“The check or the email?”

A friend who’d read my blog entry about my book asked: “So, what did you decide – the check or the email?”

It reminded me of when someone is telling a story to make a point and I’m listening not to the message but to the plot and they get to the end and I ask, “So . . . what happened to the chicken?”

My friend was responding to the entry I wrote about trying to decide which affected me more, the large check I got for sales of my cross book, or the email I received sharing the impact the book had on one person’s relationship with God.

The answer, I told her, must be neither. I must walk looking at God. Take this step looking at God, take that step looking at God. Don’t be distracted by the circus twirling plates on the sideline—just look at God.

Truth is, it wouldn’t do me any good to pant after money, anyway. Stubborn, dedicated to being my own person, call it what you will—I don’t do commercial very well. When I was full-throttle into the crosses, I’d occasionally come up with a process for making many crosses of the same, popular style. Right away, I’d stall, never implementing the idea. Finally I realized that it was the coming of creativity that motivated me. Assembly-line it, and I lost interest. Same with my writing. As my agent put it before he resigned from representing me, “I haven’t been successful in getting you to write anything that will sell.”

More seductive is panting after spirituality. Being earnest, caring, patient, accepting, trying to plant those footsteps in just the right way—it’s all good, until I find myself easing into awareness of my presentation, my impact. Sometimes when I look back on how important I’ve been about God, it makes me wince.

So, this blog that began with a tribute to Billy Preston—here we go round in circles, nothing from nothing—continues to roll. Walking my own tightrope, constructed of my own efforts to respond tp what I hear, hoping not to step on yours.

Here’s to creative synthesis . . .