Dear Becky,
Hey, Friend, something has happened and we never saw it coming. Don’t worry, we are all currently safe, but… we’re a little stir crazy.
I know you don’t watch the news much, so you probably don’t know this, but the world as you know it is going to come to a screeching halt. I know it’s hard to fathom, but it’s coming. You’ll be asked to stay home, avoid public places, homeschool your kids, and wash your hands like there’s a plague….because, well….there’s a plague.
I’m not really writing to you as a warning so much as just to offer some advice, and I’m going to sound a little nuts. Maybe I am a little. I mean, I’ve been in quarantine for over a month now and there is no end currently in sight. We have big concerns about the economy, the healthcare system, and the mental stability of the tiny dancer (the isolation is wearing on her), but again, that’s not why I’m writing to you.
Here’s the deal. You’re a creative. You are a jack of all trades (though you feel like you’ve mastered none). You are incredibly adaptive and innovative when it comes to solving problems both big and small. I cannot remember a time you didn’t have some project or new thing on the horizon! You most likely won’t believe me when I say this, but eventually you’re going to fall in love with an artistic medium and you will build a career around it. Don’t be fooled, my friend, it won’t be easy! You will struggle. You’ll have many an existential crisis, but you will have tapped into something bigger than you. And all of that will seemingly halt too.
A plague is coming.
Our world will suddenly stop and everything will go quiet. The creativity that flows freely will be wiped away...or so it will seem for a time. You will feel like your brain and your life have been hijacked. You’ll be asked to take on responsibilities you didn’t plan for and the things you spent so much time building will seemingly vanish overnight. You will experience great sadness when this happens and you will grieve. It’s okay to grieve! By the time this happens, you’ll know that already.
You’ll know that grief is valuable. You’ll know that avoidance in general, only cuts off the growth that the Giver longs for you to experience. You’ll be well acquainted with pain and discomfort, and even though you still fear both, you’ll know that when you surrender, they make way for a deeper more tangible experience with the one called Yahweh. You will have discovered that joy and sadness are not mutually exclusive emotions; there is a symbiotic relationship between them that makes the hard things more bearable and the joyful things more joyful when you allow yourself to experience them fully. It’s not comfortable to feel things so intensely, but it is good.
But when the world stops, and it will, everything will go quiet. Just like the streets outside your door, so will be the hum of your bustling creativity—silent. You will feel as though you’ve been thrust into a vacuum. A formless void. You will watch others carry on as normal, but for you, the ground you stood on will disappear under your feet. It will feel like spinning out of control, further and further from the footing you once relied upon. When this happens...remember this word…
Music.
Turn on the music, Becky.
You will have forgotten to. You will not have noticed the silence you experience is self-imposed.
Trust me on this, will you?
I must admit I don’t fully understand why or how important this seemingly simple action is to you--to us. But it is. Music will usher the presence of the wind again and with it will return form to your empty spaces. And although you may not know when or how you will carve out space for the things you toiled for previously, you will rest knowing that your vein of creativity has not left you...it has only shifted. It will look different during this strange season.
What will it look like, you ask? Oh, Becky, you know I don’t give up my secrets that easily!—that’s a letter for another day. :)
Wash your hands, Friend!
-Lauren