Talking with a dear friend last week, she expressed that mediocrity is a practice. We can horde our work trying to perfect it in our minds, or we can faithfully show up and put out okay things, working to make them better for those we create.
I’m still working my way up that 13,000 word mountain and have been actively practicing mediocrity.
Each morning after breakfast, I sit at my desk and light a candle before a quick prayer. Sometimes that looks like the Liturgy for Students and Scholars from Every Moment Holy or a breath prayer to thank the Spirit for his presence and to request clarity of thought.
There is nothing magic happening, just an acknowledgement of God’s faithfulness in this season of my life and an acceptance of the invitation into participation I have been granted. My work is not suddenly better, but it is getting done because it is what I have been called to steward. The writing is not easier, but the burden is shared and so I enter into the challenge without fear.
This weekend I’ll be writing about how creative impulse mirrors divine encounter. Ultimately, I believe my conclusion is creative work needs to look like spiritual practice: we show up, surrendered and open-handed to see what the Spirit has for us that day. Some days, for me at least, this will look just as much like slapping at a keyboard as it does me lamenting brokenness without relief. But some days, both look like dancing with the divine.
It has been invaluable this last week to approach my desk as a sacred space—a space to meet the divine in this practice of mediocrity.
What practice might you be called to?