The canopy of green covered most of my front yard. It was a huge and majestic tree. Every time I left my house, I walked underneath that canopy. It was routine. But on the rare occasions when I stopped and looked up through those leaves, everything changed.
I was no longer in my yard. I was in a cathedral. I felt power and love and reverence. It was like worship. Not for the tree, but for the tree’s maker. I felt connected to something far bigger and more powerful than I was.
It happens over and over. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had experiences that make me feel a certain way. They’re experiences that seem to whisper, “Pay attention. This is important.”
A sky to my west bursts with color and light and beauty. It reaches out for me in a powerful way. It makes me feel as though I’m closer to ultimate power. Ultimate beauty. Ultimate truth.
A 5-year-old child who hasn’t seen me lately runs to me as I walk in. He throws his little arms around me and shouts my name. He says he loves me and has missed me. Something in his grip and in his eyes makes me feel alive and loved. And it makes me feel close to whoever made both of us.
All sorts of things can trigger this experience for me. A beautiful photograph. Sunsets. A dog. The sounds of birds and crickets at dawn. Being forgiven by someone I’ve wronged. A thunderstorm. The love of the right woman. The purr of a sleeping cat.
Every one of these experiences — and dozens more — can trigger a feeling for me. For years, I didn’t recognize the connection between these. I just saw them as random parts of life that made me feel something.
These things are all very different, but they’re all gateways to something sacred. Every one of them can be a portal to an experience of beauty. And love. And truth. Or Truth.
For me, they’re all connections to the Source of everything. They’re all invitations to experience the divinity of a Creator whose face I can’t see — but whose presence is in each of these powerful encounters.
For years, I tried to understand why these experiences felt so similar.
What does a sunset have in common with a child who loves you?
What does the purr of a sleeping cat have in common with a thunderstorm?
What does forgiveness have in common with a beautiful photograph?
What does falling in love have in common with discovering that you’ve been wrong about something important?
On the surface, nothing.
One is visual. Another is emotional. Another is intellectual. Another is spiritual. Another is relational. Yet all of them seem to produce the same sensation in me.
They all make me feel more alive.
More awake. More connected. More aware that there is something larger than my ordinary concerns.
For a long time, I simply accepted those experiences without wondering what connected them. They were isolated moments of beauty and wonder scattered throughout my life. But I eventually began to suspect that they weren’t isolated at all.
I began to suspect that they were all different doors leading into the same room.
That realization changed the way I looked at almost everything. I no longer saw beauty as merely an aesthetic experience. I no longer saw truth as merely an intellectual exercise. I no longer saw love as merely an emotional experience. I no longer saw creating things as merely a hobby or a profession.
All of them seemed connected somehow. All of them seemed to point in the same direction. I don’t claim to know exactly what lies at the end of the search in that direction. I’m not trying to dictate what you should believe about the search down that path.
I can tell you — and I sometimes do tell you — what I’ve concluded and what I’ve experienced down that path. But I can’t tell you what you should believe. I can’t tell you what you will find. That’s up to you to answer for yourself.
Human beings have spent thousands of years trying to answer that question.
Religions have tried.
Philosophers have tried.
Scientists have tried.
Artists have tried.
I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m going to settle the question. Even if I’m completely comfortable with what I’ve concluded, I can’t answer for you.
But I have become convinced of one thing.
These experiences are not random.
I think they’re clues. I think they’re invitations. I think they’re glimpses of something that lies beneath the surface of ordinary life.
And I think most of us spend far too little time paying attention to them. Even people who claim to be religious are far more interested in the rules and practices of their particular system than they are in pursuing the clues that nature — or nature’s God — have placed for us to find.
The modern world is filled with things competing for our attention.
Politics. Outrage. Celebrity gossip. Status. Money. Social media.
Endless arguments. Endless distractions.
Every day, a thousand voices compete to convince us that their particular outrage or grievance is the most important thing in the world.
I spent too much of my life paying attention to those things.
I followed politics obsessively.
I’ve worried about cultural decline (and I still do).
I’ve spent time angry at people who I was certain were wrong.
I’ve wasted countless hours focused on things that ultimately did nothing to improve my life or the lives of people around me.
The problem isn’t that those things aren’t real. The problem is that they aren’t important in the same way.
They don’t lead me toward beauty.
They don’t lead me toward love.
They don’t lead me toward truth.
They don’t make me more alive.
Quite the opposite.
They often feel like weights that attach to my body. They pull me downward. They pull my attention away from the things that matter most.
They make me smaller.
The experiences I described earlier do the opposite.
A sunset lifts my attention upward.
So does love.
So does beauty.
So does truth.
So does forgiveness.
So does creating something that I know is truly good.
So does standing beneath a giant tree and looking up through a canopy of leaves.
Each of these experiences reminds me that reality is bigger than I usually remember. They remind me that life is more than survival.
More than consumption.
More than entertainment.
More than status.
More than winning arguments.
More than being right.
There is something else here.
Something deeper.
Something more beautiful.
And while I don’t pretend to understand everything about this mystical metaphysical reality, I know with absolute certainty that my life is better when I orient myself toward it.
That’s one reason creating things matters so much to me.
People often assume artists create because they want attention. Or money. Or admiration. My observation is that many of them ultimately want those things.
But when I’m at my best, none of those is the primary motivation for me.
The joy of creating has very little to do with what other people think.
The deepest satisfaction comes from those rare moments when something I’ve made feels true.
A photograph. An essay. A video. An idea. Something I know is true and right and good.
Every real creator knows the feeling. Most of what we make falls short of what we hoped it would become. But every now and then, something works. Every now and then, we create something that captures a little piece of what we were trying to express.
When that happens, it feels almost magical. Not because we’ve created beauty from nothing. But because we’ve managed to reflect a tiny part of it.
That’s why creating things never gets old for me. Every successful attempt makes me want to try again. Not because I’m chasing perfection. Perfection isn’t possible. I’m human. Everything I create will be flawed. But each attempt is another opportunity to move a little closer.
Another opportunity to participate in something larger than myself.
Another opportunity to take the raw materials of life and arrange them in a way that reveals something true.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that this impulse doesn’t apply only to artists.
At our best, humans are all creators in one form or another.
We create families.
We create friendships.
We create communities.
We create businesses.
We create traditions.
We create lives.
When we are aligned with this source of all things, we’re taking the raw material we’ve been given and shaping it into something good and true.
The question isn’t whether we’ll create. The question is what we’ll create.
Will we create more beauty or more ugliness? More truth or more deception? More love or more bitterness? More meaning or more emptiness?
Those choices matter because they determine the kind of world we leave behind for other people.
I can’t prove any of this. I can’t prove that beauty and truth and love share a common source. I can’t prove that the experiences I’ve described point toward something divine. I can’t prove that the universe contains meaning.
What I can tell you is that my life makes far more sense when I live as though those things are true.
The moments that have mattered most to me all point in that direction.
The moments that have felt most alive.
Most beautiful.
Most meaningful.
Most sacred.
And after decades of paying attention to those moments, I’ve stopped believing that’s a coincidence.
Maybe you’ll reach the same conclusion.
Maybe you won’t.
That’s something you’ll have to work out for yourself.
But the next time a sunset stops you in your tracks, or a child wraps his arms around your neck, or a piece of music moves you to tears, or a storm fills you with awe, or a beloved dog rests his head in your lap, I hope you’ll pay attention.
Those moments may be trying to tell you something.
They’ve taught me things that can only be heard and felt by an open and ready heart.
How would you see your body if nobody told you it was flawed?
If you live in Hawaii and want to see my film on TV, public access is coming your way with it soon
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love