From Reluctantly to Faithfully Creative

Note: The personal essay below is most of this podcast episode. You may either listen or read. Your choice!

As I’ve attempted to move toward a more regular pattern of writing, I’ve decided to change the name of this Substack newsletter and also change the name and essentially re-launch my podcast. Both will now be called “Faithfully Creative.”

My aim is to stay on the same trajectory that I’ve been on—writing and speaking about creativity, imagination, faith, spirituality, theology, God. The banner of “Faithfully Creative” is broad enough to encompass all of this, but hopefully it will provide a bit of focus as well.

Before I lay out some specifics, I have a small confession, and then a bit of a personal story.

First, the confession…

As I look back on my life, a lot of the time I have been reluctantly creative. It may not seem like that to the outsider looking in. But the outsider can’t really see fully in, can they? They can’t see my hesitancy, fear, my almost-devotion to second-guessing.

I’ve been in this world long enough to know know that imposter syndrome is real and won’t ever fully go away. I also know that I do better when I lean into creativity. I am more fully alive when I engage in creative practice. I am most myself when I have regular occasions to explore something new.

This confession is reason enough to call this newsletter and associated podcast “Faithfully Creative.” The name is aspirational for me. I want to be less reluctant and more faithful toward the creative call.

I promised you a story…

I was a very shy kid and teenager. I certainly never would have wanted to be on a stage and yet when I look back I am surprised by the stages I ended up on.

My entire grade nine english class had to be in the play. Our teacher, Ms. Peterson, wrote it with some help from William Shakespeare. It was called “The Shakespearean Spell,” and it had two modern-day narrators who provided the thread that strung together scenes from various Bard plays that featured the supernatural.

We, of course, had the witches from Macbeth and Hamlet’s ghost. A Midsummer Night’s Dream provided comic relief. I can still remember my friend having to play the part of Bottom and kind of loving it, especially the scene where he got affectionate attention from Titania. I ended up having two roles from different plays. Other than my horror at having to perform in front of actual people, I was basically okay being Hamlet. I wasn’t as thrilled to play Oberon who is dubbed “king of the fairies.” I was shocked that my fellow mid-1990s teen thespians didn’t make more innapropriate jokes than they did.

After the rousing success of the grade nine play, a few of my friends got the acting bug. At least I think they did ,because in grade ten and eleven they went about pressuring the same english teacher to let us do more.

We did a read through of “The Lady’s Not for Burning” by Tom Stoppard but I can’t remember putting it on. We did end up performing scenes from “The Princess Bride.” We chose the part where the man in black bests the swordsman, the giant, and the so-called smart one. I got to play the “smart one” who lost to the man in black in the battle of wits to the death, a role played in the movie by a short bald guy. Perfect for my lanky fifteen-year-old almost 6 foot 3 frame. Still, this one was fun.

In grade eleven, we put on “As You like It.” More Shakespeare!

Anyone in the school could audition for “As You like It,” but the cast was mostly my friends. I perhaps should mention here that I never saw myself as the centre of my friend group. I was by far the most reserved out of all of them. But, I was also the only one out of all of them who sang. I’d always been in the school choir, I had sung in church, and my family sang together, The Beatles and “The Sound of Music” on long road trips most memorable.

I had sung some solos before with school choir and I hadn’t yet died on the spot, so I put my name in for the part of Amiens, the singer. He had barely any lines besides two songs. That suited me just fine. A very minor part was perfect for me.

Two people who were not part of my friend group were cast as Orlando, the lead. They would act in the role on two nights each of a four night run. At least that was the plan. A number of weeks into rehearsals and the two male leads had only shown up a handful of times. Something about hockey practices and prior commitment to the team.

Ms. Peterson (still the same teacher) came to me and asked if I would take on the role of Orlando. Every fibre of my being said no. But somehow my mouth didn’t translate what the fibre of my being was screaming. In fact, my mouth didn’t say much of anything while the gracious and ever-encouraging Ms. Peterson went on to tell me that she thought I would do an excellent job.

Somehow,