I leave for Spain in two days. Is this real life? It's easy to feel inadequate, feel like all risk would be eliminated if only I waited until I was older, or wiser, or had more impressive calf muscles. But then I remember the times in my life when I was most scared to make my art. The times when I thought, "I'm not capable of this," the times I had to completely abandon all of myself and just make art. Those were the times I felt alive, those were the only times I made anything worthwhile, anything that actually moved people. I get to live a summer in that place of abandon.
There's an old saying with pilgrims. They sought to live life in coram Deo, in the face of God. To abandon all you're comfortable with until you have no option but to cling to the face of God like a child clings to their Father, dependent and expectant of provision. To live in coram Deo is to live life outside of your own ability to provide for yourself, to live expectantly, trusting that a Father who gives richly will provide even when it looks like you have nothing. No matter what you believe in, don't we all crave those moments? That stepping out into what we can't control can create something beautiful, can lead us into adventure, to places we never thought we could get to on our own? To live a life where we grow simply because we stepped out into something fantastically, terrifyingly new rather than calculating the next step?