Tea at Trianon: On Creative Work: Resistance and Retaliation

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, October 28, 2022

On Creative Work: Resistance and Retaliation

From author Clare Dwyer at Even the Sparrow:

There are some natural and supernatural forces at work in our lives, keeping us from fully becoming the creative people we were born to be.  I believe calling them out affords a sort of power over the temptation to procrastinate and put off doing what would make us most fully ourselves.
The first force is resistance.
That is, the inertia around our best, most sacred work. Anything but that our minds and bodies moan.  We experience this resistance because what is most worth doing requires something from us.  It costs us—often dearly.  It means digging deep, drawing forth, going places within ourselves.  It means ignoring all the distractions that glitter around us for the sake of what is not shiny but far more lasting. That means there’s a transaction happening—the spending of energy that we have a limited allotment of every day.  It’s a precious commodity.  It’s something to be stewarded.  And when it is gone—it really is gone. We can’t do excellent work with the dregs of our energy.
“Everyone has his own unique mission, which he discovers when he becomes aware of his talent. The accomplishment of this mission requires all of our vital energies,” writes Alexandre Havard in Created for Greatness: The Power of Magnanimity.
And then, too, creating is risky.  It is vulnerable, because we, by necessity, leave something of ourselves in the work.  Something that could be ignored, scored, or laughed at.  Resistance is often the function of a protective part of ourselves, doing its job, trying to keep us unremarkable. Safe. Blending in means being without the risk of rejection.  And there is an overpowering guardian within us that wants it that way.  “And I was afraid, and I went and buried your talent in the ground.” (Matt 25:25)
God has bigger plans for us, and He knows well the parts at play deep inside.  It is part of His purpose for our healing and spiritual maturity, our growth in wholeness as we grow in prayer, to allow for the creative, expansive side of us to bloom.  The closer we come to God, the more we become like Him, the more we will flourish and show forth His glory.
But that?  That makes someone furious.
Our enemy cannot be creative.
He can only mimic, distort, tear down. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” (John 10:10) And so when we, God-like, design and dance and draw forth beautiful and holy things out of darkness, his fury and envy know no bounds. (Read more.)