Ugly Stories

Yesterday while eating lunch at East Nashville's fantastic Silly Goose restaurant, my friend Lisa and I fell into a conversation about art and writing and the crazy ways we try to make creativity happen. She's an ah-mazing visual artist with a double-whammy of gifting for writing, and I, well, I try to write.

But even if our expressions are a bit different, we agree on one thing-- we hate sharing our creative processes with anyone besides ourselves.

"I'd rather no one see some of my work," Lisa said. She's even burned some pieces. They're not nice, she added. She'd rather show the pieces that reflect hope and truth. And that's what she has hung up in her apartment. The other stuff, she feels, are kind of embarrassing.


When I write, I would  rather duel to the death than reveal my work unless I think it's absolutely perfect. I write terrible drafts full of dark, probably really emo, sentiments. They're unwitty and full of flaws. I'd much rather show you the buffed-up, shiny work that is the finished product.

So the question came up- what's the value of sharing or keeping those dark works, the embarrassing pieces, the ugly first drafts even have? Maybe they are just better off burned.  Maybe.

And yet.

I follow two websites called The Well-Written Woman and Freedom with Writing that provide encouragement and resources for aspiring literati. They post stories and great quotes like the Vonnegut one here, and I can't tell you how much relief they give this writer. It's good to be reminded that others face challenges writing too. This encourages me; spurs me on, and gives me hope that my crappy attempts at writing are going somewhere.

And this is what I thought about yesterday. That maybe our ugly drafts, the awkward process is one more way of  encouraging others. Sure, we're working towards something more finished, more complete, but it's a journey. And on a journey, you may as well have some company. And eat lunch together and talk about it

Don't get me wrong- I'd much rather write--and live and think-- in a way that's isolated, all buttoned-up, and perfect. But in art, as in life, I realize such living isn't grace-based or relational or actually creative. It is controlling, coy, and based on fears of what others may think.

This makes for bad art, bad living, and bad theology.

In Scripture, isn't this what the stories are about? God using ugly stories for good? For encouragement, wisdom, and a great deal of comfort?

This morning I read how in Galatians, Paul recalls his own ugly story of persecuting and killing Christians, reminding the Galatians that it is God's grace that called him out of that and into a knowledge of  who God actually was.

God used Paul's ugly stories to not only bring glory to Himself, but to also minister to others (not sure many folks saw that coming). By embracing his less-than past,  Paul was able to encourage thousands with the  message of grace, that God redeems and uses ugly stories for good.

A behavior-based gospel can't do that. Buttoned-up theology can't do that.

And maybe we don't exactly show off bad drafts or less than stellar pieces. But we might as well talk about them, maybe show them to some trusted friends and let other people in on our struggles and stories. You know, share our burdens.

As Lisa and I finished our sandwiches and salads, we both acknowledged how awkward this is, how counter intuitive to our behavior-based society this is--to let people in on our unfinished-ness, our imperfections, our gangly processes--be it in art or just life.

And yet we just had. By talking about it, we had snuck out of our mutual isolations and into journeying with one another, helping one another, with ugly stories in tow, towards the kind of artists, the kind of people we'd actually like to be. And that process was a pretty beautiful thing.