The Artist/Mystic

I’ve been thinking about the writing I do online. I read something by Thomas Merton which talked about the conflict which someone who is an artist (eg: a writer) and also a mystic faces. He said that a writer/artist delves deep into himself and God in order to have material from which to WORK and to share with the public eye. While a mystic delves deep in order to learn to BE and to live in the depths of God. Because the mystic does not rush out from the depths of the understandings he is gaining in God in order to express them, as does the artist, he can continue to go deeper. He is also unencumbered from the pride which plagues an artist….free from the need to be admired and read/viewed by the public eye. And then the mystic can bear witness to the truths of God by the evidence they display in his/her LIFE instead of his WORK.

This is a struggle that I can VERY much relate to. And it is one that, while despising it, I also am not clear on where my role really SHOULD be primarily. God gave me the gift of self expression. He has also blessed me with some understanding gained from being in proximity with Him. Do I, as did Ezekiel and also Habukkuk bear the burden of TELLING (see Habukkuk 2:2 and Eze. 3:17) or writing God’s communications with me publicly and immediately? Or should I, as God told Ezekiel elsewhere, LISTEN to what God has shown me, make use of it, integrate it into my being…before I blab it all over the internet?

I think there is a great danger of rushing out from God’s presence too quickly and then taking the bone I’ve been given and with my prideful intellect, creating a skeleton, into which I have no ability to breathe any life. I need to allow God the opportunity through His Spirit to breathe some life into my understanding and make it true of my spirit as well before I should broadcast it as a truth and making it sound as though I’ve already mastered the principle. You know what? I don’t think anyone is fooled between the discerning the difference in pure philosophizing and speaking from my own experience. The latter just rings with Truth that the former does not possess.

And then; the issue of humility…this is one that brings up MANY problems, because to endeavor to gain it or to even discuss it, has the effect of KILLING it even more.

I think the answer to this mess is to just spend more time, quietly in God’s presence and to ask Him by His Spirit to quicken my spirit with understanding…and to trust Him to do this…and to hear what He is saying to me COMPLETELY without running off while He is in mid-sentence (as I tend to also do with many people unfortunately…I’m a terrible listener). I then need to open myself and my life to His working and let Him “complete the work that He has begun in me” and trust that He will do this; and a part of that work is to develop in me the fruit of humility. That is something not to be gained by intellect or will or effort, but merely by willingness to allow Him to do that in my life. I need to continually seek to “keep on being filled” by His Spirit and all these good things will happen via my faith and patience and His great love and grace.