My continuing struggle

Art - What I'm very good at; ministry - what I am modestly good at
And my history of trying to find things which final result is to sustain my art:
being a librarian, for instance, which didn't work that well.
And now I find myself in tension, even here: loving ministry and wishing dearly that I could make it work in a more artistic and creative way -
when most people I find myself in discussion with on the minnisterial side
have no idea of how art might be ministerial
.
They have never considered, and understandably they don't know what to tell me.
And how estranged I am from the art world in general.
I ask, How did that happen?
How is it that I have taken what the author of the Artist's Way, Cameron, calls creative u-turns.
So many times I've failed to take the risk
And instead I feel that I've listened to the wrong people
And myself am not necessarily the right person either -
that is, I talk myself out of things.
I think of crazy people who got things done
like Pat Keim or Harry Delorme, back in art school,
and wonder how I got stuck in conventionality
and risk aversion.
But there I was.
Now I puzzle over what opportunity might present itself for me.
Is there a ministerial angle and an artistic conjunction?
Am I still thinking too conventionally - probably.
How can I use my creative resources
which if someone said
Draw the craziest, most free associational image that will blow our minds
and I could do something
But if someone asks a simpler thing
As I might ask myself:
Chart an artistic career from this stopping point
using what you have
to make your own way.
Piplotti Rist pours her body out
Damien Hirst sells a dead shark
(I laugh at his quote in the recent artnet article where he says he is nervous about selling his paintings or his paintings' reception - but dead sharks tend to sell themselves)
I ask
What is my dead shark
How am I pouring my body out
?