preparing pages

Some time ago I received a beautiful journal as a gift. It contained 6 folios of handmade, blank paper thick enough for markers and paint.

At first, I was afraid to put anything in it. What if I messed it up or put the wrong thing in it or…the anxiety took over. It was so lovely just the way it was: blank. I didn't want to mar it with my feeble attempts at poetry, art, and thought.

But what good is an empty journal? And what good does it do my soul if that journal remains on the shelf? Did I really prefer the safety and neatness of blank pages over the surprise of creativity? Did I just like to think about the possibility it proposed instead of engaging the possible?

This particular journal sparked so much joy that in a moment of wild abandon, I wrote on the front page: “ART for the sake of art, just for me.” I even included my phone number in case it got lost.

Taking this first step made the rest possible.

And then I began something new, I began to prepare pages for future work. I anticipated and welcomed them even though they were not here yet. I believed they would be. I may not have had a poem on my heart that day, but on another day I might and I wanted a home for it. I put wild colors and patterns on one page, muted and subtle patterns on another.

I was surprised to find that preparing the pages for future work had become a great joy in itself. It became a part of the future work. It set the stage and mood.

The pages began to fill with words and sketches. When I needed one, it was there, waiting like a cozy cabin in a snowy landscape.

Friend, can you welcome beauty and truth and creativity into your heart by preparing a place for it to be? If your schedule is too full or your mind is too numb, how can the good things grow?