Words

Words hold creative power. Genesis tells us the world was created through words.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 

Genesis goes on to say everything else was created through words, too. Creation was spoken into being. Except for humans - after a conversation within God's self,  humans were fashioned, from the earth, and given divine breath.

It occurs to me that breath is used for many things, one of which is to speak. Later, Jesus again reminds us the power our words have. While we may have forgotten the treasure we carry in our lungs, the power is still there, latent.


...if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

 Lately, I've had the opportunity to witness the incredible power of words. A friend recently spoke words of truth and love into a dark place in my life, and indeed, I could suddenly see something new and clear, as if by magic.

Let there be light.

Another scene emerges. One person speaks bitterness and criticism into a room full of people dreaming something new, and working towards a common goal. The whole room deflates like a balloon, and everyone stops. What's the point?  The mountain of work seems to disappear, the beautiful vision is obscured.

You will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there.'

Nothing will be impossible for us, Jesus warns. May we guard our tongues, for we speak with the breath of our creator.

LA Kills Its Artists

Creativity works best when the artist is relaxed, when the logical brain doesn't sit in the background keeping a close eye on everything, making sure that it shoots a warning flare at anything new and unrecognizable, even if it's just a fancy idea. I like to call this logical brain Babysitter Brain.

In other words, stress is bad for creativity. It forces your creative brain into a constant battle with Babysitter Brain, and trust me. Babysitter Brain usually wins. BABYSITTER BRAIN ALWAYS WINS DAMMIT.

In even more other words, Los Angeles might be the worst place to be if I expect to be an artist of any kind. Because basically, living in this city is like living in a veritable pinball machine of potential hazards - both in a physical visceral sense, and an emotional sense.

Right?

I recently read an essay written by an author who is truly astounded that Los Angeles is not the mecca of nature writing because it's bursting with the fecundity of nature and life and the interplay between the non-human world and human-built society. I thought hard about this. At first I was like, "Yeah! This author totally hit the nail on the head! Los Angeles is awesome and full of nature and beautiful and there is an ocean here and NATURE WRITERS FOREVAAAAA!" But then I drove like 60 miles in traffic in the next 12 hours and almost got in 4 accidents and 5-6 people rudely honked at me, and I had to beat an angry neighbor back with a stick, and literally step over 3-4 (it's hard to tell sometimes how many are down there) homeless drunk/high/exhausted people passed out on the street, after which I wrote large checks to people clamoring for too much money, and then I was like... "Oh." Yeah. That's why people don't move to LA to write about nature. It's not because LA doesn't have nature or tons of interesting cutting edge environmental movements budding and transforming society as we know it. It's because Los Angeles likes to KILL ITS ARTISTS. Through stress. It's amazing to me that movies get made  here, and it really makes me wonder about these successfully creative people. They must already be super rich (and able to buy themselves out of stress, duh), due to that successful screenplay they wrote whilst living a quiet Midwestern town where there is lots of corn growing just outside.

And then I put my hand on my chin and was like, "Ohhhh."

Disclaimer: This post *might* be a little bit of a rant due to some stressful events experienced by the artist in recent weeks and does not necessarily express the opinions of the blog managers.