This week our spiritual growth group is talking about resistance. The creative process seems to sashay with obstacles as often as I pass mile markers on the turnpike.
The space is not right for working in.
I am out of ideas.
No one wants this quilt/story/painting/photograph/song
anyway.
I lack inspiration.
Who am I to think I can do this?
It's too hard.
Yet it is possible that resistance is less of an indication that we should give up and more of a harbinger that a breakthrough is imminent.
One of my midwives told me that when a woman in labor screams "I can't!" it means she is about to. When you barrel through an unlit tunnel, the
blackness swallows you up right before you pop out into the daylight.
When I was little someone in my family started practicing isometric exercises. I thought it was odd that they would press against the door jam until their face got red. Obviously they would never win in the push against the beams. At least I hoped not. I knew the story of Sampson and things did not go well.
Unless of course you are looking at the wrong
measurement of winning. Maybe it is not simply about moving the foundation, or blocking the tackle, but about getting stronger.
Relationships sometimes look like there is no movement. None. But even the stuck ones are the means for becoming resilient.
