a life of faith is not a life with proof.
the creative's dilemma: a life of faith or a life of perceived certainty.
As family members start to give looks of concern and unwarranted advice, like an old familiar yet annoying song that haunts the darkest spaces in my mind with…
“Don’t you think you should get a regular job now?”
“Maybe it’s just time to pick someone and settle down?”
or my favorite ….“You’re not getting any younger, don’t you want kids?”
In the 34 years of my life, I’ve learned to discern the voice of the enemy, even when it lurks in the mouths of the ones I love.
Yet, I can’t help but question whether a life following an unconventional path has been the wrong choice.
I sat with a creative friend, speaking about the years of dedication and sacrifice we both put into our respective crafts and the pursuit of aligning with our creative selves
…and yet we feel that our lives do not show proof of this work.
A wave of doubt, questions, and confusion consumed our conversation.
Collectively, we sat with the burdening question: did we choose wrong?
We backtracked into the vaults of our youth to the places where we could have shoveled the darkest of soil upon our dreams.
Yet, nowhere in our reflections did a dead dream ever make sense.
No unexpected children
No crippling burden of poverty
No disability in the mind and body
No constraining environment depriving us of our peace and nourishment
…..just an open field of creative possibility.
A gift from generations of ancestors who could have never even fathomed that for us.
Slowly, my friend and I left the wallows of the past and then asked the only question that matters now: Will we choose safety and perceived certainty or will we continue to choose the road less traveled?
Honestly, I don’t yet feel I have the wisdom to make this choice, but time and life are not waiting for my knowing.
As I lay my body down horizontal atop the piled dirt forming over my buried dreams, it unveils a still meeting place where grief, joy, regret, peace, anger, resentment, and love meet me.
I sit in this until the silence decides to speak.
Gently it whispers, “A life of faith is not a life with proof.”
….and I agree at least not the visible kind.
The proof lies quietly in the corridors of the heart, a sort of faith deposit, the cumulations of every time we took a chance, listened to what we hope is God, turned away from peer and societal pressure, and stood our ground on our values, morals, and truth.
As such, our deposits of faith could be used and depleted to endure that which sucks the life from us, or it becomes the fuel needed to keep exploring the winding, uncertain road of your God-given — life-giving gifts.
At the moment, I'm writing this to you while sitting at my desk, watching the morning sun peek its way through my inner questioning to shine in subtle glimmers of peace.
I ask myself as I write and wrestle with this today: if I had a child, what would I want them to see me do? What waters of life would I want to invite them into?
One where I succumbed to the advice of people who still breathe but died a long time ago or one in which I continue to fill the world around me with explorations of color, jazz, and a life filled with…..well life?
Only time will tell.
Please share your thoughts with me I'd love to hear your varying perspectives as creatives choosing new and unfamiliar roads. Thank you for the support, Waterloo Road readers! I appreciate this space and you all so much!
For a long time I felt called to a creative path and I did embark on that path (twice) but it never worked out as I hoped. What’s clear to me now is that I was actually trying to run towards certainty and using the pursuit of creativity as a mask. I’m taking a different path now, and also choosing to allow my creativity express itself in different ways. All of it is uncertain — it’s just like you said, “a life of faith is not a life with proof”.
I think there is no greater badge of honour than knowing you lived your life how you see fit. So whether we pursue a creative career or follow a more conventional career path, as long we do what is true to us in that moment, we can never lose. We may appear as losers in the eyes of others if things don't work out as planned, but we will be winners deep in our hearts.