Creativity and Martyrdom

 The Feast of Stephen follows the Day of the Nativity like some sort of reminder that you, o human, are dust and to dust you shall return. 

I think there's always a wee bit of lent in every season. 

If you read the account of Stephen's martyrdom in the Acts of the Apostles, there's a part of me that can't help but say he was asking for it. He was abrasive, accusatory (which in the biblical languages can be read as satanic), and just not very smart in how he shared the Gospel. 

But I wasn't there. I don't know how it really went down. I kind of hate how it leads some of us moderns into a martyr complex, how some of us want to get some adverse affect (though maybe not a full on martyrdom) for our witness to Jesus so that we can claim favor. It seems like a poor use of scripture, honestly. But maybe it wasn't as abrasive and boastful as I read it. I hope there was some humility in Stephen's proclamation. 

The desert fathers and mothers always emphasized humility. 

One abba or another said we should always keep death before us, lest we become complacent. If that isn't a hard way to live, I don't know what is. 

I have to say, though, I get complacent. I say I have this calling on me as a writer and performer and I am in a place of no urgency about it. Except for when I am. It comes in spurts. But as I wrote in the last post, this has not been a year of great creativity. 

There is a myth of the artist as martyr. Here, I think of myth not as an untrue story but as a story that reveals some deeper truth. Myth as revealing archetype and pattern. And the true thing is that art making costs. If we do anything true, those who'd rather not see it recoil from us. Which isn't what we generally get in the art game for, to be honest. There's a part of "look at me, look at what I made" too often so close to the surface. That's not humility.

The humble artist answers the call to create, to reveal the world. The revelation may be as the world is, or it may be as the world could be. I think both are valid. Both have a prophetic aspect to it. Both have an aspect of bearing witness to the world, about the world. 

This martyr's feast day, the second day of Christmas, has me thinking about the ways following Jesus has cost me (and hasn't), how following the creative call has cost me (and hasn't). The ways I've died and thew ways I've found life. I'm thinking about the humility to create. 

The abbas and ammas would tell us humility is the way to love. I wonder on this martyr's day if I have the love to show the world what it is and what it could be.