Breaking Out

As we were preparing my son's pile of things for him to leave for his first year at college, he refused to bring an umbrella. Young adults have bizarre perceptions of what makes them conspicuous when they would often prefer to just melt into the wall. As Anders was heading to Boston, the cold and desolate north where there is cold and rain, and he would be without me to remind him that it was cold and rainy so that he could then ignore me and go out unprepared in the cold and rain.....I wanted at the very least that he would have an umbrella. Who would have thought that the very suggestion of an umbrella would cause my son to shudder with the gruesomeness of my deviousness for even thinking such a thing. I could not imagine why the thought of an umbrella would cause such a reaction, particularly in Anders, who probably more than anyone I know could not care less what others thought of him.
"Really Anders," I insisted, "It is perfectly normal to carry an umbrella when it rains."
"I have no intention of being normal!" he barked.

Well now. This could probably be emblazoned on our door, the rallying cry of our family.
"Give me abnormality, or give me Death!"
"I only regret that I have but one not normal life to live for my country!"
"I think, therefore I am not normal!"
You get the picture.
I think this is the blessing and the curse of the creative, artistic soul. There is something that rebels deep inside against conformity, against sameness. There is a constant drive to be unique, to show a soul that sparkles in the fog. It is a blessing when the bubble of creative juices boil above the simmering mass and splatters a fresh thought to a world tired of the same old mush. It is a curse when the creative soul languors in weary exhaustion, every new thought depleted and dry, with the crushing realization that Shakespeare already said it, or else it is in the Bible. There is nothing new under the sun. We are living in a world of left overs.
And just when the creative soul is ready to hang up his beret, something bizarrely wonderful and new is unveiled.....creatures like the Dumbo Octopod are discovered a mile beneathe the sea- 6 foot long octopus like animals with fins that look like ears of giant elephants. Or the recently discovered ghost slug, a blind huge white carnivorous blob found in Wales. It feeds at night with razor sharp teeth. Ick. If that isn't the stuff of nightmares, I don't know what is. Picture yourself out for an evening stroll and being stalked by a slimy blind blob that then goes after your toes with a mouth full of razor blades. (I am canceling my trip to Wales....)However, who would have thought to make such a creature? Creativity is not dead!
So the very same Bible that bemoans that nothing new is under the sun in Ecclesiastes 1:9, also lifts our drowning spirits with this exaltation:

²² Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

²³ They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

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