On Becoming an Imaginative, Female Theologian Who Loves the Arts, Continued

I left you yesterday at my mental breakdown of sorts. I said that I had tried to force the jigsaw pieces. That's not true. No, I hid pieces. They slid between sofa cushions, beneath the fridge, under the candy dish on the TV.

My jigsaw puzzle picture was incomplete.

Every Friday night, I went to the Dallas Symphony (the seminary provided free tickets through some donor or something). And every Friday night, I left full and empty at the same time. Full of music. Empty because it wasn't me anymore. I wasn't up there playing.

Midway through my second semester, I realized that something wasn't working. I had to collect the pieces. There wasn't a single turning point. I didn't sit down one night in front of a good movie and put together the puzzle. I found a piece here and a piece there, and when I walked by, I'd fit in that one piece.

To some extent, I'm still fitting in pieces one by one.

A professor here and there would give me the opportunity to write and record a song rather than a short paper.

Wait. I could express my theology in my creativity?

I began to meet other people, artists. Soon enough, a group organized a one-day arts festival on campus. We musicians put on a concert. Dancers dance. Painters displayed their work. A professor did a booth on storyboarding.

I wonder now if more than being able to use my music and creativity was the simple acknowledgement that I'm a musician, that I'm creative, and that's good.

Then the culmination: for my thesis, I asked, please, please, what do you think about me writing a musical? Oh, yes, they said. What a great idea!

I had hit the motherload.

I studied musicals (which meant going to musicals--what a shame), bringing back my college musicology training. I studied story form--Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler--and how to write a screenplay. I dug out my old orchestration books and reread biographies on my favorite composers.

And I doubted. What on earth did I think I was doing? Composing a musical? Lyrics, melodies, harmonies, orchestrations? Since when did I have the talent for this?

Simple answer: I didn't. I wrote it anyway.

I wrote a musical. The entire thing. I discovered story form. I rediscovered music. I rediscovered creativity.

Along the way, I learned something crazy--my creativity doesn't just affect how I express theology, it affects how I do theology. I look at the Bible and I see a story and stories. Perhaps all these other stories in our lives, fairy tales and Greek myths and Pulitzer Prize novels, give us a taste of the Ultimate Story, the Story that holds every element of a good story.

And that's beautiful.

Now, this discovery breathes within me. Because I'm part of that Story. My creative, imaginative, art-loving self is part of that Story. Can you see it? When I dance? When I play piano? When I write short stories and novels and Bible studies? When I eat? When I knit? When I watch a musical? When I meet a friend for coffee? When I do Pilates? When I cuddle next to my husband? When I worship with other believers at church? When I fold laundery--which, yes, happens occasionally? All of me is part of that Story, not just my theology. No, that's not right. My theology is part of all that, comes from all of that, influences all of that.

Yesteryday, I told you I didn't know where this would go. I knew that in this journey, my theme songs have moved from "La Vie Boheme" from Rent (with my favorite line, "to being an us, for once, instead of them," and which I still can't hear without dancing) to "TwentySomething" by Jamie Cullum with its confusion to "I'm Gonna Live Until I Die" by Frank Sinatra with its embrace of life and every part of it. I know that I couldn't delete any part of my journey without becoming someone else entirely.

I look above my computer and see pieces of me, chalk drawings of prayers for my future, pictures of my past, tickets of my two favorite musicals--Rent and Sweeney Todd--artwork of a lighthouse, a map of Africa, a map of Prague (one of my favorite places in the world), notes for my WIP, a working list for when we go camping, and a periodic table of chemicals (okay, so that's my husband's).

Created by God.

I have yet to talk about my journey to feminity, which is how this started. But my personality feeds who I am more than my gender. The gender warrants discussion, though, probably more in how others see me than how I see myself, so I guess I leave this

To be continued...