Song Stories From the Edge: Track 12 – Everyone's Waiting

I feel inclined to leave this song open to a freer interpretation, as several conversations I’ve had about it have gone various directions, and I’d like to keep it that way. Thus, I’ll keep the commentary simple.

I read a highly recommended book last year called The War of Art, and in it author Steven Pressfield challenges artists and creatives of all kinds to face the “Resistence” between who they are and who they could be… and to overcome it without excuse. He explains, “We are not born with unlimited choices… Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal that we imagine we ought to be, but to find
out who we already are and become it.” That process reads very romantically but lives out very sacrificially, doesn’t it?

I hesitate to call myself an artist.

Maybe it’s because of the stereotypes that come with it. Maybe it’s because I don’t give myself to that artistic expression on a full-time vocational basis, and somewhere inside me I think I should. Most likely, it’s simply because if I call myself an artist, I embrace the inherent pressure to create and be creative… and that accountability is some high pressure stuff (that’s right, I said “stuff,” lay off me).

Maybe it’s just to fuel my momentum against Resistance, but I like to imagine everyone in the world waiting for some of the songs and stories inside of me to emerge. We spend so much effort trying to perfect our voice before we make it heard, but perhaps instead we should raise our voice and find it in the process. There is a war to making art of any kind, and I would argue that if you are holding back on the creative expression inside of yourself, you’re limiting God’s own creative expression in the earth. What if He deposited the next “Blowing In the Wind” or To Kill A Mockingbird or poverty-eliminating business idea inside of you, but your own insecurity – your constant complicating – your self-imposed distraction –  is keeping it buried inside?

Everyone’s here, and they’re waiting… Start acting like a son and sing.