Ruth Haley Barton

I have been drawn to the story of Moses, because his hard-won strength of soul forged in his private encounters with God gave him the staying power he needed for the long haul of leadership. He made it all the way to the finish line of his life in leadership not because he knew how to think about leadership and conceptualize it in clever ways. He lasted because he allowed his leadership challenges to catalyze and draw him into a level of reliance on God that he might not have pursued had it not been for his great need for God which he experienced most profoundly in the crucible of leadership. He literally had no place else to go!

 

Dan McCollam

Some people think that putting yourself out there into the world is exalting yourself, but it’s not! In fact, it requires humility because we all know how painful it can actually be. It’s pride to not be vulnerable with your creativity. Because creativity is connected to the Divine nature, it is humble, and putting yourself out there is a step into humility. Releasing what’s inside you is not pride. It’s pride to hold onto it.

 

Angel Brook Proctor

Being in isolation for months called out the creativity in me. Looking at the same walls and wishing for my old normal made me dream up melodies to comfort my aching heart that longed for normalcy. I felt like I needed to reintroduce myself, I had been wearing the opinion of man and I had been moving too fast. Now I’m living in the “selah” and it’s like I can see everything better. Hindsight really is 2020.

Frederick Buechner

I think of painting and music as subcutaneous arts. They get under your skin. They may get deeper than that eventually, but it takes a while, and they get there to some extent tinged by if not diluted by the conditions under which you saw them or heard them. Writing on the other hand strikes me as intravenous. As you sit there only a few inches from the printed page, the words you read go directly into the bloodstream and go into it at full strength. More than the painting you see or the music you hear, the words you read become in the very act of reading them part of who you are, especially if they are the words of exceptionally promising writers. If there is poison in the words, you are poisoned; if there is nourishment, you are nourished; if there is beauty, you are made a little more beautiful. In Hebrew, the word dabar means both word and also deed. A word doesn’t merely say something, it does something. It brings something into being. It makes something happen. What do writers want their books to make happen?

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Alice Briggs

You are qualified to write, to paint, to create wealth, to do that crazy thing that stirs in your heart and ignites your dreams. You are worthy to do this thing. God did not make a mistake in choosing you. He knew exactly what He was doing, and He chose you for this task on purpose. This is the real you – it is your task. No one else can do it better than you.