Objectivity...

"The pride of your heart has deceived you..." (Obadiah 3)

So how do we ever know what we're up to?

(oh by the way, that's my new car up there...)

It's a serious problem for the spiritually seeking as well as for the creatively working. I can't count the number of times I've seen the same question from new writers; "How do I know if my work is any good?"  The answer from the grizzled vets is typically some version of "You just know." And if they're feeling grumpy that day they add that if you don't know the difference between good work and bad, you're a poseur.

So how about that kind of 'knowing' in my spiritual life?

Could cause you some stress, no?  Not knowing (for sure) if your spirituality is truly vital or not.  That kind of insecurity leads to all manner of disfunction in the organized Church (and it's not 'cause the organized Church is 'bad' it's just that any organized thing is typically more full of people than a non-organized thing and where there are people [in whatever context--corporate boards anyone?] there is dark and dysfunction) and on your average movie set.

Why is the starlet freaking about her close up and driving the makeup artist crazy?'Cause the starlet thinks (deep down in the honest inside) she's ugly.  Why have I often flared in defense of my work at the first sign of criticism? Deep inside I believe I'm a hack.  I've heard the same confession from folks at the top of the show biz heap.  They keep waiting to get 'found out'.  Keep waiting for someone to kick them out 'cause they suck.

I wonder if people in Church feel that way.

(what if they found out about my...[insert your weakness here]?)

With my movie (www.thestormiscoming.com) I've had the hardest time in the past year (as we slowly inch towards release) being objective about it.  I'm so close to it, I can't really tell if it's any good.  I remember reading a quote from Spielberg talking about 'E.T' where he said the film had given him a great gift twenty years later by allowing him to see it with fresh eyes, like he'd had nothing to do with it. M. Night says (in his biography) he sees all his movies that way once he starts screening them for audiences.

Deep inside I don't believe him.

So you read a quote like the one off the top of this post and it either drives you to work, legalism, and insecurity or it drives you to relax into grace (a gift you don't deserve...).  Look, I am bad.  I am lazy.  I am also good and hard working.  I've never met anybody who's all one thing.  That's why they say we're "mixed up".

Call me a bag 'o tricks.

And the whole of me, good, bad, ugly, good-looking is the thing that has been redeemed.  I'm covered.  Notice 'covered'?  Doesn't mean the practical bits of me have radically changed over night but all of it has been covered (like with a blanket) so that when I'm looked at by someone who sees life through 'redemption-oriented' glasses I'm seen as a mix-up covered in a fix-up.

(I like that: 'mix-up covered in a fix-up' you could rap that...)

You embrace that and you get to work.

Nothing's every going to be perfect.  I'm o.k though, as I am.  Have been made so. So I work at what I've been made to work at, doing my best somedays and a percentage of my best others.  All through it I keep moving forward (one foot in front of the other...) knowing that all I have is my sense of things.

Maybe someone conservative is thinking about 'objective truth' here.  I believe in it. But I know I see it through my view.  Am I a relativist?  I am.  Is 'Truth' relative?  I don't think so.  'Truth(s)' can be.  "Truth" (like gravity, justice, entropy, life) can't be.  The tree's gonna' grow whether you believe it or not.  A starving child shouldn't be, no matter how enlightened or dark you are.

So your work is never going to be objectively 'good' or 'bad'.  It's just work.

Your spirituality is never going to be objectively 'good' or 'bad' 'cause it's inextricably caught up in your subjective life and that's why it had to be covered. You can't (under any circumstances) make it 'right'.  

So why bother?

'Cause you love it.

Don't you love it?  Don't you love touching Heaven?  Don't you love the majesty of it?  Don't you love the magic of writing, of collaborating, of rendering images on-screen crafting a facsimile of life?  

Isn't it glorious?

That's why I love my car.  (And I know some people find my ongoing love-affair with the things abhorrent...I rest in knowing that their subjective view is stupid [!]) 

It's beautiful and I don't deserve it.

My heart may be deceitful but it's covered.

So, back to work.

T