Abundance, scarcity, productivity, creativity

On the general principle of ‘when I buy a Beetle, I see everyone else has too,’ this week Charlie over at Productive Flourishing is asking:

What’s the relationship between your patterns and the quality of what you create and experience? What changes to your patterns and defaults might produce better experiences and work for you?

And in Monday May 2nd’s email, Abbey of the Arts‘ Christine Valters Paintner commented:

When we commit to the contemplative path, we are called to spaciousness and presence rather than rushing and productivity, choosing a simple life in the midst of an abundance of riches[…].

Huh.

From where my heart sits right now, spaciousness sounds like exactly the Right Thing. And to an extent, playing with spaciousness is what bangs me up against a back-end-loaded day. A spacious, flexible morning and spacious, self-directed afternoon have frequently turned into an “oh, snap!” evening.

So perhaps spaciousness is the goal. But it seems a little more mindfulness, that friend of presence, might scaffold that spaciousness a bit better, so I can avoid the rush.

Yesterday worked nicely, you see. Yesterday I wrapped up blogging in the late afternoon. I then puttered around, eating a few digital frogs, until dinner. After finishing, My Sweetie suggested a walk (steps: check)…and there was still time to loop back and start my Bible lesson sequence for the week. All very satisfying in its Scots-Irish checkbox completeness!

But spaciousness,
and creativity:
the Bible passage I was working on pulled a stick out of a dam of images. It was late (for me) by then, so I scribbled some place-holders, left everything open,

and right after breakfast drafted a poem that I think has some legs. First leggy poem since March.

There was time to think. Time to wait. And thus time to play!

[They] had sought Him earnestly with their whole desire, and He let them find Him. So the LORD gave them rest on every side. —2 Chronicles 15:15

Two days, one of which isn’t over, are anecdote. Not data. But mindful scaffolds sound intriguing. I’ve even used them before, with some success.

Huh.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.