Art or Craft ... Make or Reproduce?

Last night I fell asleep thinking about designs, options and directions for my future quilting projects. Visions of patterns I'd seen went through my head ... wild ideas that I've never seen from anyone else danced in my mind .... but more than anything, a fundamental question bobbed around rather annoyingly -- and it still remains unanswered. Maybe this is where art divulges from craft, I don't know. But here is the question I have to answer: am I content to replicate the patterns and projects I have seen countless people make before me, or am I brave enough to actually make a piece that comes from my soul?  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not at all a traditional person - my style is not typical from catalogs and patterns. While I can appreciate things like the following pictures:

  

Frankly, I have no interest whatsoever in making a quilt like this. Zip. Zilch. Nada. 

My quilting style is much more like this:

 But even these quilts are someone else's art quilts. It doesn't mean that I have to make a quilt that the world has never seen before .... or, does it? After all, why does the world need another replication of what already exists?

But then you get into the whole thought of gifts, or even just what to do with all the finished products. There's only so much wall space in my house to hang them. And bless my parents - they still display some of my earliest (read: most hideous) art projects from college. Well actually and before - my mom still has a Play-Dough "feast" I made in elementary school. But that's far from hideous. ;-) But I digress... back to, what would I do with all the quilts? If you get into selling them, then you have the temptation of being a slave to your audience and the thought of "Will this sell?" becomes at least some part of the subconscious design process.

I guess this is part of where my PICP comes into play .... while coming up with the design of what I will make next is one of the best parts for me, it's also the most arduous, difficult, and paralyzing. Arrrghhhh.

So, how do you balance all of this in your creative process, whether it's quilting, woodworking, architecture, goldsmithing, b-b stacking or any other creative endeavor?? Do you typically  work off patterns and make them just like you see them? Do you change it up somewhat? Do you completely wing it?? Is there a place for going straight from patterns at the beginning, to learn the tricks of the trade, and then at some point branch out and wing it in your own style? Hmmm .... meditations of a paralyzed creative mind.

My Condition Finally Has a Name: PICP

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders!! Thanks to a blog entry I just read, there is finally a name to a condition I suffer from all the time; it is called "Perfection-Induced Craft Paralysis." Whew! There, I said it! What are the symptoms of this chronic, and sometimes contagious disease, you ask? Take the quiz below --
Do you suffer from any of the following symptoms?

• Saving "the perfect" craft material for "the perfect" craft project - for so long that it becomes an antique in your collection
• You are terrified to make that first cut (into the fabric, wire, yarn, wood, etc) because you might make a mistake
• You end up organizing your craft room or alphabetizing your thread by color name instead of actually working on a craft project because you're stalling for time
• You have a paralyzing fear of deciding on a plan and getting to work on it, only to find a pattern you like better the very next day
• You have exorbitant amounts of pinned projects on Pinterest that you have yet to make
• You have a non-stop habit of nit-picking your work
• You don't know where 'attention to detail' turns into 'perfectionism' becomes 'OCD'

If you experience these symptoms on a regular basis when crafting, then you too may suffer from PICP. So what's the solution? How do you treat this condition?? I'm not a licensed therapist or anything, but I will tell you what I plan to do: JUST CUT IT ALREADY. The next time I sit down to make a project, I am going to look through the patterns I have and the pins I've already pinned and choose from those what I will make. I will recklessly grab fabric that would compliment the project and without shame or hesitation start to CUT. I'm not even going to wait for the next weekly sewing group to have someone more experienced tell me how to do it. I'm going for it!!! I have SO many projects unfinished at this point for the simple reason that I am afraid of messing them up. Fear no more! I shall blaze ahead!!!!

What about you? Do you suffer from PICP also?? What projects do you have currently collecting dust only because you're afraid you'll mess them up? How will you treat your PICP? 

Besides ... what's the worst that could happen?? :)

Why People Say, "I Don't Know How to Share My Faith" -- and Why I Don't Believe Them

In the eight years (almost 9!) I have been a follower of Jesus, I have heard many, many people say that they just don't know how to share their faith. In a nutshell, I just have to say that I don't believe that for a minute. Now, if you were to say that you don't know how to lead someone through the scriptures in order to teach them about Jesus and the impact He should have on our daily life, I might believe you a smidgen more - but even with that I think there are too many holes. For starters, do you have a biblical basis for your hope of eternal life? Have you studied the Bible enough to have a simple understanding of what you believe? Well, why couldn't you share that with someone?

Let me start by saying this: I am not judging anyone's heart or saying that they are liars or anything like that. I promise. I am simply saying that too many people have been convinced that sharing Jesus is for a 'select few' people who have a 'special calling' from God and even fewer who have the special pedigree or training in order to follow out their calling. Frankly, that's hooey. There is no biblical basis for those beliefs. "But wait!" you say. "What about the verse that says 'He gave a few to be evangelists'??" Well .... biblically speaking, what is an evangelist? It's someone like the apostle Paul, whose full-time vocation was to travel around doing what we today might call "church planting." (However, I hate to use that term. Our goal is not to plant churches -- our charge is to sow the seed of Jesus, and then God would cause the increase, and to those who turn their lives to God, Jesus would add them to His church. So a church is not the goal - it is a byproduct.) Paul travelled around speaking the Word of God wherever he went. He would sometimes accept money from Christians to support himself, but many times he would work in his tent-making trade so as not to be a burden where he was. I believe the longest he was in one spot was 2-3 years. Hardly what we have today with lifetime professional preachers staying in one spot preaching to believers. But we have accepted this professional clergy mindset, believing that it takes some seminary degree in order to preach. What a divergence with what we see in scripture!! In the New Testament we see that those who stuck by Jesus and learned from Him went everywhere speaking in His Name!!  In fact, when everyday people spoke with the wisdom of Christ, it astonished the hearers. We read, "Now as [the Jewish leaders] observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus." When you talk, can people recognize that you have been with Jesus? Do we still trust that God's word is our power? "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes!" We can too often rely on our own wisdom and strength and forget that it is only the gospel & power of God that will convict people's hearts. Not doctorates of theology. Not masters of divinity. The gospel, the whole gospel, and nothing but the gospel.

So if our first hang-up is that we have accepted the false idea of the professional clergy mindset, the second mistake we make is believing that only certain, specially-called people need to be sharing their faith. Yet the NT says, "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." If we understand that every Christian is a priest and every Christian is part of God's holy people, then we have to also understand that we were each saved in order to proclaim His excellencies. And again, "As for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works." And what about what we all call "The Great Commission?" Do we really believe that is our commission - individually? Do we live our lives and view every interaction with every person in our lives as our opportunity to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation?"

Related to the "experienced only need apply" mindset, what about this: do you know someone personally whom you would describe as a person dedicated to sharing Christ & has produced fruit from it? Do you know someone who has a passion for sharing a relationship with Jesus? Would you say they are "good at it?" Well then, have you asked them to teach you how they do it? There is a very real reason I ask this. My husband is known by virtually everyone as a passionate sharer of Christ. He has sown the seed of the kingdom countless times & in countless ways. He lives & breathes to speak of the love of Jesus. Many, many people are now children of God as a direct result of what he has shared with them. Yet, of all the people who have said, "I can't share Christ like you can. I'm no good at it - I just don't know how" -- not one of them have ever asked Danny personally to help them learn. And even those who claim that their one special gift is hospitality (which I still have yet to find in scripture) and that Danny's gift must be teaching, not one of them have come to him and said, "I'm not good at teaching, but I'm good at hosting. So would you mind if I host the people and you come over and teach? Oh, and also, while I'm there with you while you teach, I desire to learn to teach also. Will you help?" If you defined the word "gift" by most people's usage of it, you'd come to see that it's really just a synonym for "comfort zone."

Besides all of that, here is the #1 reason I don't truly believe people who say, "I don't know how to share Christ":

Guys: if you were driving past a car lot and saw this:

What would you do? How excited would you be?? Say you assume (as most of us would) that it was a scam - there's no way something that good would be available that cheap. But you stop in to talk to the salesman anyway. That's when you find out that for only $1 period -- no strings attached -- you can hand over four quarters and drive home a Dodge Viper in mint condition. But then you learn that there is a whole FLEET of these Vipers available -- you can call everyone you know and they too can get a new Viper for only $1!! Let me ask you this, would you know how to tell your friends about this UNBELIEVABLE opportunity??? My guess is, you would. You don't have to have a degree from MIT in mechanics to explain to your friend how awesome this car is. On the odd chance that your friend has never heard of a Dodge Viper, don't you think you'd be able to explain the pure awesomeness of this vehicle??

Now, ladies - (and yes, I realize I am being totally stereotypical here) .... imagine you saw the following advertisement:

Imagine that you hear of a company that provides:

• The planning, prep & clean-up of 3 meals a day, from a custom-made menu of your choice
• Full-service professional house cleaning, done at least once a week
• Professional landscaping and yard maintenance, including fresh-cut flowers & home-grown vegetables on your table daily
• On-call masseuse to relieve the stresses of your day

All of this for the total cost of $1 a year. Period. Would you snatch it up?? What if you then kept reading and saw that the company employs hundreds of workers and can service thousands of homes for the same low price? Would you know how to get every one of your friends on the phone and tell them about this??

Now, guys and gals, imagine that you saw on these advertisements that although there's no limit to how many people can take advantage of this offer -- the offer could cease to be available at any moment. Without notice, the company could stop advertising and the sports car and household services would go back to their regular price, which is way more than you could ever afford. How would you describe your level of urgency to get this message across to all of your friends? How would you tell them not to put off looking into this? Wouldn't you want to tell everyone you could, as fast as you could?

How much more urgency should we have in sharing the Way to receive eternal life? Although Jesus is offering the free gift of His grace, without any notice at all we could be at the end of our life and standing before the Judge, and we will have to explain to Him why His unbelievably good offer was not worth our consideration. And, I also believe that we will have to give an account to Jesus why we were excited to tell our friends about a good sale on laundry detergent at WalMart, but we never told that friend about the free gift of eternal life.

I hope if you're reading this and you too have said, "I don't know how to share my faith," that you don't feel like I'm beating you up or calling you a liar. I really am not. I'm simply trying to help us all take a step back and look at the situation logically. Our job is not to "convince" someone to believe what we believe - our charge is simply to share with them why we believe what we believe. Do you have a reason for your hope? Do you have a changed life? That is what we are supposed to share! Jesus once healed a demon-possessed man and then told the man, "Go and tell what great things the Lord has done for you, and how the Lord had mercy on you." That's all the man knew. Isn't that enough?