Happy New Year! I trust that you had a great holiday season and are now ready to be more purposeful and productive in 2007 than ever before! Our holidays were good, but they went by way too quickly. I did a lot of writing over the Christmas break. Now I begin a busy travel schedule for the next few months, which you can see below, along with a number of other important notices that I urge you to read.
Last week we began talking about creativity. I think we will maintain that theme for at least the next few weeks. This week I was reading my last book for 2006, entitled The Best American Spiritual Writing 2006. One of the essays in that book, entitled Into the Wonder, was about C.S. Lewis, the great Christian author and apologist and one of the great creative minds of the last century. I thought the article had merit for our discussion on creativity.
AN UNLIKELY CANDIDATE
The essay began by describing a particularly trying time in Lewis's life when he was living with his brother and an elderly woman. The woman was bedridden and increasingly used Lewis as an extra maid to help meet her needs. Meanwhile his brother, who helped him with correspondence and filing, drank himself to insensibility and ended up in a hospital. The pressures of this situation, along with his work load at Oxford, drove Lewis to the point of collapse and he was eventually hospitalized for exhaustion.
It was shortly thereafter that Lewis had a friend over to read him a portion of a new children's book that Lewis was writing. This book became The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which was the first of the Chronicles of Narnia, which to date has sold 85 million copies in 30 languages.
What is so interesting to me about this scenario?
First, Lewis wrote perhaps his most famous work at a most inopportune time in his life. I often feel like I can't be more creative or productive until certain things change, until my life is free of worry, anxiety or mental clutter. Lewis didn't wait for the best time. In fact, in a time of suffering and professional busy-ness, he began to write fiction for children, a most unusual exercise for a man known more at that point for his theological rather than fantasy work.
Second, Lewis was not married at the time and had no children (he had two stepsons from his marriage to Joy Gresham and maintained a relationship with the boys after his wife's death). I think it remarkable that Lewis could write so effectively for children when he had none of his own.
Finally, Lewis was a loner as a child. His childhood, while not sad or abusive, wasn't filled with the kind of childhood joys upon which he could draw to write his stories.
NO MORE EXCUSES
Lewis produced creative work in spite of his personal difficulties. You must learn to do the same. You can no longer not create because circumstances in your life aren't quite right. Neither can you dismiss your creative ideas because you don't see yourself as qualified or fit. Lewis was neither a happy child nor natural father, yet he wrote children's books that changed the world. What could you do if you stopped hiding behind excuses and limitations and just did it?
It seems that Lewis's hardships prepared him to create; his suffering somehow fueled his drive to write. If you can see that your suffering is preparation and not a hindrance, you will find new freedom to produce when it may not seem like a good time to produce. And please don't tell anyone that you don't have the time to create. You have all the time in the world--24 hours every day. It's not that you don't have time; you aren't using it creatively to create.
May 2007 be your most purposeful and productive yet. Together let's do things that will change our generation (and future ones) just like C. S. Lewis did. Have a great week and year!
Feel free to post your comment to this Memo on the site where it is located. You can also go to the same site to read the other Monday Memos from 2006. And don't forget my personal PurposeQuest website, which has loads of material that will help you find your purpose and be productive. You can also sign up for my weekly Bible studies where we will begin 2007 with a study of Mark's gospel. Finally, please remember PurposeQuest and the Stankos in your giving.
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1. Here is my itinerary for the coming months:
- January 7-11 -- Dallas, Texas
- January 14 -- Cornerstone Baptist Church in Pittsburgh
- January 15-17 -- Nashville, TN
- January 18 -- Seattle, Washington
- January 19 -- San Francisco, California
- January 21 -- Brown Chapel AME in Pittsburgh
- January 22 -- Providence, Rhode Island
- January 24-30 -- West Palm Beach, Florida
- February 2-25 -- Zimbabwe
- February 26-March 3 -- England
If you would like to meet for a one-on-one purpose session while I am in your area, please write and let me know.
2. If you live in Zimbabwe, I will be conducting a session for The Pacific Institute from February 13-16. You must register now with a deposit to reserve your space in the next class. If you are interested, don't wait. Write me today so we can help you get on the next class list.
3. Why not give a gift subscription to The Monday Memo? Just go to the site where The Memos are posted and add the email address for your family or friends. Then please write to let them know what you have done so they can be watching for the confirmation email they will receive. If you can't access the Internet, send me their email addresses and I will add them to the growing Monday Memo family.
4. I will send out my first installment of my Bible study from Mark's gospel this week. To receive those weekly studies, please go to the site where they will be posted and enter your email address. If you can't access the Internet, send me the address and I will enter it for you.
5. Below is my monthly installment of A Daily Dose of Proverbs for your reading enjoyment.
6. Also below is a Monday Memo index of every issue with the topic and Bible references. All Monday Memos prior to 240 are on my website. All Monday Memos after 240 are on the blog site where they are posted every week.
Hi - a quick note in response to the first edition of The Monday Memo for 2007. Thanks for your persistence. I've been getting these for some time and sometimes didn't read them and sometimes did. But I always knew, every time I saw it on my computer screen, that somebody out there somewhere was rooting for the people like me, who were afraid of something (who knows exactly what?) concerning their own purpose and quest of. God has brought me to a place however in which I have picked up my colors (colored pencils, specifically)and begun to relate to them and with them, defying - yes, defying, even ignoring- those old tapes from people who may or may not have meant well and naysayed my dreams and the stuff they are made of. I realized, with God's HELP, that a few people just didn't get it, but the dreams are still there. I love these people still but it would be silly to let some words of years ago snuff out what the GOD of the universe wants done with my life. It would even be wrong. So, thanks again and I would like to say to everyone out there, "Happy, blessed, productive, fruitful 2007 and Beyond and Live out your colors!" Vickie
Posted by: Vickie | January 02, 2007 at 06:12 PM