an introduction of sorts...

I attend a 5-person (entirely female….) Christian bible college in a po-dunk farming town in Eastern Oregon. One day a particularly musical girl from school asked me how I possibly found an artistic sub community here. She was certain that no such community existed. It’s true. When you look at this town you would see no habitat visibly capable of nurturing and fostering artistic people, except maybe the one local Starbucks (but how mainstream can we get here). When you grow up in a town three hours from “weird” Portland where becoming all you dreamed of being (a hairy, freelance-musician-writer, full-time contemplator, flannel wearing, free spirit) is only a graduation away, you tend to lose everyone of strong artistic conviction as fast as they switch their tassels. But I’ve learned that doesn’t mean there aren’t artists walking among us. If you focus past the wheat fields and Walmart you find musicians and painters, writers and dancers, dreamers and believers. You find unique perspectives and passions. They lurk on street corners, in coffee shops, in our local bookstore, and more commonly at home in their own living rooms.

But upon encountering these artists of vast sorts, we find more jealousy than happiness. They seem to be living out what we want, but are too afraid to chase after. If we really were living out the desires we suppress, we wouldn’t be so concerned with finding the right crowd or being around people who are zany and unique. Rather we would find the compelling within the people around us, simultaneously finding confidence in acting upon our own convictions.

As is, we tend see someone else’s work and try and be just like it. Or we try to be nothing like it so we don’t lose our uniqueness and take a dart to our pride. We try to create things that we think everybody else wants to see. We try to win people over by perfecting our art. But is that really personal expression?

Today at chapel the five of us girls kumbaya’d it and talked about our frustrations with unreleased passions in different creative areas of our lives. The common theme was that every one of us had something we wanted to create or be a part of; a medium through which to express ourselves to the world around us. The other common theme was fear. All of us feel intense jealousy when we see other people succeeding at the things we are too afraid to try. All of us think “shoot, even I could do that” when we see things we like, but none of us are actually doing it.

If you are compelled to do the same thing the guy down the street did, then do it. There can be more than one person making clay elephants in the world; it doesn’t invalidate either of your crafts. If you want to do something no one seems to appreciate, then do it. Just because they may not like it doesn’t mean there isn’t someone who will be affected by what you shared. If you have been influenced by others, as we all have, then show that influence. It doesn’t make you any less of an individual.

The thing about bringing something expressive into our society or culture is that it has to be an expression of what’s within us. If we spent as much time releasing the thoughts and ideas that clang off the insides of our skulls as we did trying to outwardly express what never really gets in, we would find ourselves truly offering up an expression of the things meaningful enough to find their way into our core. It isn’t about us creating perfection, after all, how can something imperfect create anything better than imperfection. But it IS about giving honesty and truth. It IS about resting assured in what we are, including our differences and similarities to those around us.

That’s why I’m writing this. This morning at chapel in the midst of this discussion we shared the specific things we wanted to do. Tabby wants to blog about life—all the way from anime to married life. Amanda wants to start a rollerblading club at our college while she promotes her photography (and yes, she wants to do them simultaneously, much to our demise assuredly). Jessica wants to be a musician unhindered by the limited opportunities small town culture provides. Darcie wants to write skits and make videos that impact and influence other people for Christ. And well, I want to eliminate the knot in my stomach that re-forms any time I think about writing. That’s about all. I just typed “I hope you enjoy” but then deleted it. That kind of packaged ending would put the bow on exactly what I’d like to avoid. Perhaps a better choice of words would be… I hope you can relate.

Cheers.