This post is based on an article that I was requested to write a few years ago . . .

I believe that it is time to restore the three “R”s back into the arts.

For so many of us – especially musicians – we have tried to make our music by only using our Ability and our Training – many of us have burned ourselves out in the process letting the creative process become a distant memory of things we used to be able to accomplish with ease.

So what are the three “R”s that need to be restored in ArrrT?

The first is REST – Yesterday I was doing a meditation for a worship service utilizing the passage from Deuteronomy about God’s command to keep Sabbath. It seems like our world continues to move at a faster and faster pace. It reminds me of a time when one of my friends wrote a book about time management. He said that he studied all of the books on the subject and realized that basically they all had one thing in common – how to do more and more in less time and feel guilty about what does not get completed – so – he decided to write a book that suggested a way to do less in more time and not feel guilty about what did not get completed. It was a wonderful book – The Gospel for the Clockaholic by Thomas Are – also the author of Faithsong. We need rest!

The second “R” is RETREAT. Often a simple change of scenery is very beneficial. For people who are constantly on the road working their retreat may be at home. A change of pace, a change of routine, a change.

The final “R” is RENEWAL. Everyone needs to have their batteries recharged from time to time. Different people do this in different ways. I need time alone or time with a very limited number of loved and trusted people – people that I know love me enough to know when I need space and time either alone or with just a few people.

I thought I might be able to say all I needed to say about this in one post but that is not the case. I imagine that each of the following three posts will be devoted to one of these three “R” words. I am reminded again of words by Robert Shaw (what a surprise!): In a time and a society whose values are geared to the biggest, the fastest and mostest, whose gaze is fixed desperately upon the future – as far at least as the next election or life after death or prosperity, whichever should happed to come first – the Arts offer an historical perspective. For their concern is with originality – meaning, that which has origins. (The Robert Shaw Reader. Robert Blocker, editor. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, p. 364).

In the meantime, remember, REST, RETREAT, and RENEWAL are not luxuries to be included only when time permits – they are all three necessities for daily living – you cannot properly spell the word ARRRT without all three of them!