Drops Like Stars: A Few Thoughts on Creativity & Suffering

Okay- I know I am a month behind on my book blogs and have not been updating my blog too regularly, but with no internet on my computer aside from WIFI hot spots, that is quite difficult! But I am trying my best to get everything together in my apartmentand keep this updated for all of you, so hang in there :)

Back in March I read "Drops Like Stars: A few Thoughts on Creativity and Suffering" by Rob Bell. This book was really different than his other books. It was quite short & only took around an hour to read! It had few words on most pages and some were only pictures. there were LOTS of pictures. So since this book was SO different, this blog will be too! I am simply going to take a few small quotes or ideas from each section & put them in here. You all should read it- especially those looking to take new perspectives, or those going through difficult times. Bell's points are short, at times random (tied to a bigger point), but often deep. So pick up a copy to read cos these are only a few thoughts of his I decided to highlight. :)

DROPS LIKE STARS

The Art of Disruption

• A man has two sons and they are each married with a pregnant wife. One miscarries & another delievers a healthy baby boy. We have all had that kind of pain & joy. We relate because "his story is our story" (pg 9).


• The Bible story Jesus tells of the prodigal son... Jesus leaves the story unresolved. What a weird way to end the story in regards to the elder brother in the story (pg 12).


• Some things never get resolved (pg 16).


• "Out of the Box": The problem with the phrase is that when something or someone is judged to be in or out of "the box" it reveals that "the box" is still our primary point of refrence (pg 22). Some of us ask an entirely different question: "there's a box?" (pg 23).


• For Pope Jean Paul II his deeper communion with God didn't come without tears & what would have been seen as a certain existential horror (pg 24).


• Suffering does this to us: We're jolted, kicked, prodded, & shoved into new realities we never would have brought about on our own (pg 24).


• Often when we suffer we had things well planned out. We knew what meant what. We had all the boxes properly organised & labeled. But all of that was disrupted when we began to suffer (pg 30).


• To imagine a totally new tomorrow: That is the art of disruption (pg 31).


• "None ger to God but through trouble"- Cathering of Aragon (pg 33).

The Art of Honnesty

• This man in a movie is bored. He has the life that is often portrayed as the ideal- a wife, a house, a job, security, comfort, priviledge, freedom- & yes its left him bored, numb, & in a low-grade state of dispair. His "success" has actually served to distract him from just how deeply unsatisfied he is with his life (pg 38).


• If we aren't careful, our success and security and abundance can lead to a certain sense of boredom, a numbing predictability, a paralysing indifference that comes from being too comfortable (pg 38).


• At least when you struggle you are feeling something (pg 42).


• Truth bellow the surface that is, in fact, the real issue (pg 42).


• To stop pretending & posing & acting we have to suffer (pg 42).


• Pain has a way of making us more honest (pg 43).


• When you say what everyone else wanted to & do what everyone else wanted to do: its the art of honnesty (pg 43).


• The "empty place" inside of us opens up when we suffer (pg 44).

The Art of Ache

• Could certain songs resonate with us so well because we need to hear songs thar recognise the pain in us? (pg 49).


• Ache is universal. The ache reminds us thatthings aren't how they are supposed to be. The ache cuts through all the static, all of the ways we avoid having to actually feel things. The ache reassures us we are not the only ones feeling this way (pg 53).

The Art of Solidarity

• Suffering unites us in ways other things can't (pg 63).


• It makes a difference to know there is someone else screaming alongside you (pg 68).


• Is the cross God's way of saying "I know how you feel?" (pg 69).

The Art of Elimination

• Sometimes the most important work is knowing what to take away (pg 74).


• Sculptors shape and form & rearrange but at the most basic level they take away. & there is a beautiful extrordinary art in knowing what to take away (pg 88).


• When talking to people who just recieved news they have a life-threatening illness, they talk about what matters most. Suffering does that (pg 90).


• Suffering compels us to eliminate the unnecessary, the trivial, the superficial (pg 91).


• There is a greatness in you. Courage. Desire. Integrity. Virtue. Compassion. Dignity. Loyality. Love. Its in there somewhere & sometimes it take suffering to get at it (pg 91).


• There is a difference between ownership and possession. You can own something & not possess it. You can possess something & not own it (pg 94).


• Sometimes what happens to us when we suffer is that we become open to the mercy & grace & grattitude & appreciation & joy that are always around us all the time (pg 101).


• You can have all the things that everybody says you need to be happy & yet actually possess very little (pg 104).


• In the process of losing the few things you actually DO have, you are in fact possessing everything (pg 105).

The Art of Failure

• It is an oppertunity: this is called the Art of failure (pg 111).


• Even the failed pieces are essential (pg 113).


• The pain from things not going how I wanted them to- that I find the same thing happening again & again. I come to the end of myself, the end of my power, the end of my strength, the end of my understanding, only to find at that place of powerlessness a strength and peace that wern't there before (pg 116).


• In the agony of those moments, that we all get the first glimpse of just what it looks like for God to take all of our trauma & hurt & dissappointment, all those fragments lying there on the ground & turning them into something else, something new, something we never would have been able to create on our own (pg 117).


• True life begins when we are willing to admit we've come to the end of ourselves, we've given up, we've let go (pg 117).


• You can't create without waste & mess & sheer diluted slog. You can't create without pain. Its all part of the process. Its in the nature of things (pg 128).


• The point is to stay true to whatever you are creating (pg 128).


• Everything has meaning (pg 128).


• Rob Bell's 3 year old nephew thought when raindrops hit the ground, for a split second they looked like stars (pg 130). May we all see drops like Stars (pg 133).

That is all this blog is- A few quick quotes from throughout the book! I encourage you each to get a copy to read some of the other quotes, see the pictures, or read some of the longer stories that were in the book that were too long to summarise. The book is 133 pages but many are pictures or little to no text. If you read SLOW it should be done in 90 minutes, which is shorter time than some films, & a good way to spend your time so take a look :)

Til Next Time,

RAYE