I Am No Mother Teresa. Issue 19

"Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work." Chuck Close

I have been suffering a creative drought. My brain on life support, my eyes blinded, words escaping me, on a flight to somewhere else. An October image taken from a SoCal window, captures how I feel. Sad, distorted and colorless, an artist (am I?) looking at a faded world through a dusty curtain.  

In these past weeks I have been filling the days with the noises of busyness, my nights with excesses of food and drink, my body fed an extra 8 pounds. 

While I have waited. For a force. To lift me. For time. To find inspiration. 

Or deliver a verdict. The artist has left the building.

Until. This morning I was reminded of Mother Teresa, and the secret she hid. Afflicted with a deep sense of God’s absence for the last half-century of her life, she kept showing up anyway, for FORTY years. In the absence of felt faith, she maintained the actions and principles of it, and created goodness.

Yes I know, don't bother to tell me. I am no Mother Teresa. 

But I am a photographer. As is the painter Chuck Close. And so with his admonition ringing in my head, I return to the keyboard to scratch out these words. Tomorrow my camera and I will venture out into the world. 

Yes I know, don't bother to tell me. I am no Chuck Close.

But in the absence of felt faith, I will "show up and get to work". ...and see if I can create some goodness.