I often write with music playing softly in the background. Somehow the rhythm and the sound help me to focus on what it is I need to say. It is like the sound draws the words out of me.

Maybe that has something to do with my years as a worship pastor. I remember one of my mentors teaching me that in order to lead worship effectively, I needed to be able to move beyond the place where I played music into the place where the music played me.

Yesterday I wrote to an Epic Celtic Album on Youtube. Tonight I am playing the Easters. Somehow their music fills me with hope and just a touch of melancholy. Those things might not seem to go together. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they are polar opposites like the yellow and purple on a color wheel.

Maybe that tension is what I am looking for when I write or when I sing or when I do art. Maybe it is what I need. Maybe it is what is required for me to move into my muse. The muse would be God ,so I guess that makes sense. The tension….the inner conflict somehow drives me to seek the Lord and in that seeking I find my creative spark. And that creative spark is the pathway to the music playing me instead of me playing the music or in this case it is the pathway to the space where the Writer reveals to me my story rather than me striving to make it up.

There’s a whole book in there somewhere. The tension is rising within me and that means the story is about to arrive.

Now I am really looking forward to tomorrow dear friends.

Pastor J