Those Darn Interruptions

I thought about creativity this morning. 

How, whenever you determine to be your creative best, suddenly, The Interruptions blow into your life like a swarm of grasshoppers bent on eating all your dreams.

You decide to write that book or that story or determine to paint that room or that picture. Or create a quilt, a sculpture or build a deck and here come The Interruptions. You can count on their arrival.

It's all part of The Test.

Will we go ahead and create anyway? Will we find a way to deal with The Interruptions and The Distractions and still remain in a creative state of mind? Will we still be nice to the people in our lives--or will we look at them as Interruptions and Distractions--instead of the gifts they are in reality?

There is always something. There will always be. That's Life--and there is little use in waiting for Life to be perfect. It just isn't.

I had to learn to accept that Interruptions and Distractions come along with the inspiration to be creative. They just do. I used to wait for them all to go away before I would create anything. I'd wait for the perfect day, the golden chunk of uninterrupted hours so that I could accomplish the projects I glimpsed in my heart.

Big surprise--they almost never came.

Finally I stopped trying to change and rearrange my days and instead, I changed and rearranged my mind.

I just began painting the room, then put my brush down when I got called away. I started this blog and if I can't finish a post, I save it in my draft folder. I plant a couple flowers instead of believing I must replant the whole flower bed at once. I read a little here, walk a little there, clean a bit, rearrange a couple furniture pieces, etc.

And things get done. 

Who knows? If we didn't have Interruptions perhaps we'd all be out-of-balance recluses living alone holed-up in dark, cave-like, family-less houses. Creativity has the power to consume. Too much of a good thing becomes an overwhelming/bad thing. Try pushing away all the Interruptions, all the people in your life, so that you can exercise your creativity 24/7 and see what you get.

Yikes!

As for me, I'll take balance. I'll choose retraining my heart and mind to accept that Interruptions aren't always bad--and I can deal with them when I truly accept them.

After all, the real truth is that only I can stop my creativity. It's my own excuses which are like ropes that wrap and tie themselves around my hands. When God puts a dream in my heart, He always sends along a way to see that dream through. Otherwise, He'd just be a big, mean tease.

So my task becomes this: to find the way He had in mind and to keep creating, even in a swarm of Interruptions.



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