It’s About the Work – Getting Closer to a Better World

(In which I take a while to get to the point, but if you follow the winding road with me, you will get there. Though whether or not you agree with me is another story.)

This weekend there was a movie on ThisTV called Paris Blues (1961) with Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong, Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carol. In it, two ex-pat jazz musicians in Paris meet up with a couple of American tourists, fall in love and end up having to make decisions about which parts of their heart (art) they are going to follow.

The jazz musicians were in Paris because it was more straightforward there, at the time, to follow their art (that part of their heart) in Paris where race was less of an issue at the time than it was in the U.S. As Sidney Poitier’s character tries to explain to Diahann Carol’s character, in Paris they weren’t white musicians or black musicians or Italian, French or Gypsy musicians. They were just musicians, defined only by their music genre, their instrument and their skill. Race, religion and gender did not come into it. They were in Paris to do the work, to follow their art.

Galatians 3:28 says: There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. I used to daydream about a world where all were one. When I though about that world, I would draw pictures of it. I was a kid at the time so in my small world that meant an ecumenical church where we all just got along and loved each other and everyone had a house to live in, clothes and food. I couldn’t even conceive of the complications inherent in such an undertaking.

No matter how idealistic we are, no matter what visions we have of the world, we all have to run smack into ourselves and our differences with others, as well as our commonalities. Someone who went to bed hungry every night is going to see the world differently from someone who never had to worry about hunger. And they both might be the same gender, race and religion. Someone who was separated and treated less-than due to gender or race or religion is going to have a different perspective on the world than someone who was embraced because of their gender, race or religion.

My little girl self saw lots of hurt in all those differences and just wanted it healed and thought it could be healed in sameness. My adult self understands that those differences make our experiences on this planet much richer. If we open ourselves to the differences as well as the commonalities we’re able to have much more full life experience. Opening yourselves up to the differences means, well, as my gramma would put it, “listening, honey, just listening.” It means not assuming that the man in the turban ahead of you in line is a Muslim terrorist or that the white kid with tattoos on the skateboard is a juvenile delinquent or that the black woman leading the seminar grew up in the inner-city projects, or that the Asian mom at the grocery store is a “tiger mom.”

Listening. Paying attention. Turning that attention both inward and outward at the same time and in a way that is both objective and subjective, again at the same time. Being all things – the observer and the participator. Then using that upside/downside/inside/outside energy to create: to paint, write, draw, compose, play music, do the high jump, garden, or put the car back together using duct tape, rubber bands and paperclips, or whatever.

In my experience, creativity brings me closer to the Divine (or whatever that equates to for those who don’t believe in a Divine – Love perhaps?). And most of the people I have met in my life have that drive to create something. It might be the perfect strawberry rhubarb pie, the best financial presentation, the best commercial, the reconstruction of the automobile, growing the best organic corn ever, or writing the long, lost Great American Novel. Again – Whatever that is for you.

But something I have noticed in this creative drive that most of us have is that when we are focused on that creativity, when we are striving to be the best gardener/writer/haiku poet/glass blower/volunteer coordinator/jeweler/dancer/mom/dad/what-have-you ever – when we focus on that creative passion with all of our might – with all our heart, mind and soul – when we fall in love with that creative urge and follow it as far as it will take us – then we appear to reach that vanishing point the musicians found in Paris Blues – where there is “neither Greek nor Jew, no male or female, no slave or free” – in my opinion, then we have found our road to love and the Divine. We reach the point where neither the differences or the commonalities matter and we are all one.

And we didn’t get there through massive discussions deconstructing every little thing we don’t like about our lives or even do like about our lives like Phaedrus did in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. We didn’t get there by yelling at each other about our causes on Facebook or on some blog. We didn’t get there by sitting around talking about writing or painting or composing music. We got there by doing the work. Doing the actual creative work.

It’s not easy. It’s not a smooth path. It’s like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, or any Hero’s Journey for that matter. The road is difficult, rocky and obstacles are tossed in the road or left abandoned by those who went before. It’s uphill in the snow twenty miles each way and you’re barefoot and don’t have a coat and left your keys back home and don’t have enough change to make a phone call cuz your cell phone died and it’s now hailing with sheets of rain in between, and by the way, it’s 90 degrees out and the sun is in your eyes, too. Yes, it is. It’s just like that.

But then you make it. You get to the Celestial City and they let you in. And you know how you find out that you’re in the Celestial City? It could be as simple as getting that one rose bush to bloom a perfect bloom, or watching your kid graduate from high school or college, or it could be getting that landscape you’ve been working on just right, or it could be going to your writers group for a critique and feedback session and knowing that you are right exactly where you need to be. And there is no male or female, no slave or free, no “Greek or Jew.” And the only thing that is important is that creative work, your road or your path to Divine Love, where all are one.

Maybe that’s too idealistic to make a grandiose blog about it, but it’s something I’ve noticed works in my life, for me. When I try to follow what other people think is the right thing for me to do to create a better world, I lose my way. I don’t fit on their path, I get turned around and it gets me no closer to my Celestial City or a better world. Their way to their Celestial City and a better world is not my way. My way is to follow the creative gifts I have been given and not squander them whilst wasting time on discussions that will get me nowhere closer to my Celestial City or my better world. I venture to say that that is the same for most people.

It’s a hard decision to make, to follow what you know to be your true path. We may only be awarded brief and fleeting visits to our City at times, but I believe it is still worth the effort because each time we make that journey, do that work and are faithful to our gifts, we are getting ever closer to the time when the world will be a better place.

At the end of Paris Blues, the musicians have to decide what their true paths are, and that’s not an easy choice to make at the best of times (see above).

Joanne Woodward’s character says, “You know, everybody’s always waiting for everybody else to take a chance because they’re so afraid!”

Henry David Thoreau said: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

If you have a creative gift that gives you peace and joy, or even that annoys the hell out of you but makes your life better when you follow it, then follow it. Don’t talk about it, don’t listen to the “yabbuts,” don’t look left or right or up or down; just do it. Do the work and you will get closer to your better world – to your Celestial City.