by Lorelei Low | Oct 21, 2015 | Encouragement and Inspiration, Sacred Calling
Today is my Mom’s birthday. From this picture of her, my dad, and me (taken last month), you can try to guess her secret age, but you’ll probably be wrong because she’s so healthy for her years. Her longevity’s a tremendous blessing and reminds me of all that you and I can do in our senior years.
For example, not only did my mom teach me to sew from my earliest years, more recently she’s loved sewing teddy bears for all the babies she knows and for charitable causes. She starts every day with prayer and daily devotions, and she’s a regular churchgoer who initiated and leads a neighborhood Bible study. She reads voraciously and loves discussing books. After years of helping out a soup kitchen weekly, she’s coordinated countless meals for people recovering from unfortunate circumstances. She has a gift of hospitality and uses it more than anyone I know to entertain with abounding grace. Besides all that, she’s a sharp bridge player! An extrovert with lots of energy, she takes great interest in her friends, relatives, husband, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild.
My motto, which Mom exemplifies, is: It’s never too late to express your CREATIVE GENIUS or to fulfill your SACRED CALLING.
Her birthday is a reminder to ask yourself:
- what you’re not doing that you’d like to plan or start to do;
- how your creativity plays into your business or family life or retirement;
- how you might improve your self-care so you’re more likely to stay active longer . . . and of course
- what your creative genius is (because you can define it however you’d like) and
- what your sacred calling is (because that’s your divine purpose).
If you’d like to hear it, I have a recording available on
How to Discover Your Sacred Calling.
A great gift to me and my mom would be if you’d say a little prayer right now for her and all of our extended family. Thank you!
![Mastering Your Personal Art of the Journal]()
by Lorelei Low | Sep 22, 2015 | Holy Spirit, Sacred Calling
How’d you like to implement or improve a single habit that could empower you, bring you more peace and joy, help you master your time, improve your creativity, and help you know and fulfill the purpose of your life?
Like a domino, journaling can be the one piece in the game of life that makes the difference in whether the rest of the pieces fall in order! One size doesn’t fit all; there are many ways to make this habit personal. But for me to start the day without journaling would be far worse than a coffee drinker starting the morning without a cup of brew. Everything would be harder, take longer, and have a fuzzy focus.
Whether primarily handwritten, dictated, handwritten, typed, or drawn, doodled, or collaged, journaling promises benefits of transformation as you:
- dump and process,
- explore and create,
- purge and receive,
- record and retrieve, and
- tune up and dial in.
When I read The Artist’s Way in 1992 and began writing “Morning Pages,” I aimed for quantity (3 pages) rather than quality. Often the first two pages were inconsequential but by the third page, I’d find new insights, deep feelings, or really useful ideas emerging. Over the years, I kept Gratitude and Prayer Journals, Art Journals, Travel Journals, and Dream Journals. Sometimes I’d include notes from workshops or days of reflection in my regular journal; other times I’d maintain a separate journal for them.
God, of course, has always blessed and used my journaling practice! I often write a question in my journal and then sit in silence until I receive the answer, which seems to just come from the still small voice within that I start to write out before I even know how the end of the sentence will finish. Yes, sometimes my own thoughts or wishes or feelings get mixed in with what I’m receiving from God, but when I stick with it and keep writing, the source usually gets clarified (if not in that sitting, then in one of the next few).
When I read Scripture or inspirational spiritual books, I have my journal open to write down the salient verses or lesson or insights of the day. When I’m reading through the Bible (a chapter or so a day), what I’ve just read generally sheds needed light on a particular current issue in my life. My practice is to highlight in yellow everything I feel came from God rather than from me, and I re-read these entries more than anything else.
I also ask for spiritual guidance to help schedule my days and my life. My tendency is to plan too much for a given day, week, or month. So I often bring my Planner Pad (calendar and lists) to my journaling time and ask God to let me know which events or tasks are top priority and reasonable to try to accomplish. With my To Do’s thus having God’s blessing, and my prayers asking for divine assistance, things go more smoothly!
Yes, other dominoes also affect the flow of my life—like getting enough sleep, silent meditation or centering prayer, not saying “yes” when I want to say “no,” and using effective productivity systems—but the domino of journaling is sacred. It encourages me to catch my dreams (God’s night school) the moment I’m aware I’ve remembered one, whether a snippet or a long, involved dream. (I record dreams in half-page columns so I have room later for dream analysis and so they stand out from the rest of my journaling.)
The content of journaling can vary greatly. I work out feelings, identify emotional triggers, and go through a multi-step forgiveness process in my writings. I journal solutions or ideas I awake with (often in answer to a question I asked the night before, since I prefer to journal first thing in the morning). I take notes during particularly good talks. I sketch quilts and other art or decorating ideas and write or doodle creative solutions. I even let the Holy Spirit help me compose blog posts in my journal!
The benefits can be tremendous, besides hearing God speak to your heart in holy whispers! Having dumped thoughts or feelings onto the pages, or even recorded tasks or reminders, your brain is free to move on. (I indicate the need to take action by drawing a little empty cirle in the margin, and later I put a line through the cirlce to signal that I’ve completed or calendared the item.) Memories are stored should you later want to review what was going on during an earlier time or what God told you on a particular topic. And journals are great if you’re looking back for transformation, repetition, or earlier insights. As a writer, I find rich material in my old journals. In my work and ministry, I see how God led me to know my sacred calling, to overcome certain resistance or blocks, and to grow in knowledge, wisdom, holy boldness, or creativity.
God didn’t design the human brain to figure out the future, and journaling is a way of being in the present, with the capacity to experience and enjoy engaging in two-way communications with God, whose Spirit fills us with life and peace. We get to ask, believe, and wait expectantly for our prayers to be answered and our steps to be guided, knowing God is our strength (empowerment) and our song (joy). I often praise God in my journal, too, and I certainly express thanks. The alternative to worry is to give all our concerns to the Almighty, and journaling’s great for that.
I’ve been journaling for the better part of 23 years, so I have much more I’d love to share on this topic. If you’d be interested in learning more or discussing it with me and others in a teleclass or in private coaching, please leave me a comment or send me an email.
Happy Journaling!
by Lorelei Low | Aug 11, 2015 | Spiritual Direction
Do you ever resist your creative work because you just don’t feel like doing it? Your adult mind wants to do something creative, but an inner struggle against actually creating now feels like a confrontation with defiance. “You can’t make me,” the inner brat part of you says. It sounds like a singsong “na, na, na, na, na, na” is going to follow.
Yet defiance can be very good for creativity! Defiance breaks rules and invites imagination. As discussed last month in connection with tapping into Albert (Einstein) energy, inventions of all kinds defied logic. Things that are now common seemed silly at first. Think about the successes of once-crazy ideas like home computers or microwave ovens! Or what about little, clear, adhesive patches to put on the back of your earlobes so that your earrings don’t hang down in a pierced hole that stretches practically to the bottom of your lobe? (That’a my favorite new personal, albeit minor, product; it means I don’t need to give away all earrings that weigh more than a feather!)
I remember my mom telling me all too often when I was a kid, “Stop sassing!” But now you and I can harness that defiant sassiness to give our inner critics some important backtalk! When you hear a voice inside telling you that you’re wasting time writing because you’ll never be good enough to get picked up by a publisher—or anything else discouraging your creativity—how about telling that voice, “So what! I’ll do it anyway!” I learned that from author and trainer Jill Badonsky, www.themuseisin.com, during my coaching to be a Kaizen-Muse™ Creativity Coach and Modern Day Muse Group Facilitator,* and I have used it countless times, to very good effect!
Besides, a defiant, willful child usually also has a playful, goofy, and wildly free side. This is Jill’s Modern Day Muse energy named “Bea Silly.” In her honor, sometimes, your serious adult self just needs to give your inner child a short play-break here and there throughout your day, in order to get more energy and fresh ideas. I like to do that with 53 minutes of on-task work, interspersed with 17 minutes of fun breaks, on and off throughout the day. (But often I forget . . . so this week I’m resuming the idea with lots of Bea Silly ideas for the breaks!) And, of course, there are also those times you just indulge the playful artist child within and let her create with her wildly free impulses all day long!
Just last week, I was traveling along a California freeway and we passed a circus. An area adjacent to the chain link fence separating the circus site from the highway had been marked with orange cones to designate a “Keep Out” area. There were three kids there, probably under six, and one picked up a cone and stuck it on his head like a dunce cap. A girl in a flouncy sundress followed suit, and then the youngest child joined in, with the cone practically covering his eyes. They started to run around, laughing gleefully as the cone-hats wobbled and fell and were picked up and put back on. I immediately thought of how a boundary for them had just become a new way to play, exactly the opposite of a limit! Let’s harness some of that!
We can choose which part of the child to to listen to: the wounded or angry child who refuses to let us be creative or the one that defies limits, silences the inner critic, and creates with playfulness and imagination.
The sensitive or wounded inner child often gives us clues to our deepest creative resistance. If our early drawings, creativity, imaginative play, or experimentation met with criticism, indifference, or disapproval, our immature selves may have associated creativity with negative responses from others and consequently in ourselves. In other words, our wounds of childhood may still be hampering our creativity . . . current wounds may still get triggered by old childhood patterns we haven’t yet released. We can get those wounds healed and cleanse our hearts of the old wounds—with great benefits spiritually, creatively, and often mentally and physically.
Although the choice of which aspect of our inner child affects our creativity most is up to us, we sometimes need help in breaking free and implementing the best choices, attitudes, and tools. That’s one of the benefits of creativity coaching, spiritual direction, dream work, healing prayer, and finding freedom in breaking certain spiritual strongholds — the blocks that are really intertwined and need rooting out, especially chronic fears, self-sabotage, and feelings of not being good enough. My ministry leads Christian women through an effective process to release the emotional baggage that hinders our creativity and joy. Sometimes one’s story needs to be told, examined for its blessings as well as its ugliness, and re-fashioned into a more empowering and transformative story. Perhaps the awareness of the old that holds us back and the new that opens up countless possibilities needs to be marked with a ritual of closure and new beginning as we make the transition to a freer, more joyful, and more creative life.
The retreat I just attended, a Reunion Retreat for the Spiritual Direction School I graduated from, has revved me up through the teachings and writings of Rev. Jim Clarke. His teachings and life have been inspiring me since I made a pilgrimage that he led to the Holy Land, Egypt, Rome, and Assisi decades ago. I recommend his book, Creating Rituals: A New Way of Healing for Everyday Life, and I’m eagerly exploring what he teaches about the healing power in re-framing our myths and stories and in creating effective rituals. It’s exciting to come upon new insights and tools for healing and for enhancing creativity, and I’m eager to share them with you, along with all the other tools the Holy Spirit has been helping me use!
*Modern Day Muse Groups explore ten creative principles as introduced in Jill Badonsky’s book, The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): Ten Guides to Creative Inspiration (2010).
![Nothing Like Sharing with Kindred Souls!]()
by Lorelei Low | Jul 13, 2015 | Creative Expression, Encouragement and Inspiration
Sharing your creativity and your faith with kindred souls truly inspires awe! I got to do that all weekend long, and I feel like non-stop Hallelujahs are bursting out of me! I’d flown to DC to attend the 8th Biennial Sacred Threads Exhibit, which features over 300 juried in examples of spiritually themed textile art (including 2 of my pieces). Arriving at the Floris United Methodist Church’s amazing facility in Herndon, VA on Friday, I first stepped into the huge sanctuary, adorned with an array of inspiring liturgical banners, and prayed.
The vestibule outside the Sacred Threads exhibit set just the right tone. It was filled with books about creativity being used in medicine and healing and there were beautiful full-color catalogs of the work. There was even a USB drive for sale with recordings of the artists talking about their quilts, going beyond the published artists’ statements. Handmade prayer flags were on display and more were being made. Committee members had an exhibit of small pieces with their varied interpretations of what “forward” means to them. Small wall quilts were on display — to be selected as thank yous for those donors contributing over $100 to the non-profit organization that puts on the show. The atmosphere welcomed everyone warmly. (There was even a separate table full of gluten free goodies during the reception!) Of course, the exhibit itself was breathtaking. By the way, if you think of quilts only as patchwork for the bed (as beautiful and intricate and glorious as those can be), think again! This is an ART SHOW full of wall art, traditional and contemporary, and some even 3-D!
Over the weekend, many different kinds of creativity were evident, not just textile art! I met two young filmmakers who interviewed me for Quilt Alliance and Sacred Threads documentaries — they were creatively jazzed and so dedicated to their work. Next I met Carmen Taggart — for the first time in person. She is a VA with Spirit, a multi-talented creative woman and creativity champion, a terrific help to me in many ways, and great fun. I also enjoyed meeting her friend, a wonderfully passionate chef! The next morning, I got to talk creativity with my brother, a passionate dog photographer (see www.GreggPatrick.com), and his wife, a sister in faith and graphic designer, originally from Poland.
Back at Sacred Threads for the Opening Reception, I met maybe a hundred incredible, on fire, spiritual fiber artists, many of whom are also painters, collage-makers, poets, writers, and educators. Most are Christians, although the show’s mission is clearly ecumenical. The whole atmosphere was one of unity and diversity, open celebration of spirituality and inspiration, healing and joy, as well as acknowledgement of life’s challenges including grief, despair, senseless events, and expression of hope for peace and brotherhood. We were all so excited to meet each other. Even those like me who are on the introverted side seemed to be energized after hours of this!
Stained Glass in Floris United Methodist Church’s Chapel and Jan Carter’s “Celebrate the Eucharist”
This beautiful stained glass and my friend Jan Carter’s “Celebrate the Eucharist” quilt next to it touched me, too. After the show closed for the day (it runs through July 26th), we had an artists’ dinner with great table conversations and a wonderful presentation by a talented Christian fiber artist and painter, followed by a fun Q&A.
Praise God for all of this creativity and spirituality gathered together to bless all who came, all who worked on it, and everyone else who will be touched by the fruits of it!
by Lorelei Low | Jun 30, 2015 | Creative Expression, Overcoming Obstacles
Intriguing ideas arise in both mundane and extraordinary times—some as you slosh through everyday activities, others when you’re on a cherished artist’s date at a museum or play, or even while watching 4th of July fireworks! All month I’ve been posting reminders to pay attention to the inspiration that’s all around. Today I’d like to mention ways to catch and save the ideas that bubble up. Thinking ahead is key. Decide whether you’ll jot them onto sticky notes, index cards, or recycled paper . . . and where you’ll put those for later retrieval. Invent a system for when you’ll do so. I hate to admit how many good ideas I’ve found crumbled on the back of a faded receipt at the bottom of a purse when I finally got around to changing bags!
Recently, I’ve been capturing more ideas on my iPhone and/or in Evernote by dictating, photographing, or sending myself an email. Mentally walk through your day and plan how you’ll capture ideas place-by-place and activity-by-activity: in the middle of the night, during prayer or meditation, in the kitchen or the shower, on walks or in the garden, on the phone, at church, while decluttering, swimming, working out in an exercise class, playing with children, or listening to an audiobook or teleclass in the car.** I’m sure you can think of other challenging places to take notes!
You can’t stop to take notes when this is five feet from the side of your car!
**The asterisks remind me to ask you for suggestions on that one! I often drive hours along a winding coastline and there’s no shoulder where you can pull over to jot down a note or take your cellphone out of the glove compartment. So please comment with any good suggestions for this scenario. So far, my only attempts have been: (a) to pause the recording, repeat the idea over and over to myself, or make it into a jingle and sing it repeatedly until I think it’s sunk in (and there’s a 50/50 chance it hasn’t); or (b) to replay the recording. I might need to get a simple voice-activated recording device to hang around my neck, sensitive enough to pick up my voice but not the car’s speakers!
Once you’ve got a workable capture system, you’re apt to notice or be presented with more ideas than ever! Consider starting a physical idea repository — a folder, journal, shoebox, inbox — or an electronic folder or app. In love to journal during my Quiet Time. I put a little circle in the margin next to any idea that comes to me then that’s either an action to be added to my planner or an idea that should go into an Evernote notebook. Once I’ve handled the idea, I put a slash through the circle.
I keep a separate Art Journal for visual ideas, which I also take with me to workshops and art critique groups, and sometimes when I know I’ll have time to sit and sketch, doodle, or noodle on keywords or concepts for a new quilt. This is an area where I’ve been better at paying attention than I have in some other areas. I also paste photos or sketches or what I’ve ripped from magazines. Consider where you pay attention best, where you might benefit from paying more attention; then try to learn from what works . . . and modify what doesn’t.
Happy Fourth of July!
Also, you might make it a regular practice to express your gratitude for what God has gifted you with through your spirit, your body, your mind, and all the moments when you are present and noticing things. Also, let’s all pray that we not take anything for granted. May we all tap into the wonder and awe of the life and creation in which we live, and move, and have our being. Gratitude, wonder, and awe are the best kind of paying attention!
Join me on Facebook in July; we’ll be focusing on the creativity-enhancing notions of Imagination and Innovation.
On July 22, 2015, I’ll be hosting a one-afternoon “micro-retreat” for creative Christian women in Sea Ranch, California. Email me if you’re nearby and would like details and feel free to share this with other local Christian creative women!
