Today I received my complementary copy of Jean Watson’s latest CD, produced in (whoop-do-doo!) NASHVILLE! AND, right inside the jacket I can see my name as a co-author of lyrics for one of the songs.
This could/should be a euphoric thing, or at least something that makes my heart do a little extra pitter-pat. But honestly, while I am gratified, honored, and thrilled to be “in print” in this way (at least as a contributing partial-author), the public recognition is nothing - truly, NOTHING - compared to the thrill of the creative act itself. The real pay-off occurred the night the original, unedited poem/lyrics were composed. The joy came from the inspiration, and the actual process of writing. Seriously.
Why? Maybe because God is not a fanfare kind of God. We don’t REALLY find fulfillment when our names are shouted from the rooftops of achievement. Rather, the transformation is an inner thing. It happens when He comes in the quiet one-on-one relational times, the inspired times, the modest and humble moments when His mercy becomes, quite literally, everything.
Such was that evening last August when Mercy and I sat at my computer, and something called “Moon Trail” showed up – something that later evolved through collaboration with Jean’s Nashville producer, Don Koch, to become a song called “Outstretched Wing.”
In a letter to a writer who asked, “Why does one write?”, Anais Nin said:
“Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live…
“We also write to heighten our own awareness of life, we write to lure and enchant and console others…
We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection…
“We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth, we write to expand our world, when we feel strangled, constricted, lonely…
When I don’t write I feel my world shrinking; I feel I am in a prison. I feel I lose my fire, my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave. I call it breathing.”
I would add to the above quote the following observation:
We write to complete ourselves, or rather to allow Mercy to complete us by inspiring our hearts and minds and souls. We write to represent Him, in some very small way, which encourages us (and hopefully those who read our outpourings) to wait on Him – to wait for more, always more. For Mercy has no bounds, only MORE.
Such was my experience that night last August. I was just breathing, as Anais Nin says, and Mercy showed up. The end result (after more collaborative “breathing”) ended up in Nashville, and will be heard by Jean’s fans as she ministers to the truth of the gospel here in Michigan, and all over Great Britain (she’s on the charts there) and beyond. The name of her album? "Everything Can Change." Praise be to the God of Mercy!
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