shoot the baby Jesus

It's weird. I am a creative person. Over the years I have shifted gears into a few different art forms to keep the creative juices flowing, but it is rare that I become blocked.

Except at Christmastime.

Here I sit needing to pull some lovely inspiring christmassy imagery out of my...hmmm.... hat, and I've got nothin. I am somewhat uninspired by the holiday. I was mulling over this in bed last night and asked Bryan, "Why do we (the world, culture, and church) make such a big deal over the christmas holiday anyway"?

"Well there's the whole God incarnate coming to earth to save all of humanity thing". He quipped.

ha. silly husband.

Us having spent the better part of our lives in ministry, I am somewhat aware of THAT reason. But what I think is leaving me cold is that we ramp it up to such a dizzy degree that in the over-celebration of the meaning, that meaning gets lost. I think what is blocking me is the notion that it is time to create pretty christmas pictures of farm animals in a manger with a perky praising mary and wise men that shouldn't be in the picture for another two years. In fact, right now in our spare room, there is a manger staged and ready for filming. I have been avoiding it. All through the holiday weekend while we decided which of the many tasks to do, this one kept coming up...

"So, you want to shoot the baby Jesus?"

Of course we were talking about filming. Filming for the creation of hopefully useful media content for all of our planet subscribing churches to use around the world. But frankly the gaudy costco nativity with the somewhat nifty elephant riding wiseman just isn't cutting it for me. Not this year.

This may be a good thing though because as an artist it leaves me searching a little deeper for the way that such a meaningful event can be portrayed visually. I mean do we really need another nativity? And I just know that somebody somewhere is in a Wal-mart right now, eyeing a striped bathrobe wondering if it will work for a Joseph costume.

pleeeeze.

Actually, just writing this little rant may be helping me work through the blockage and get deeper. Maybe I will paint "it" tomorrow for my artist-friday. Maybe I can tap into the true meaning of the holiday that if contemplated can leave one flat on one's face. Maybe I can shut out all the peripheral holiday pressure that we truly create for ourselves for no good reason other than boosting the economy.

Maybe.

I am not sure. But I do know that the spare bedroom is not going to change over until we finally, "shoot the baby jesus".

Last year's imagery using the tacky costco nativity set.