Creativity is a hard thing to grasp, and even harder to really go after.

I can always tell when there is some great piece of writing beneath the surface of my day, because I avoid writing like the plague.

There are always a number of things I can do rather than invest in the writing I am to actually be about.

My most favorite distractions, eating and television. Oh, and facebook.

Not that any one of these things are bad in and of themselves, yet when I circle around from one to the other and then back again, I can be sure I am simply avoiding creative work; avoiding digging into the deep of my spirit and soul to share and to put words to the latest thing pressing through me.

Reading a book earlier in the week, I was reminded that work is sacred.

It jumped off the page at me. Just like that. ‘Work is sacred’

I wanted to get away from what it was telling me. I wanted to pretend that it didn’t stand out at me so boldly and with such conviction. But it hasn’t gone away. And won’t go away.

Because I get it. I get that the work that any one of us are to truly be about, is a sacred act. A place where we step out of the ordinary and we enter into the holy.

This is the way writing feels to me. And when I am most tapped into the words I am to be putting to paper, I often feel overwhelmed with awe and that I must remove my shoes or get on my knees, for I am on holy ground.

So why do I avoid it? Why, when writing a book, do I spend 20 000 words skirting around the thing I most want to say? Why, when it is time to write a blog, do I sometimes make yet another cup of tea and find some other little thing to do for a time?

I don’t know about you, and how your work plays out in your life, but in mine, I think I am simply afraid. Afraid of entering into holy, that place in the true center of the work given me; afraid of the glory of God changing me.

Deep calls unto deep,

…and a lot of the time, I just want to stay shallow.

I imagine the greatest artists and sculptors and writers over the centuries, and I wonder how they got past the threshold of magnificence in their work. How did they enter into that holy, quiet and damning place in the center of their being?

All I know is that the only viable and useful work, comes from this place.

All the rest, is a sham, a pretend sort of work. Just great enough in its own way to make us feel good about ourselves, and just great enough in its own way for others to applaud us.

But the artist knows when they are not really producing the real goods.

It is time to get real quiet deep inside, make friends with what is there, and invite it and facilitate it out and into the world.

We won’t ever be the same.

And neither will the rest of the world.