I have a friend who’s a songwriter. A damned good songwriter.

And sometimes, not always, when he’s working on a song, he catches fire.

The creative spark, lit by a riff, a snippet of melody, a chord progression starts burning, and he becomes consumed in a creative blaze. The song, as it emerges, overtakes him. He can’t stop working on it, listening to it, thinking about it. The flames rage, and my friend burns, happily, almost ecstatically, as the song cooks inside of him.

And sometimes, when he’s in the burn of this relentless creative fire, he’ll break down and cry, overcome by the beauty of what is moving through him and into song. Grateful, humbled, torn open.

I told him that I believe this is where he touches God. In those moments, he melts into The Creative and is lost in Her embrace, Her Swirl. The music moving through him destroys all that would hold him separate from Her, and the exquisite, intimate connection with the Divine brings him to his knees as it lifts him to the heights.

In witnessing this creative consumption in another human being, I realize there is nothing in my life — no activity, drug, diversion or spiritual practice — that allows me access to the kind of Creative connection my friend finds in writing music. And this makes me incredibly sad. It’s as if I’m grieving Something I’ve never known except by its absence and my insatiable craving for It.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a fierce, passionate desire for such a connection with the Creative. This desire has led me down many a multitude of spiritual, artistic, and career-oriented paths, some of which I’m still traveling upon. And now I see how even my musical journey has only been a feeble attempt to move as close to the Creative as I can, even if I can never experience Her all-consuming fire.

Oh, and sure, I’ve had moments and full-blown epiphanies where I’ve felt the presence of the Divine. Her grace and love. And these moments that have brought me to my knees in gratitude and awe. But what I’m grieving is the absence of that fire, that unrelenting, all-consuming burn that rushes through an artist insisting they create, create, create.