I find that particularly during the season of cold and ice, I need to find something to keep me busy that is productive but does not involve the structured planning side of my brain.
I need time everyday to just let my mind run wild, free from the constraints of schedule, housework, meetings, ministry and the needs of people.
I find such time in prayer.
Prayer for me is becoming an exercise in waiting on the Lord for inspiration. I do pray for people and things in my prayer time, but a vast amount of my time is spent sitting in the presence of the Lord listening to His Scripture and waiting on Him to tell me what He will. This I am coming to believe is the genesis of my creativity.
I also find the space of recreative freedom in reading.
I am learning to break my reading into two categories….Story and Improvement.
Improvement reading is the reading I do for work: It includes leadership books, ministry manuals, reports etc. I love this type of reading but it is decidedly not something that sets my mind free. This kind of reading creates the structures I need to be successful at work. I am just starting a new book called, LEADING CHANGE.
![Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author by [John P. Kotter]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41a2i1XdzzL.jpg)
The type of reading that I need to do to set my mind to run wild and free is story. I have worked my way through several stories this year….
And the one I am currently reading….
But reading is not enough to truly set my mind free from the shackles the world creates for it.
Prayer leads me to creating something of my own from the depths of my own soul to offer the world.
Sometimes this comes out as sketches.
Sometimes it comes out as photography….
Most often it comes out as the written word, here in a blog or in a story or a poem of my own.
I heard from my editor this week and she said the edits for my upcoming book, PORK CHOPS WITH THE SENTINELS OF AZATAN are on target to be completed by early spring.
That book has been my creative outlet for several years and now it is about to enter the organization phase. I am sensing that as I subject this work to the publication process, I also have to prepare myself a new outlet for the creative side of my being.
I am already praying about it.
Lillie-Put 
Oh, definitely, all the time. If I don’t leave that world, anxiety would build up and leaves me feel like I’m walking on a tightrope. Watching TV, reading, writing, or just listening to an audiobook would usually get me away from that world, even if it’s just temporary.
Yes and those temporary suspensions of reality can be real life savers can’t they?
Absolutely.
Joseph you and I have known each other for a long time and in many things we are of like minds. Letting your mind go to find creativity isn’t one of them. As a person whose mind is often in hyperdrive I find that too broad a canvas paralyzes me. If I limit my focus to a simple task I am more likely to be creative but it is not guaranteed. So as of late I have assigned myself simple tasks to performed almost daily that build on each other to create something bigger and more complex or at least that is what I think I am doing.
Oh this is so good Jody! It is leading me to another post which will be based off of an on-line conversation I had with Wendy-lady. It is about the idea of spending small increments of time each day being personally creative on specified projects.