From Genesis to Miles Davis

In our little two bedroom apartment just north of Greenlake, my wife and I have this room that models a creative playground of sorts. This is what I mean… The space is no bigger than 15 square feet, yet it stretches as wide as we let our imagination reach and as steep as our dreams will go. It’s a room without limitations… no right or wrongs, no fears, no judgments, and certainly no rules. In fact, the slogan of the room is written on a white board in bright pink fluorescent ink: a Miles Davis quote that reads, “Do not fear mistakes… there are none.”

His words can feel wrong in so many ways. Do not fear mistakes, there are none? NONE?! That logic doesn’t even qualify as reason. Of course there are mistakes. Three years ago I was making a left hand turn onto Mercer Street in downtown Seattle when out of nowhere I clipped a man with my side view mirror who was kindly passing in front of me. I’d love to tell you that it took place in a hail storm with limited visibility but the fact of the matter is that I was paying no attention to where I was going. That is called a mistake (and luckily the police officer believed it was, as well). Then there was the time I was driving in a convertible with the top down to pick up my prom date and out of nowhere a gust of wind picked up my date’s corsage off of the seat next to me and flung it into oncoming traffic, only to be crushed under the tires of a passing truck. Again, a mistake indeed. Well, actually, that was just my own stupidity but you get the point. Mistakes happen.

Whether intentional or not, I think what Miles was referring to was more about the imagination of God the Creator than the limitlessness of the human condition. Perhaps the greatest jazz musician of all time was talking about the miracle of creating the way God did at the beginning of time… creating something undeniable out of nothing. I can only imagine that God was not editing himself much as he made the heavens and the earth, the fishes in the seas, and the birds in the air. I don’t think He had some holy eraser, wiping out anything that didn’t resemble a Thomas Kincade painting. In fact, God looked at what he created and called it good… including man and woman.

I wonder how our lives and our communities would change if we looked at the things we know as mistakes and instead, believe that they are good. And not good by comparing ourselves with others, but good because we have this supernatural ability to channel the acoustics of heaven through our every being. What if we cherished the fact that we come in all different shapes and sizes, big and small and by all means, call it good? And what if we lived every day believing that life is a big blank canvas desperate in need for the ink of our souls? Would you dare risk the predictability of your life for the knowledge that you are not a mistake?

Whether in the mind or in a house, we all need that 15 square foot space to allow our wild imaginations to become significant realities. We need to risk losing the fabrication of our adulthood and learn to play in the sandbox like children again. We need to let the lion out of her rusty cage so she can explore the forest once more. And by all means, we need to listen to Miles Davis’ famous recording Kind of Blue and find out just what it means to be of no mistakes.