spiritual retreat notes, and no youtube

i don’t think Jehovah requires my life to become small—just ordered. and this past weekend reminded me that mine could use a little reordering.

i attended my annual three-day spiritual retreat, which was packed full of Bible instruction and all kinds of nourishment. what i walked away with—and honestly, this might be what i always walk away from these retreats with—is that i need to refocus.

you can see that theme running through a lot of the journal entries on this site. between business, wellness, marriage and my creative endeavors, the things i do to maintain my friendship with Jah can sometimes become routine. they’re still there. i’m still doing them. but there’s a difference between maintaining a routine and actively nurturing a friendship.

so my goal for this new service year is this: simplify my life around what matters spiritually.

oddly enough, one of my biggest challenges to doing that might be my creative pursuits.

when something good starts competing with something more important

it’s interesting because my need to create no doubt comes from the Creator himself. i’m 100% created in his image. creating is part of what makes me feel alive. i enjoy the beauty of life and love to capture it, whether it’s through a photograph or the use of color on a client’s website. i’m a designer. photographer. writer. thinker. i notice things. i make connections. i beautify things. i like turning an idea over in my mind until i find a way to express it. i don’t want to lose any of that.

but lately, my newest creative thought has been to start a youtube channel.

the idea made sense to me. i’m in this season of wanting to live more out loud. i have so many thoughts that never make it outside of my own head, and i liked the idea of sharing more of my thinking and visually documenting my growth and my life.

but after reviewing the instruction i received this weekend, i’m pushing pause on that idea indefinitely.

i was asked a question: would this particular pursuit support the life i’m trying to build, or compete with it?

i already know the answer.

the problem isn’t creativity.

at the same time, i don’t want to simplify my life so aggressively that i eliminate meaningful creative work that actually feels purposeful to me. My Heavenly Father doesn’t require my life to become small. just ordered. so i’ve been thinking about what that looks like for me.

what container lets me create without requiring me to become a content-production company? what form of creating leaves me feeling most like myself without crowding out the things i’ve already decided matter more?

and maybe the better question is: where is my creativity already trying to go?

there’s something interesting happening with my writing. these little journal entries and essays of mine. i keep coming back to the pursuit of writing.

and i think that’s significant because returning to writing seems to give me the deepest access to my own thinking. when i write, i can sit with an idea. turn it over. question it. follow it somewhere unexpected. sometimes i start writing about one thing and realize halfway through that something entirely different has been bothering me.

that’s the creative practice.

and maybe video, if it ever becomes part of my life, is ultimately just a delivery mechanism for some of that thinking rather than the creative practice itself.

that changes the question considerably.

maybe my creative ecosystem is actually this:

live → notice → write → occasionally share.

rather than:

live → find content → film → edit → thumbnail → publish → promote → analyze → repeat.

those are two profoundly different lives. one allows creativity to come out of my life. the other has the potential to make my life serve the content. and i know which one i want.

protect the source before expanding the distribution.

so that’s where i’ve landed.

my spiritual routine feeds me. my actual life gives me something to think about. my writing helps me understand what i think. and then—sometimes—a thought becomes worth sharing publicly. that’s enough. i don’t have to turn every observation into content. i don’t have to build a new platform simply because i could be good at it. and every creative interest doesn’t have to become a new responsibility.

so the move for now is to listen to my gut. amp up my spiritual routine. see what’s left. and keep writing. because creativity is important to me and i don’t want to lose it.

live beautifully. live boldly. live out loud.