Guilt Kills Art

Let me rephrase that. Toxic guilt kills our best art.

And there are different kinds or sources of guilt. Generally:

Internal guilt from offenses we’ve committed, like stealing that pack of gum or ruining trusting relationships, is normal and healthy.

External guilt heaped on us from others for offenses we’ve not perpetrated, like 50% of sibling interactions or generational guilt for past transgressions, these are also normal, but unhealthy.

The first guilt is good and true. It propels us toward healing. When we acknowledge our guilt, humble ourselves, redeem the wounds and release it - we grow, mature and unite. Our art takes on an earnest and free air. Our minds and emotions sharpen in color and lyric. Our message gains confidence and clarity. In other words, grace and truth abound with explosive creativity in healthy community.

Toxic guilt, on the other hand, is nothing more than a ball and chain around our creative impetus. A cage around our faith and reason. Through knowledge, release and replacement with truth, we can grow. After all, we’re not designed to carry the guilt of another for the long haul. We can’t, not rationally, not biologically, not spiritually. And not creatively. Community is choked off with this poison.

Don't get me wrong, struggle is good. And the struggle for a healthy resolution to guilt? Vital. From Frederick Douglass, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress," to Gad Saad, "My victimology card trumps yours!" two astute and direct cultural critics and movers who challenge us to accept that the struggle for a life sourced in truth and without hypocrisy is also the creative’s journey. A struggle to deal with guilt honestly and then create with all earnestness.

Q. How are you letting guilt define, shape or kill your creative journey?

Q. What guilt are you currently entertaining that’s killing your creative output, your art, your divine being, your community?

Q. What guilt do you need to learn from, redeem and release in order to build others up?

Oh, and on a side note: Healthy guilt learns from the art, stories and histories of different others; the good, the bad and the ugly. Toxic guilt topples, burns and attempts to disappear the art and the artists who dissent. Who do you want to be?

Build the Dang Bridge

Your art is a bridge to a trusting relationship with your audience. How are you managing that bridge?

I'm not talking about surprising or even shocking your audience with a new sound, a new style or a different kind of book, song or film. Go ahead, pull a Swift and shift from country to pop. Pull a Lewis and morph from historian to theologian. Pull a Kanye and, well, drop an awesome gospel album with this fantastic track.

I'm talking about giving your creative best around every turn. Donning your smock with honesty, vision and purpose in your weird and offbeat fullness. Choosing to build that bridge in earnest, diligently chasing truth while offering your blood, sweat, prayers and tears on the canvas.

An ancient Teacher once offered this bit of wisdom, "Whoever can be trusted with little can also be trusted with much. Yet, whoever is dishonest with little will be dishonest with much." I think it's a fair challenge today.

Q. How are you handling your creativity? Your schedule? Your talent?

Q. What are you doing to honor your audience?

In other words, how are you building that dang bridge?

Mindset: Lexicon

Sweet Lexicon Thursday! It's hard to grasp the scope of impact that our mindset has on our daily lives. From making waffles and coffee at sunrise to life-shifting, faith-pressing, vocation-altering ten year decisions. How's your own attitude? Take a peek into another chapter of my forthcoming book: A Lexicon of Awesome.

_______________

/ M /

I’m bent on playing the victim, have I mentioned this before? When something doesn’t go according to plan, my mind skips the current track and goes straight for the downer-ballad at the end of side one. It’s an awful mindset to have. We all have one, a rhythmically grooved mindset, and mine has been coasting on melancholy as long as I have memories to show for it. In my weakest I’m inclined to moan,

“Why me?”

“What’s the deal with money, can’t we just barter? I guess I’d have to find a skill first.”

“Why am I the one to suffer three flat tires in a week?”

At any given moment my internal Ricky D. entertains doomsday. Yet when the fog lifts and I can breathe free I’m able to plant my feet in the soil, drop the needle on track one and reach for the joy tucked in between flat tires. Like a hipster doing manual labor, it’s a complex mess.

Mindset is that internal attitude we’re prone to engage and reveal. Catch that, it doesn’t stay internal for long. The attitude of our mind oozes out of every crack and pore in our body until we’ve showered everyone who happens to be within crying distance. Just between you and me, I may have a little experience with this. Ask my wife, she probably has a rain poncho you can borrow.

I was soaking in a line from an ancient Pauline letter, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ’s,” when it occurred to me how intricately attitude and mindset are woven together.

_______________

Keep an eye out for A Lexicon of Awesome: a melancholic's spiritual journey for a world of better words in the fall of 2020.