Featured Artist :: Art House Dallas

I don't think of myself as an artist.

I should say, I don't always think of myself as an artist, but I am accepting of myself as an artist more and more these days.

I think it's because I haven't always thought of myself as a real writer.  Maybe a hobbyist at best, a pretender at worst.  Even half way through writing my first book, I'd tell others at art events, those who'd ask what I did, that I was in sales.  My response was a downplay, a deflect of attention.  After all, who wants to fail or come up short despite all effort given?  So I'd work tirelessly, part privately, on the manuscript of my first book while not admitting to being a writer - an artist.

Realizing (and admitting to) the value in my art and dream of being a writer began to surface after introduced to Art House Dallas.  Suddenly, I felt connected to plenty of other artsy folk who learned to not merely hear the echo of dreams within, but learned to esteem creative dreams within and wield creativity realized for a greater purpose.

A forged statement repeated often in the community of Art House captures its heart and meaning: "Cultivating creative community for the common good — encouraging everyone to live imaginative and meaningful lives."

I'm both thankful to be part of that community and honored to be this month's Featured Artist.  Read the Featured Artist interview below where I discuss my creative process, habits and upcoming book, "Earth & Sky."

:::::::

What is “Earth & Sky: a beautiful collision of grace and grief,” all about?  What inspired you to write it?

In a word: life.  The book is a memoir recounting the sudden, unexpected death of my wife nearly 3 years ago.  Far more than a somber story remembering a life passed in the wake of inexplicable tragedy, Earth & Sky journeys into the heart of grief, grace guiding into a new day.  The correlation of earth and sky lies in the connection between and interaction of human frailty (us - earth) with faith (God - sky).  Sinking in deep loss, God pursued me into the darkened depths of my heart wasting away in grief.

This story is not mine alone.  It belongs to my three little daughters as well.  One life that we knew together suddenly ended with no warning and left us dislodged from any sense of familiar belonging.  I was widowed and they were motherless and half-orphaned.  Both the story and journey belong to all four of us as we learned to live life anew and rediscover happiness, joy, meaning and reason. The inspiration to write Earth & Sky sprung up in desire to chronicle our path together through grief.

Writing about loss is obviously challenging.  C.S. Lewis', “A Grief Observed,” is a sometimes excruciating classic in the genre.  Were you influenced by any such works? Did you even plan to write a book at the start?

Lewis’ words echoed a strong sense of familiarity in the writing of my book.  Regarding pain, Lewis poignantly wrote, “It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.”  His words had a way of speaking life into my soul in the words giving witness to the dark treading through his own rebel heart.

I wrote as a means of bleeding out restless emotions swirling about my heart and head.  Initially, I captured raw emotions in poetry which gave me generous boundary lines to explore and confess darker fears, thoughts and prayers without worry of much sensible literary structure.  Many of these poems are built into the prose of the book.  The poetic spillings served as a cathartic exercise so I continued to write as I began to shape the content into story arch.

The most helpful influence in not only writing the book, but in healing and moving forward revealed itself in Kubler-Ross‘ book, “On Grief and Grieving.”  I found purpose in crafting my story after spending time in this particular book where she and David Kessler expand on her model of the 5 stages of grief.

// CONTINUE READING AT ART HOUSE DALLAS

O Book, where art thou?

When I set out to write a book, I didn’t fully know what to expect or even how to exactly think through a book from initial thought to published product.  Maybe if I did know I’d still be standing there at the beginning dismissing the journey of writing, rewriting, editing and so much more editing, as one of those insurmountable heights in life climbed and conquered by few.  Namely, not me.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” may certainly be quite accurate of a statement, but it is with each subsequent step slipping, falling and rising again, where the journey becomes more than just a walk from somewhere.

Each meandering morning earlier than the sun when a block of 500 words written held more value than sleep, gold or the foolishness of being a published author with book in hand stacked on top of the other.  Before too long, blocks of words did more than float on my computer screen and journal.  They stacked higher and higher still one on the next and the many following the first.  Most days spent writing seemed like I was crafting words and spinning them into a forever stretching horizon ending nowhere but still feeling warm.

Such are dreams too big and unbelonging in our little context of no and can’t and well, maybe.  That is, until we believe, and more importantly, assume beginning with a readiness to just keeping stepping into thin days where dreams quickly vanish into ridiculous.

The completion of my first book should rightly be diminished to just that: a collection of footprints maybe leading somewhere, but at least stepped onto, pressed into and smeared upon the mountain pushing down heavy into each ordinary day.

And so, not only does a completed manuscript exist, but now the wheels are a-turnin’ and the manuscript is being crafted into a real, actual book!

Here are a few updates on my book’s progress despite my lingering unbelief at times:

Final round of editing almost complete!  Editing has been the most uncomfortable element to the process, but by far and wide, the most helpful and guiding.  My editor is simply an amazing mix of strong encouragement and sharp edge slicing through unnecessary.

Book design and artwork!  Hand meets digital expression, illustration meets design.  I have an incredible duo creating the artwork for my book combining hand drawn illustration and artfully brilliant computer design.  I literally sent a few pictorial examples of what I want and excerpts of my manuscript and the design began to lift off the ground.  I can’t wait to show you guys what they come up with!

Book endorsements!  6 published authors have agreed to read my manuscript and endorse my book.  Ridiculous ...enough said.

Video shoot!  Somehow I am crossing paths with the right people at the right time (wink).  This month as editing is wrapping, design is coming together and book endorsements are being crafted, all in preparation for printing to begin, I am prepping for a video shoot with an incredibly talented filmmaker.  This video will act as a sort of trailer for the book.  Location in Dallas has been confirmed and the script is done.

KICKSTARTER!  All of this - the writing, painstaking edits, exciting art design, endorsements and video shoot - converge at one moment, the scramble to summit the mountain, if you will.  I need pay for it all.  Rather than going the route of a traditional publisher, I chose to go with a publishing imprint that will allow me to retain rights to the book that I wrote.  This means that I will own my own book instead of a publishing house owning the rights to my book.  To go this route meant me having to pay for the team to bring the book from concept and dream locked in my head to life.

I will write more about my Kickstarter campaign in the next week or so.  Please be on the look out and consider helping me in bringing this book into reality by pre-ordering copies of my book and additional items such as commissioned print copies of the book cover artwork and an exclusive ebook of poetry and thoughts not included in my book.

I cannot express the excitement building in each passing day and the depth of gratitude to you, the community who has surrounded me in support and encouragement.  In large part to each of you who subscribe to my blog, this book is soon to transcend dream!!

acquiesce.

I used to think everything would be all right. .all right

And I called it good.

Bowed low at the altar of padded pews and neatly folded answers, All was good and all was good.

Paths lead gently into tomorrow.

I walked with a smile that feared the night that never came.

Then one day, a man visited my door on an usually average afternoon.  At the hearing of his knock, my heart weakened.  Deep thuds sounded on the door I held key to not asking for entrance but announcing arrival.  Even in the absence of invitation, he would not be shunned, rebuked or dispelled.

I just held my breath as the water rose higher and prayed for my lungs to seal.

All is not well, friends.  As in, not all okay.

Days burn uncontrollably wrong. Evil and wrong lie in wait, tangled in the day like weeds in flowers.

Don’t pluck them lest they all get pulled in a day not ready for beauty to look ugly. Tears escape broken hearts holding together weakly.  Frailty is the song on the lips of those whose hearts dare not die alone.  Life gets so twisted and sideways that we wake after days lost drifting to a something we barely even recognize.  This is not what we dreamed of when all was all right.

In the strain and the sweat and the swearing of holding the world while fumbling for good, a small voice whispered, “Can we just break?”

“Is everything all right?” “Is everything all right?” “Is everything all right?” “Is everything all right?” “Is everything all right?” “Is everything all right?”

Is everything all right?

 “I am broken parts sure of only weaknesses     With nothing left to show, no illusions left to hide behind”

All men must break before they bare.  Lift our hearts out of their cage in worship and wonder, in defeat and abandon.

In the dark of night, the lone falling, the cold sinking ... the death of you and me and us quieted in the birth of beginning again

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

...all has always been well and all right.  Before breath and time dying, God celestially expansive then gloriously finding his created lost souls losing ground and breaking loose in night.

Another day awoke me from staring too long at pictures burning.  Day young and new brushed my shoulder broken then, now healed under pressure that ended.

I now know that to be good, rightly. And amen and amen.

a manuscript, two lives pulled closer together.

After nearly two years from beginning, my manuscript is brushing the rim of done, the first draft at least. The words are all written from start to finish.  Re-editing looms and parts may be rearranged and reworked for clarity, but (and a huge conjunctive but it is) the manuscript awaits the transformative process of words and files into an actual book.

Quietly - slowly - and in the dark of night and the fog of shadows, life re-found, rebuilt and rediscovered in words and paper thin moments.

Less than two weeks ago now, I sat quietly at the ruggedly aged table where I wrote the last words that seem to appropriately echo the words that open the manuscript some 50,000 words earlier.

“My eyes open slowly, knowingly to a new world.”

Two years ago when I sat freshly wounded from the then still warm, pulsating memories of my wife’s death I was so lost and emptied, ravaged by such a blow, from death taking all that I measured didn’t belong to it.  I started to write words that bled pain and suffering and confusion and doubt, memories that held happiness and good and reality broken in tragedy.  Those words captured in my manuscript echoed out like prayers and hopeless tirades reaching for something to break the speed at which I felt the falling happening.

And God did find me.  Over and over again, remade and strengthened in faithful frequency.

A new fortitude for life glowing on the horizon dawning emerged in His helping.  Two lives pulled closer together - the good one I once knew and the better one now laying before me, tangled in difficulty and unknown.  I’ve come to confess the life after my wife’s death better because in it God’s sweet grace causes even the most difficult of times to bow low and every impassable moment able to be crossed.

And this is the book that I have written, a story recounting life beautiful ending and another beginning eclipsing even the greatest moments of that once beautiful life.  These days will always be loved the most.

Below is the opening of a chapter currently entitled, “Surely Goodness and Mercy.”  It reflects the pulling together of both lives and fortitude only found in God’s ridiculous grace that found me so aptly.

I will not allow myself to be the man hollowed by pain, afraid of shadows and those things which lie in waiting.  Life may indeed only seem to take from us, days, memories, happiness, but courage is mine to give.  And the source, it is immeasurably and unfathomably deep.  It is unending.  Through darkened spots and failing strength, the reason -- or reasons -- for courage remains.

Three reasons.

I saw a man alone, subdued by pain, frightened by the fear of all that may be some day and I quietly asked to never be that man.  I can’t.  I won’t.  The man fumbling through fading memories like a thief clutching a leaking bag.  The man stumbling, drunk on why things settled the way they did, talking to himself, mumbling angrily and hurt.

That will not be me.  My daughters will not know this man.  They might see me wince and wrestle to ground life haunting and yesterday hanging, but they will never know that kind of fully hollowed heart comfortable only in shadows.  I may not have much greater to give them than that, but my healing will be an echo that resounds like bells of freedom in their warm little hearts.

And their little hearts will warm.  Never could I leave us stranded roadside and stuck forever by the sourest of moments in life, an undoing reaching so deep into the fabric of who we were unraveling the strongest of loves, ours, sewn together by life’s untroubled waters and God’s goodness then.

Life was good then it ended in her death lessening us remaining, those who loved her most.

But the days continued.  And they demanded to be lived.

Currently, I’m working out a deal for publishing and anticipate my book to be available maybe even as soon as mid-year.  I say this with an undying happiness.  There were so many days I thought it more worth quitting than completing.  Little by little, in inches and through day by failing day what I once considered an audacious reach and grand wish has been pulled closer; two lives pulled closer together.

capturing tomorrow in the little of today.

There’s a running visual in my mind.  A thread of life existing out there ambiguously floating, spied but not yet owned.  It calls out to me where I am in today busy with little details and deadlines, distracted by all that must be done.  And all must be done or the days bleed.

A day where the ground evens, the grade not quite as steep and the dirt not so loose and shifty; a day when accomplishment stays close to me and I have nothing left to prove to myself or God, in my mind.  In that day, I am an author who writes easily about the dark, recounting scars and stories, waxing lyrically of the damnedest of days and grace lifting me near weightlessly.  I will have reached a peak of accomplishment.  A book will have been written, more books following the first, my family will be stronger and even more grounded in purpose and path, and all will beat with the rhythm of a day better than behind when grace was only a crutch and a cradle.

Those days glow ahead invitingly. ...oh, the glory those days ahead hold.

Getting here to there is a journey of making my way home to a place where I belong.  Purpose, passion and meaning, all belong to that day, the one starring in the running visual in my mind.

It’s a day I must belong to, be in and reach for.  That day when all comes together rightly and a smile hangs honestly displacing this tired look.

But now ... in this day ...

I get lost easily in the day to day, little steps leading to the broad expanse glowing on the horizon.  I trust what’s ahead is good, but I don’t act accordingly.  Distracted by insecurities, intimidated by fears, my eyes lock to just the dirt around my feet and all promise ahead shrinks miles away.  And if I’m honest all I want to do is quit.  Everything.

Almost two years ago, I set out to write a book, my first.

Manuscripts don’t write themselves and authors don’t just appear out of thin air.  It takes work, lots of work.  And like any reaching dream larger than the day current, determination is a necessary pace to be adopted if that day is to be pulled out of the sky and your dream is to live in real life.

That book, my nearly two year old effort, is being written.  And that’s the whole of it completely.

This week marks my measured sprint to the finish.  While I shelved working on my manuscript for 7 months, now it’s time to fully finish.  It’s just not enough to dream big, pull hard, progress to a little acclaim, yet abandon all effort because of fear or doubt or weariness.

The visual still runs through my mind and the day still waits for my coming.

:::::::

All dreaming is a calling.

Undoubtedly, you feel the draw of dreams specific to your days lying in wait for you.  It is never too late to be who you should be, to pick up where you left off, to brush the dirt off of the leading path buried in abandoned surrender.

Tomorrow awaits.  It’s path is found in the little of today.

:::::::

Determination feeds can do thinking and effort leading to accomplishment.  With anything bigger than now, any reach at more or tomorrow, determination is fundamental to success ultimately.  In the end, bridging the gap between dreaming today and living in dreams tomorrow is quite simple.  It is the guy who simply won’t give up, who wins little by little in each determined step today, that captures tomorrow.

Here are little steps I’ve held taken to be determined in finishing:

• define what I’m going after :: identify a focused finish and work everyday to close in;

• organize, schedule :: my work must have a pace and rhythm or resistance wins out and I don’t do what I want to do;

• reassess/evaluate progress :: celebrate another chapter complete, look back at progress and ahead to ensure my direction is on course and on time

• prayerfully do the work :: invite God right into the vulnerability and all moments I want to quit

In the end, writing the book is small compared to what the dream is doing inside of me.  It’s the pursuit, the journey, that prepares me to belong and exist within the dreams of tomorrow ...the determination forged in the little of today.

A Deeper Family :: tipping the scale.

The day never holds enough minutes and moments. It never seems enough; the effort given, the time split, the little sacrifices made here and there, the want for more quality time, all feel like sand slipping through fingers.

Life.

It always moves faster than we think in the moment.  One day we are holding a tiny newborn nearly too nervous to even move with them in arm.  The next we find ourselves chasing them as they pedal their bike down the sidewalk and reviewing rules when readying them for sleepovers at friends’ houses.  And before we have time to be fully ready, they will be driving themselves around, shaving their faces or their legs, or both and be talking of college, career, dreams or even marriage.

Time doesn’t wait, not for you to learn how to get parenting and family right nor for you to grow unselfish enough to see or catch up to opportunities fleeting.  Like sand sliding through the skinny of an hour glass, time is constantly going.  And so are the days with it.

I had this terrible thought recently.  I only have about 8 years until my oldest daughter moves into the world off to college or work, chasing dreams and meeting love.

Continue reading my new post at A Deeper Family...

a life bigger than little.

Dying in waves all feathers and wax floating apart, the sun always greater than the miracle of flying itself.   Is it not enough just to fly?

There is no way of living life other than here, now and present.  All else is dreaming of was and will be.

Tomorrow dangling like a carrot, promising better.  Effort shimmering on brow, an ache in your knees and burn in your belly.  Success donned by those not waiting to want but chasing life bigger than little for the applause of the faceless watchers whispering hushed fancies, impressed by all that you could become.  Like a lover carried on a symphony, tangled in dreams and desire, tomorrow speaks a language so much more alluring than today buried in its mundane repetition and drudgery.

“For another day, I’d give anything.” I hear those words amidst the dying often cutting through regret and the reversal of the worth of a day piled into years.    But not all long in regret.  Some just want another day lived like the other days behind lived so well.  Just one more.  Working for a hospice, I observe death with certain regularity.  Almost every time I sit with a patient coming closer to the realization of death nearer, I hear those words wishing for more time, another trip, evening shared on the porch or experience together.  In two years, I’ve never listened to someone offer a trade for more money, promotion, accomplishment or accolades.  Always another day lost in simplicity, in life little.

From there, in the hearing of their wanting words, clarity finds me.

There is a lust in my heart for tomorrow, a day warm and comfortable, when my name soars above the story and out of the chaos hovering in the day now.  And in that lust, life grows much bigger than little.

“What if you never reach the lover, Tomorrow?”  I hear that echoing sentiment threading through my thoughts sewing worth into every stitch that pulls today and tomorrow closer.  Burden is what the lover becomes overshadowing now and blurring the lines of what matters in the minutes and hours lived in the only guaranteed time given, now.

Nothing exists outside of here except memories and want.  The screaming kids do.  So does the pile of laundry and the stories told and smiles stolen before bedtime.  The job and the desk that you set at, the neighbors who live at a waving, not handshaking distance do too, but I miss them often in the hustle of life bigger.

Life bigger than twenty four hours, always.  Ahead.  Behind.  Bigger.

What’s discovered in a gazed life bigger than little are problems standing impenetrable, bigger than life.  It’s a farsighted want rooted intrinsic in the construct of life always almost lived.  One more reach, another late meeting, another deadline honored holy above all else needing attention.  Life leans forward, unbalanced and shallow.

The soil erodes unattended when the little important things are neglected.  Tomorrow will come in all its glory and you will be there when you are faithful to the smallness of today, ready for all that tomorrow brings.

I want the bending fidelity of Job, the blemished honesty of David, the limp of Jacob to live deeply now in both the blessing and curse.  The lover, Tomorrow, will find me.  She was made for me as she was for them, too.

:::::::

So I’m telling myself a few things often to size and resize life littler.

NOT A HURRIED PACE but a being; embracing whatever comes with the day.  I’ve learned to pray one prayer in my waking, “Father, thank you for all this day holds.”

UNTIE THOSE THINGS UNIMPORTANT and learn value in what really is important and irreplaceable; writing assignments for projects and my book and blog posts have been delayed and at the mercy of family.  I’d burn every book someday written by me for another chance to watch my daughters smile honestly.

VALUE YOURSELF LESS IMPORTANT in your pursuit of the day; involve others in your life and dreams and pursuit; One of the greatest personal exercises on help and humility was a survey I recently sent out to a few of those who have been close to me asking them to comment on what they see my strengths, weaknesses, inadequacies and shortcomings to be.  The longing for tomorrow was crowding our togetherness today.

:::::::

What does life littler than big look like to you?   Gaze upon it and grab it.