The Creativity Book

It's raining here today. I am torn between starting a new gardening project, or cleaning out my closet.

Both, according to this great little book, both are creative, spiritual endeavors.

I've learned something this past year -- that as long as I focus on what some might call "the creative life" things in my life appear to move along intrinsically, organically. Things just seem to flow and are easier.

This book, by Eric Maisel, Ph.d, is a series of ideas and suggestions to direct some in their creative urges, whether that be solving company staffing, world hunger or writing a novel.

Towards that end, I spent yesterday in my office doing some massive cleaning out while at the same time freeing up some space for the creative part of my life -- writing and gardening. Where there once was scattered papers and unused space, my collection of books on writing and gardening now sit. I've taken some pictures that I may post, may not.

What came later, though, was truly inspiring. The act itself gave me room to breathe and therefor I sat down and wrote several pages on simple office organization -- something that I'm good at doing anyway, but never had "gotten around to" putting my ideas on paper. This may be used later for training or sharing with others. I find that most professionals suffer from mismanagment of two things -- time and money. And it is precisely those two things that we want to understand better because the "how we invest or spend" these things can tell us a lot about ourselves.

Why do I spend the first part of my day doing this rather than that? Is that congruent with my declared values and goals? Why or why not? These are tough questions, not for sissies.

Truth is, making room for the things in your life that matter can be convicting. Do I keep my never-listened-to collection of Dan Fogerty tapes out of nostalgia or do I make room for that book on better senetence construction? Which one is more a part of my life NOW and which is just a testimony to a life lived in high school? And why is it so *^&( hard to let go of those things that I know -- I know -- I won't use today, tomorrow or in 6 months.

There is a spiritual element going on here, no doubt. A sense of cleaning out one's life to make room for the new. Truth be told, the "ramp" to this place has been filled with a lot of tilling of spiritual soil to get me to even look realistically at the cluttered part of my life (metaphorically and literally speaking).

I'm learning to limit spirituality to things that go on in church building or doing one's "quiet time" is to limit a holy foce that can wreck spiritual havoc (cleansing) in my life. If God isn't a part of order from chaos, peace from fear, calm from anxiety, then I don't know really what He or She may be a part of.

For me, God is in the details -- the order on my desk, the cleanness of my closet, the whisper of comfort.