Since almost a year and a half ago if not longer I think God
has been making a “connect the dots” puzzle for me, kind of like
constellations. Today, I feel a peace that lingers further than the pit of my
knowledge of God/subconscious, and it’s been a while since I have felt that
way. Today I am okay with quiet, today I am not questioning my existence or my
faith, or my heart’s desires, not in the usual crippling way anyway… It might
just be circumstance and how my manager praised my hard work for once… but I
think the everyday is harder to face when your core is in question, at least
for me of maybe all INFPs it is, it is harder to now know why. Some odd amount
of months and a year ago I was in the fringe of a transition in my life with
parts I foresaw, parts I never would have imagined and parts I thought I
foresaw but did not want to acknowledge because I hated the thought, it shook
my core and struck me with fear. Here I will break it all down.
So I’m some sort of art freak or “creative” junk person
thing, aka artsy-fartsy, aka artist, since before I can remember I have loved
making things. Noise, images, ideas, structures (mostly small ones). At a simple
level they are ways of communicating, mostly only seen as communicating
emotions, by some, and others define it as communicating beauty and aesthetics.
I think both definitions fall short, more on that later, maybe. Nonetheless,
all my life I have loved these things more than I knew at first, never more
than the important things in life, but love them. All my Jesus following life I
have been told they are “gifts” and when I wasn't sharing them I was “wasting”
them. Alright, I can say to some extent, I could agree they are “gifts” from
God but to what degree is still up for verdict, personally I don’t think
they’re very much different than other good things I have received, my life, my
loved ones, Jesus Himself are also things I would call gifts and infinitely
more important to me than all these things I do that create things… I was going
to list them but that’s silly. I was told they “glorify God” so in my young
understanding I equated that to worship of God, at least in part, and purpose
in life.
For a long time I always somehow knew that I hate doing any
of these things publicly. It felt alien to me, to share these things, to
expose them, to exchange them for something. I put it at the back of my mind,
as they say, writing it off as a stigma of pride vs false humility (without the
fancy words back when I was in high school/college) or a stigma of motivations
a strange argument of it being for money and fame or the love of it or
something else, something occult that I didn't know about yet. However there was
and is a part of me, beyond shame of questioning my faith/drive that delights
in sharing, and I can sometimes see a place for it, a small one maybe, but I
only come to accept that halfheartedly. Where I have struggled with this the
most is with the creativity I enjoy the most, (ironically or not) music, and
specifically for me, singing.
This is where most of my angst with the arts has manifested
unbridled, untamed, and wildly which affected my deepest fears of who I am in
light of loving God. In search of the meaning of this so called “gift” in my
life (because people I trusted called it so, and David who tamed evil spirits
with music affirmed those words) I looked at the world and saw a purpose of
fame and money, that didn’t sit well with an introvert who likes doing things
aside, quietly, and hates money and what it produces in the hearts of people. I
looked at the church and it was evangelism, money and fame, or “worship.” These
were my quaint observations. So my logical conclusion of where I fit in, seeing
as how I hate concerts most of the time, unless I am watching them, I thought
was “worship,” weekly concerts for a group of Christians for free, or a small
donation I guess depending on how one looks at it. This, by the way, was only
after a strange even, occurrence, happening, I had in Peru where I was on a
“missions trip” and the whole group of people I was working with was asked to
sing and “lead worship.” I felt the spirit move, as we tend to call it, I had
chills all over that gave me a profound sense of peace, wholeness, and as I saw
a room full of desperate and hungry faces staring back at me, it felt right and
it reminded me of my first conversation with God that was through a song. I
started seeking out a way to commit to what I heard God whisper in my heart,
once I got back to the US I wanted to be a part of that as much as I could,
weekly I supposed, because of Sunday morning “church,” it was addictive to me I
suppose or simply I felt I found a place for something I loved that God
“gifted” me, and maybe for myself and this persona I could not understand. The
“worship leader” dismissed me when I asked him with his own frustrations saying
I should take over and it was never brought up again.
Over the years I played my songs, here and there like for
little coffee nights they had for whatever reason and somehow I ended up
through other words and thoughts and conclusions at the School of Music at USF,
my fourth year of college maybe. I was there to learn how to teach music, a
combination of many of my loves and my character, hoping to leave there with
tools to help the least of these, children who are forgotten and overlooked in
our society, children who are given up on long before they even know who they
are, searching (as I always tried) for God’s character. Summer (June, July)
some odd years later when I was isolated from the church I prayed for God to
give me a place to unite my love for Him with my love for this monster (my
voice, my creativity not in any of these words) having met people at the SoM
who were completely like me in all things but my faith. I met a kid there who
by that fall (maybe September) said he was doing an Artists and Musicians Bible
Study, why they are separate who knows, unbeknownst to him, to me this was an
answer to my prayer. I said, beyond any doubt “I’m in.” Within a few months,
that following spring semester (January) I could no longer pursue my dream of
teaching, temporarily (I said to myself) this marked the time I was no longer a
full time student and part time bread winner to being full time in ministry and
part time bread winner.
Sooner than later I hear more of the “gift” talk, again, and
felt moved around the same time to minister to the artistic soul, souls like
mine, hurting souls like mine. I tried to put the “gifts” talk aside, while I
still hear it from time to time when I wanted to explore the meaning of the
arts in depth because I always knew the worlds definition was coming up short,
and my insides questioned the church and while my friends, in attempts to
encourage me, would tell me to “try the worship team” everything in my cried
“no!” I thought it was “the enemy,” false humility, pride; the feeling had a
dozen names throughout the years. Soon I was becoming tired of being an
introvert lost in a very extroverted institution and after I had laid the idea to
rest because I felt I was discovering just how much we were falling short of
God’s purpose and definition of art and hoping I would have a group of people
to learn and explore this purpose at great length and depth someone (meaning
well) brought up the “gifts” and “worship” question back. I asked God, “What
are You saying to me?” Somehow because I always think out loud, I was urged to
ask the powers that be, and I was told I knew “nothing about worship.” That
could very well be true, but whatever the case was about God and my heart I
knew I loved Him then as I do now, and I stopped singing that day.
By then I felt tired of the extrovert world and I moved from
full time in ministry, part time bread winner to full time head of household as
my mother because more invisible to society, and I was chained to my home
because we couldn't reach others. Resources are a funny thing when no one
understands not having them, explaining this to those who aren't wanting is
impossible sometimes. I knew God had a time of rest for me, then, oddly enough,
away from the noise of a crowd, away from giving, giving, giving and I
questioned is I should exist at all if I could not give my time, since I have
never been able to give from my pocket and it was even more impossible then.
When I stopped singing, at first, I thought it was because I
believed that voice or it was out of spite and anger (a piece of my heart
wondered what the world would be like free of the sound of my voice, and my
mind) but really I was tired. I was tired of not understanding a world based on
performance, and I needed to understand why we craved these events so very
much. Both outside and inside the church we flock to be able to hear, see, and
taste the arts, it seems to be a phenomena everywhere. I mean, I cannot think
of a culture that does not have the arts. Yet it seems incomplete everywhere I
know it here, in our society, by far “Christian” music seemed broken to me for
many reasons, my own music included (you can ask my why if you want but I won’t
address that here). I felt no desire to keep playing the game, though I did
find enjoyment in it still and remembered that well, I also couldn't remember
the difference between “Christian” music and “secular” music for both had
potential for great beauty and I would worship God in hearing both, as well as
the other arts. Soon I remembered the undeniable fact; in the arts my soul
finds great and vast intimacy with God, an understanding of something quiet
unspeakable, incommunicable, indescribable and I believe it is capable of
giving me that same intimacy with others, I am beginning to think. Maybe I did
not even have the words for it until yesterday (11.23.14) or just now, but the
dots in the puzzle I think God has been giving me point to something linking
these two thoughts: intimacy-community, and introversion-extroversion.
As I asked God yesterday why we call this concert every
Sunday “worship” and why it’s needed, or rather so many feel it’s needed when
so many say true worship of God is with every minute of our lives, when we
honor Him, and bring Him glory, why can so many Christians not even congregate
without it, and if they do they feel it’s incomplete. I thought it was as
simple as we are indoctrinated to think so, perhaps, but I think there’s a
deeper level to it as well, for even outside the church there are concerts and
get-togethers to create music. As I was asking this I hear from the stage “we
don’t call this church because we believe the church is what we do every day,
so why do we do this?” These are words I hear often, and they were followed by
something about “unity” and it hit me. I am a little introvert in this vast
room of many extroverts, and alone I can have a deep connection to God that’s
meaningful and energizing just fine. I can go weeks if not years probably
without singing with others and almost never crave it, and then there were the
extroverts. Extroverts who are nothing like me, who process energy in a whole
other way and that was when my heart rested, feeling peace about this question
that came well into my heart. Alone I can have that full espresso type of energy
from God, that can last weeks sometimes, but extroverts live for the large
crowds, the big sounds the noise and everything that tires me out in seconds
and drives me to feel insanity. Suddenly I knew something I never understood
enough to explain, another piece of the puzzle, collective artistry must be
there. I always knew it was designed to be there, but I was at a loss as to
why, so I am at another part of my search for God’s eyes for the arts.
