the strong discipline tree

I've been coming to terms with some of my frustrations this evening. The primary one is my lack of passion for anything lately. Its very unlike me. I tend to be an overly passionate, intense person. Its not that I don't have moments of excitement or surges of creativity but lately those moments seem to be short lived and peripheral. I think I need more solitude, and more discipline. I suppose that would help a great deal. Especially with writing and with prayer.

I was talking with my friend George tonight about the curse of the muse. Once you have a muse it seems impossible to create (or write in my case) without one. But in reality I think true art comes from within rather than from without. Depending on some outside muse can easily hinder us from ever really improving. Not that outside inspiration is bad, I just think it can become a stumbling block if it becomes the well from which we draw out the essentials of what we are attempting to create. Discipline seems to be a requirement for genuine improvement in any creative activity. It forges ahead even when we want to sit down in the dust of our dry spells and wait for rain. If we didn't have discipline to move us forward we'd die of thirst before we ever reached another well of fresh water. Discipline helps us grow like trees; unnoticeable and slow, but to great strength and stature in the end. I found some truth and encouragement tonight on the subject of strength and prayer from one of Rilke's letters to his wife.

"Life has unending possibilities of renewal. Yes, but this too; that the using of strength in a certain sense is always increase of strength also; for fundamentally we have to do only with a wide cycle: all strength that we give away comes over us again, experienced and altered. Thus it is in prayer. And what is there, truly done, that is not prayer?"

I think Rilke got this right, at least in his summation of strength and the way giving it also produces it. But I think it produces strength of a different kind; the kind that helps us endure, like trees, for many years through all sorts of weather. And perhaps prayer is like this too. The more we pray and discipline ourselves to it, the more our own prayers enrich and strengthen our spirits to pray more, and as a result we grow.

My problem with disciplines like these is that I lack patience. I would like to make an attempt to find regular periods of solitude in my life. I think I need to stop watching so much television, for starters. I think it would quiet my mind and spirit. Hopefully, I will be able to say as Rilke wrote to Rodin that, "I am able more and more to make use of that long patience you have taught me by your tenacious example; that patience which, disproportionate to ordinary life which seems to bid us haste, puts us in touch with all that surpasses us."

I think this patience is key.

I hope to write more this week. Come back again soon. :)