A Call for More Creative Love

Have you ever been so excited about a new idea that you put everything else down to make it a reality? 

I remember being like this as a kid, and sometimes I get a whiff of that kind of energy as a grown-up these days. I used to love Legos. A vision would strike me suddenly, and I would throw everything else aside, obsessed with making my creation a reality. 

So much of this obsessive creative energy rose up during the pandemic. Last spring, I followed a group of engineers in Alabama who collaborated to 3D print parts for masks, shields, and other items for healthcare professionals. 

People shared groceries and goods so neighbors didn’t go hungry. 

Churches set up internet cafes so kids could get a safe place to do their e-learning. 

All kinds of new technology showed up to help us connect better to each other in isolation. 

If you haven’t been inspired by something new these last 12 months, where have you been? Where are you now? 

Eleven months ago, I was hearing impassioned calls to stay home, to find new patterns that would protect the vulnerable and lessen the impact of this unknown virus. And I thought, what a relief. This is going to change everything, and it’s going to make my life as a spoonie (see: chronic illness) much easier to live. People will understand now.

And it did change. For a few months. 

We are all so tired. But we’re all tired for different reasons. 

Let’s make a short list of the things we’re tired of.

• Masks
• Travel restrictions
• COVID-19 tests
• Vaccine delays and shortages
• Empty shelves at the grocery store
• E-learning days
• Quarantine
• Conspiracy theorists
• Republicans
• Democrats
• Anti-maskers 
• Anti-vaxxers 

Let me tell you what has made me the most tired: people who are determined to make life look normal again. 

I hate to say it, but the patterns of pre-2020 are long gone. No amount of forcing the old routines back into place will make them stick, nor will they fix the complications last year affixed to our lives. We wear our suffering now like patches on our sleeves, badges of things we survived. We’ll tell stories of these days for the rest of our lives. But we will never look the same again.

Just listen. You can hear it everywhere. 

In the salon. At the dentist’s office. In your meetings at work. Yes, at church. 

I’m hearing three messages that are really discouraging to me. 

1. The only way for our business to succeed is to return to our pre-pandemic routines. 
2. The only way to be helpful to society right now is to leave your house. 
3. The only way to be a church is to do it in person. 

I hope these leaders realize who’s listening. Inevitably, on the other end of their emails and webinars and sermons are the chronically ill, the elderly, the disabled and at-risk. The able-bodied are crying out for other able-bodied people to resume work in person, to have dinner parties, to volunteer and show up and love people. But there’s an entire audience of people listening who still want to find a way to be valuable and productive and, most importantly, safe. 

Do you know what I’m not hearing much of? Impassioned calls for people to find creative ways to love others. 

This is something I never really expected to encounter as a spoonie: to realize that I now sit somewhere in the margins, and the mid-pandemic pleas to return to normal only make me feel left behind. Before the pandemic, I could blend in, and I knew with more certainty that I could safely engage in public, pretend to be normal. 

Turns out years of pretending to be normal has made it difficult for people to see that I can’t be normal now. 

So, I ask you this… Do you have a platform of some kind? Do you lead people? Can you make decisions for those who report to you? Can you change the narrative even in a small way? 

We need you to show up – not to condemn the old narratives but to ask for something new. Ask for people to innovate. Ask for creative love. Love in its nature is creative. If we’re doing it right, we’re taking our workplaces, our churches, our circles of friends in an entirely new direction. 

Instead of retreating to our old routines for safety, let’s stir up an obsessive kind of excitement for something new. Let’s make the case for more creative love.