…the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams. I don’t think I fully understood that movie when I first watched it. Kevin Costner’s character heard voices telling him to “build it”. After much struggle, mostly with his own instinct to run from what he was hearing, he built the field and it was amazing what happened! The Field of Dreams not only brought answers to others, it answered a deep need in Kevin’s life, too.
That is what I’ve been learning this third week into “The Artist’s Way”. You know how you read something and it just jumps off the page at you? Almost as if it was a truth that you already knew existed somewhere deep in your heart….but had to see it in print to understand and believe it. For me, it is the concept of what the author calls “synchronicity”. If I can try to put it in “a nutshell”, it means that when I begin to answer the call, commit to the call of my heart, then things begin to “fall into place” that were supposed to happen all along….but could not begin to happen until I took the first step of obedience. A lot like the field of dreams…..when he built it (did his part), the magic began to happen.
I love this quote by Goethe: “Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”
Another thing the author wrote that stopped me in my tracks was this: “In my experience, the universe falls in with worthy plans and most especially with festive and expansive ones. I have seldom conceived a delicious plan without being given the means to accomplish it.”
I just had to stop there because I could look back now, over this journey of writing and see how that is so true in my life. How I dipped my pen into the waters of writing music and then a ripple effect begin to happen. Here are just a few snippets of that journey and the ripples that happened…..
–I “run into” an old friend who writes songs and I decide to play a song I had started and never finished. He tells me that if I don’t finish it, then he will. I pick up my pen in January of 2002 and start writing.
–My mom invites me to come to sing some of the songs I have been writring at a Mother’s Day Banquet at her church. After I sing, several ladies ask if I have a CD of my songs. This stirs up another idea….recording a CD of the six songs I had written. I just happen to have a friend who has a studio and offers to help me record the CD.
–I send this CD to several friends. I have a dear friend in Zanesville, Ohio who is excited and asks me to come and do a concert at her church.
–Since we are traveling all the way to Ohio to do this concert, we make plans to go in the summer of 2003 so that we would have time to stop along the way and maybe sing at some other churches.
–I have a dear friend in Nashville, Tennessee who wants me to come and sing at her church. She gives the CD to their new music minister who likes the CD and invites me to come and sing. The music minister is Dave Clark!
I could go on and on, and sometime I will have too….but I feel like I am still on the verge of what God is doing. I feel like there are ways that He is working that I have no clue about. I know without a doubt that doing this Artist’s Way book is one of the necessary steps in this journey. (And by the way, this is happening because Dave encouraged me to attend Write About Jesus….and Sue Smith, the director of Write About Jesus started a bulletin board where I saw a link to Melissa’s blog, that encouraged me to pick up this book…..whew!!!)
I was writing this morning about what an awesome God we serve. This Creator of the universe is creating dreams in our heart each day. I think about all the songs, books, poems, and prayers that will be sung, written and spoken today. He is the author of them all!
Let me close with something else from week three: “We like to pretend it is hard to follow our heart’s dreams. The truth is, it is difficult to avoid walking through the many doors that will open. Turn aside your dream and it will come back to you again. Get willing to follow it again and a second mysterious door will swing open.”
