There were two previous blog entries here about Elizabeth Gilbert and her book Eat Pray  Love.  Elizabeth is one superb honest writer who experienced her own delightful meetings with God. My friend Tracey Bennett sent me a link to a talk Elizabeth gave on Ted.com. The talk was entitled: A New Way to Think about Creativity.

I do not usually welcome links to videos and such (unless they are about Heavenletters, that is) because I have too much to do. I’ve become like Greta Garbo, except my line is: “Don’t send me things. Post on the forum.”

So when Tracey’s email arrived, I grumbled to myself and kept trying to delete the link, and found I just couldn’t bring myself to. Finally, after ten minutes of avoiding the suggested video  http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html I turned it on.

In her talk, Elizabeth Gilbert said that, many years ago, it was rightly believed that creative inspiration came from God and not from the individual. Then in the Western world it became that the genie who visited writers and musicians and artists of all kinds was attributed to the genius of the artist himself.

Elizabeth Gilbert mentioned a poet, Ruth Stone, whom she once interviewed. Ruth said that she would be working out on the field, and all of a sudden inspiration would come, and she ran as fast as she could to get into the house to find pen and paper to write down the poem before it was gone. The poet said she ran to catch the poem by the tail.

Elizabeth Gilbert told about a musician, Tom Waite, I think his name was. He was driving along in his car on a freeway when a surge of inspiration came. Finally he spoke out loud to the Real Composer from above and said something like this: “Can’t you see I’m driving? Do you really think I can write down this music now in the middle of a freeway? Can’t you come at a more opportune time?”

Inspiration is truly God-given.

Elizabeth Gilbert affirmed that the individual personality of an artist cannot take the credit for his or her inspired work. Not that the artist doesn’t apply himself and work hard. She said how she shows up every day, does all that she can, and yet waits for true inspiration to come to make the magic happen that her individual self cannot deliver.  When inspiration comes, it is not labor.

I love that Elizabeth Gilbert isn’t afraid to use the simple word God.

Elizabeth Gilbert made many parallels to Godwriting™. Even — listen to this!  Do you remember how God called me His donkey who delivers His messages? Elizabeth Gilbert referred to herself as God’s mule!

The intention of a general writer and the intention of a Godwriter™ are a little different.  A writer has a task at hand, a book to finish, some kind of work to fulfill, whereas a Godwriter is asking God to simply speak of His own accord. The Godwriter wants to hear God’s words and wants to write them down. The Godwriter isn’t asking that the words become part of any individual work. We Godwrite™ for the love of God’s messages and the healing they  give. We like how it feels to Godwrite.

A regular author may have to wait for God to enter in.

When it comes to Godwriting, however, God comes every time, and he comes instantly. Sometimes He also comes in when we are doing something else like the dishes or working in the field as it was with the poet Ruth Stone.  But, mostly, we sit down ready with pen in hand. This is our invitation to God, and God comes right in and sits down with us.

Here’s where you can find the previous Elizabeth Gilbert blog entries:

http://www.godwriting.org/godwriting/the-night-on-the-bathroom-floor-elizabeth-gilbert-author.htm

 http://www.godwriting.org/godwriting/how-elizabeth-gilbert-started-godwriting-god.htm

If you would like to read more of Elizabeth Gilbert’s thoughts on writing, you can find them here: http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm

And thanks, Tracey!