek out others' art, bearing witness to the gold they spin from straw. I critique and construct, finding the rhythm in my thoughts and translating fear into feasibility. Inspiration is no use if it remains airy and intangible. More than a neat idea to press forward because you're an artist!, you have to give yourself to it everyday, becoming a little more vulnerable ... a little more open.

It's no small task to keep the fire through self-doubt and rejection and monotony. But it is essential.