I Won't Stop Singing.
reclaiming creativity, art, and voice
A teacher of mine lately has been David Hayward, also known as the artist NakedPastor. His art “expresses the stories and struggles of spiritual refugees and those who question, doubt, or reject the confines of religion. Each piece encourages important conversations and acts as a catalyst for critical thinking.” He does this through simple cartoons, graphic design, and expert drawings and watercolor paintings.
He recently started a new series called “Timber”, with a woman learning to express herself and learning how to stay free. He says getting free and staying free are not the same thing.
In a recent conversation I got to join with him on Zoom, a small group of us contemplated this watercolor painting. He was a fly on the wall while a handful of people shared what we were noticing, what we think Timber might be saying or doing, and what feelings the painting brings up for us.
I sit with the painting for a second. I notice the wind blown sky and hair first. I realize Timber is on the edge of a cliff in the wild. Then I see the guitar in her hand. As I do, he tells us why the painting is called “I Won't Stop Singing.” It’s a painting about determination, grief, wistfulness.
I Won’t Stop Singing.
I am no stranger to the tragedy of losing my voice, my creativity, my songs, and, as an artist, having to relearn how to reclaim them. I know it this to be especially difficult when music or art or creativity is related to the pain or loss.
I think having to stop or be unable to make our art and expression is the inevitable result of having our gifts not fully realized, under-utilized, or when we’re prevented from walking in our true freedom because something or someone outside of us said our art wasn’t needed, welcome, “right”, or good enough. Or maybe the true essence of our art was consumed, abused, or co-opted entirely by something or someone else? Or we had to do it a certain way or in a certain style to be accepted in a particular space or culture? Or our art lost its spark and passion and meaning for us? Or we used our gifts in the way wrong way? Or our art has meant something that we’re no longer willing to be held accountable for and we don’t know how to get it back?
Artists and makers who have freed themselves to live their art are special people. When we see or hear that, we know it in our flesh. The love of art can feel so familiar — personal, beautiful, and meaningful. Our body and soul move to accept it as true. We delight at the beauty of it and toward those willing to make and share it with us.
My friend Jess, who is the pastoral leader of Charis Collective in San Antonio, Texas, says, “Specific gifts are given to specific people based on the needs of the community and for the common good.” And she says that we should “be clear about our gifts so we can figure out together how we can use them to [orient] our lives to make the world a little better place.” I think this certainly is relevant to artist too. When we use our creative gifts for the common good, the fruit will be there. It’ll be sustainable to us and hopefully to others. It’ll be aligned and integrated with what we were made to do. This frees us to make the art we were made to live.
I don’t have the same story as Timber or David. I’m not a pastor and worship leader who left ministry and spent 20 years trying to play a song that didn’t sound like worship music. But I am an artist who was used up by church ministry and missional work when I chose a good path to serve good people to orient my life around making the world a little better place. The path had to change because my community changed. I had changed. The world had changed. I had to leave some things behind and I could only pack so much with me while I figured out how to untangle from the misuse and a misguided path. I had to keep leading, keep creating, keep healing, keep loving the world into a little better place.
These days I'm leaning wholly into integrity and learning to find my voice again. I’m realizing the I have things to say — I just can’t bear for it to sound filtered and conditioned anymore. I haven’t been free to sing my song the way only I can, and the big grief is this: that was my only job. Along the way, I just accepted many other jobs and affirmation of other gifts instead of the ones I knew I needed to be birthing into the world. I know how much the world desperately needs art and creativity, and I know how much I desperately needed to reorient.
Because that’s true, I’m braving the wilderness trying to find my words, by my own design. It’s a slow, uncomfortable process, but on the other side I think there's light and lots of love I've ignored while I chased other "good" things. I’m waking back up, and it’s reorienting my life. I’m wandering toward radical inclusion, wonder and possibility, and reconnecting honestly to my center.
It’s making me into a hopeful human again.
I keep catching glimpses of connection and hope and creativity in my real life, and it’s just too beautiful to ignore how I see them now. And they’re the things I want to sing and write about because it’s what art and healing wakes me up to. These are what’s saving my life1 right now:
Visiting friends at Charis Collective in San Antonio who are creating a justice-centered faith community that prioritizes the flourishing of their actual neighborhood and community members.
Songs sung with friends about home and light, both of whom remind me I am not as lost in the dark as I can sometimes feel.
My small group, made up of people doing the brave, messy, incredible work of loving each other and the world through all the best and lowest of life. It feels like the truest thing I’ve ever done.
A weekend retreat centered on restoration, renewal, and lots of coffee communions.
Celebrating the coming of my best friend’s second child, which is making me an “aunt” again.
Visiting my older sister and witnessing how compassion, resilience, and vision makes a family.
Watching my younger sister get engaged and plan her wedding and live out her dreams.
Serendipitous timing to be traveling to the same city as a treasured friend and get to sit by a river and just share a moment of life again.
Quality time with old friends who have known now many iterations of me and love the current one the most.
Long walks and coffee dates and even weekend retreats with friends who also appreciate lingering over deep conversation.
How my pup, Prudence, made a full recovery from a huge surgery, regained strength to walk, and romps in the deep Colorado snow again.
Practicing “angry yoga”, which is where I put on grunge rock music (like Nirvana) and pretend to start to do yoga but am hacking my nervous system response, so mostly end up doing cardio or HIIT workouts to get that energy out of my body. Or maybe it is yoga, because Jessamyn Stanley taught me yoga really means to bring together, to join the light and dark, and that yoga is every moment of life. So, yeah, I think it’s still yoga.
How absurd the premise of “Jackass Forever” the movie is, but relishing in 20 years of genius comedy and hearing the symphony of laugher in a packed movie theater. Levity exists and should be celebrated.
Conversations with gatherers and artists who are kindreds and don’t let beautiful, sacramental things go unappreciated.
And finally, the truth that good art allows access to feelings and thoughts we can’t consider otherwise. I love that about art and its integral role in making us more human. It’s inherently spiritual. It’s why I’m an artist. It’s reorienting for me, making me more vibrantly, vitally human, which is a collective good we all get to share in.
Writing is the song in my heart and the guitar in my hand that I lugged out into the wilderness, wondering if I’d ever be able to pluck around on again. It still makes me wonder if I sound like me, which is a weird thing to write. Maybe you’re in a different season lifetime than you were last time you used your gifts, made your art, or published your thoughts and words. I know I am, and I’ll take company for the wandering.
For the wonderers and wanderers,
Shelby
“Saving my life” is a practice from Barbara Brown Taylor’s memoir “Leaving Church”. Most of us can easily point out what’s killing us, but few of us pay attention to what’s giving us life. Once when Taylor was invited to speak at an event, her host told asked her to tell them “what is saving your life right now.”