our calling, our passion

 your man in the alcove today, his face into the wind, was there to sell enough books to make it worth the drive. They- that ubiquitous they- had convinced him to drive the two hours, promising a table and a marketer's tent to showcase his works to the hungry masses...hopefully hungry for a collection of historical works. His competition featured an active potter, creating a vase...a half dozen mostly fine, and a couple of fading, beauties, selling candles and candy...and various sellers of trinkets and more dubious treasures. 

but the crowd this day at the street festival was largely peopled by characters of short height, and sometimes shorter memory- children and old people. The children gravitated toward food, fun, and the fascinating, while the older folk did actually stop to talk with the kindly man selling word-pictures from the past. He lacked the comforts of the promised tent, which had gone to another event for children, but did retain a tiny table, just big enough for a dozen smaller books. 

we had a pleasant conversation about the nature of our mutual malady, this passion that compels us to wake at strange hours with strange arrangements of words. Some, like melodious gas in the middle of night, pass eventually, and allow us sleep. There are others that take hours from our slumber, and when we do sleep, we awake having been through more than a few turbulent, tumble dry cycles. 

though mutually feeling disheveled this Saturday morning, we shook hands, and i shuffled off for the theatre. Inside the inner sanctum, i once again marveled at the monstrosity they called "the stage," a piece surely from the "industrial revolution" that would be perfect for a Dickens play. 

students were displaying artwork in the back aisles of the theatre, yet no one else managed to push through the theatre doors. 

it was the same across the street at an actual art gallery. Beautiful paintings, with impressive composition. But no admirers.

a few stranglers wandered around the food truck corral, but more wandered around the marketing tents fiddling with trinkets. 

i returned to my vehicle thankful for the hours i spent in and off the sidewalks, but with a refreshing reminder of why most of my colleagues and i create. we do it because it is our calling, it is our passion. We, Christian creators, create because we reflect our creator. And the more we create, and in what we create, we hopefully, share that passion that comes from the heart of a loving God.