The beginning. The visualizing…Those first stages of a
dream you’ve had first in your mind, then on paper, for weeks, months…maybe
even years. From thought, to written word (and sketches), to spoken word as you
start bringing that dream into focus, reaching out for those who might help…I’m
a lover of the process. Creativity is an energy to behold, and an even greater
one to have taking hold of you.
My
latest-- a barn, designed to one day serve dual functions, first as shelter
for my babies…a bit down the road, to convert its loft into meeting if not
living space. (A few more books to create first. Soon and very soon. Priority is shelter before winter and more babies on the land. Priority, always the babies.)
It brings back memories of the church I now live in. From
start to finish, (not counting the years long before when I began dreaming of
one day writing from a place so sacred). My church took three years. From the
time I spotted it, to the time I figured out who to talk to about it, to the
time I found crews who could disassemble, while finding a separate team to
reassemble on the other end. There was land to secure, contractors to
hire…codes to adhere to. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a dear
friend shortly out of high school, who, three years into her marriage, found
herself pregnant with a second child, while she, her husband and her first baby,
tripped over one another while living in a trailer. I asked “Did you plan it
this way?” to which she replied, “Lord, Karlen, if women thought these things
all the way through, we’d be extinct.”
Hardly a comparison, but I had similar thoughts about
birthing my church. I wouldn’t take anything for what my 20-something/30-something
self did with my wild-eyed dream. But had someone said, “This will take 3 years
and you’ll find yourself facing this, and this and this…” I would have likely
been too scared to have done it. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. (And for
sure, creating is.)
So the barn’s off and running. I drag my laptop out to
write…Snap a shot that can no way capture the essence of moments like these as
the bones of the dream starts to form. I recall my early church days, driving
for an hour just to sit under timbers no further than these…wanting not only to
watch the manifestation unfold, but wanting to breathe it in through every
phase. For my church, I was changing her tune…Shifting her purpose, but never
once did I think about shifting her soul…To the contrary, one of the main
reasons I wanted to renovate a church was for the loving childhood memories of
visiting and worshipping in little country churches even smaller than her…Small,
sweet congregations of 25 – 30…struggling to keep a roof repaired or the heat
bill paid. Oh the stories their timbers could tell…The energies their walls would
absorb…I refer to these as the thin places…those spots where we go to renew,
where the veil between heaven and earth is a tad more opaque, allowing you a glimpse into what heaven must really be.
I wanted those bones preserved. I wanted to breathe new life into her and her,
new life into me. I wanted her to know that despite her falling down look, someone
still wanted her; she would be beautiful again, though perhaps in her next
incarnation, for different kind of spiritual uplifting.
As with churches, so with barns…So with anything we give
a portion of our life’s energies in exchange for, pouring our passion and our
love into the vision…There’s something sweet about moments like these. As the old
church tune aptly put it…“There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place…”
