The Creative Life

Our Birthright Competence

A couple of weeks ago my son-in-law and I re-worked my vintage Dual turntable and we had a chance to listen to a sampling of albums from a previous epoch.

Among those was a recording of Mozart’s G minor Symphony K550. The warm sound of the strings reminded me of sunny days at York University and Professor Alan Lessem’s inspirational talks on Mozart in between long drags on his cigarette.

As I began to read the extended liner notes, I was amazed. Mozart wrote this symphony along with two others (the E-flat Symphony K543 and the Jupiter Symphony K551) in a timespan of just two months. What an incredible musical mind to pull off such a feat!

But Mozart is not alone in his prodigious creativity. I believe every person on Planet Earth has a special gift just waiting to be discovered, developed and celebrated. Our invitation from the heavenly muse is to get going and mine the precious pearl that Abba has bestowed. It may not be a musical endowment. But it’s something—a unique gift to be received and shared with humankind. Parker Palmer speaks into this truth when he writes,

Every human being is born with some sort of gift, an inclination or an instinct that can become a full-blown mastery. We may not see our gift for what it is. Having seen it we may choose not to accept the gift and its consequences for our lives. Or, having claimed our gift, we may not be willing to do the hard work necessary to nurture it. But none of these evasions can alter the fact that the gift is ours. Each of us is a master at something, and part of becoming fully alive is to discover and develop our birthright competence. (Parker Palmer)

Becoming fully alive…developing our birthright competence awaits each one of us.