As a teenage boy I recall experiencing a moonlit night in our high fields that we called “the Mountain Place.”  I also recall coming over the brink of a hill and looking down on Willow Creek on a wintry morning after a night of heavy fog.  Every tree, twig, and weed was coated with a thick frost that sparkled in the sun.

The scenes and the feelings were magical.  I tried to put the sensations into written words so that I could later bring the remembrances back to my own mind and recreate the events in the minds of others.  I wanted to be able to create a mood that could be conveyed to others.

I failed.  I didn’t possess the word skills to enable me to do it.  My attempts to verbally paint the experiences fell flat.  The writing was drivel.  I wadded up the papers, and threw them away.

Just now as I was lying on the floor straightening my back, those scenes came into my mind.  I suddenly realized that what I couldn’t do then, I’m capable of doing now.  Now when I sit down to write, my thoughts and words blend together and come out in ways that thrill me.  Perhaps I’m the only one that the words can thrill, but writing is a great pleasure to me.

What has changed?

For one thing I now have the Holy Ghost.  I see things through different eyes, and from a different perspective.  And as I write, I learn.  There is something about recording events, thoughts, ideas, and feelings that engages the Holy Ghost.  As I write, I have thoughts that I’ve never had before.  As I write, the Holy Ghost is saying, “Here is something else that you and your readers need to know.”

For another thing I’ve matured.  I’ve spent a lifetime recording things.  I have 58 journals, a dozen books, and a hundred poems.  I’ve had a lifetime of practice.  Words are my friends and tools, and I can use them.

And the other thing that I realize is that in my teenage years I was trying to force creativity.  That’s a difficult thing to do.  Creativity happens sporadically.  It happens on the Holy Ghost’s time schedule.  And when it happens, we need to act.  When we feel the idea coming, we need to jump up and write it down, or sketch it out, or go to the shop, or to the kitchen, or to the person we’re supposed to serve.  If we act when the Holy Ghost moves, then the Spirit will amplify the thought, and will speak again.  It’s imperative to let the Holy Ghost know that we’re listening, and that we’re willing to do as we’re bidden.