Creativity


It is so beautiful to watch a child create.  Children love to draw, paint, sculpt, sing, and act.  In art class they enjoy playing with watercolors, crayons, and finger paint.  At camps and summer programs children dye t-shirts and sculpt clay.  Give a kid some chalk and room on a sidewalk and hey you have a party.  Children find it easy to be creative.  They feel free being artistic.  It comes naturally to them.  All it takes is some encouragement.  The less rules and restrictions the better.  It is extremely important for a child's development to tap into their creative brain.  


Sadly, being creative seems harder as we become adults.  However, it is still just as important to our continued development.  Many of us learn to "appreciate good art," but strongly hesitate to express our own creativity.  Why is that?  Why do many of us need more and more encouragement to be creative as we age?  How many times have you heard someone say, "I am just not very creative?"  How many times have you said that?  As we grow-up we encounter criticism.  Grading in school becomes more and more important.  We thus begin to self-judge and can think our creativity is not as good as someone else's.  We worry and respond to external opinions and expectations, instead of trusting and expressing our inner creativity.  Artistic expression is a gift we all have.  Sadly, our internalized negative critic effectively learns to bury our creative energy.  Further, we get caught up in "more important" things in life.  It can take alot to dig through these layers and rediscover our creative self.


So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27 NIV)


The truth is we are created to be creative.  God continually paints a painting with many painters in it. We are co-creators with God.  What is more creative than a creation that is able to freely participate and add to the masterpiece?  Each of us is encouraged to contribute.  The book of Genesis reminds us of this identity.  Genesis clearly states that we are created in the image of God.  God has woven into our DNA the ability to be creative.  Creativity is one of our greatest gifts.  It is a huge part of who we are and can give us so much life-giving energy.  


It is vitally important to our spiritual life to keep the creative juices flowing.  The excuse that we are not all Rembrandt, DaVinci, or Vermeer stunts our ability to develop.  Further, each of us can be creative in our own way.  Artistic expressions are not limited to painters, sculptures, and musicians.  People can be creative and artistic in any endeavor or profession.  Finally, we do not have to become good at one passion in life.  Some people do have specific activities and things that particularly light them up.  However, that does not mean we need to only stay in that lane.  Maybe someone has many passions in life.  Perhaps there are new things we are called to try.  What is important is the openness to our created creative self.  When we tap into this important flow of energy, then we are directly connecting with God.  God's refrigerator is proudly decorated with all our works of art.


Personal Reflection

"I could never be very good at that!"  This is what I was thinking when I looked over the workshop offerings while attending a spring retreat.  The retreat was designed to help us better connect with our creative side.  One of the workshop offerings was writing poetry.  I quickly read about it and dismissed it as an option.  However, something kept drawing my attention to this workshop.  "Hey, this sounds interesting.  Have you ever written poems before?" a fellow retreatant asked.  "No, I don't think so," I replied.  My gut started to churn.  At lunch it was announced, "There is still room to sign-up for the poetry workshop in the afternoon."  I thought to myself, "OK God!  I got the message!"


When I arrived at the workshop I felt nervous.  I knew I was not Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson.  However, the instructor did a great job of putting our minds at ease.  She started us with some easy exercises to get the creative juices flowing.  She also encouraged us to put away, as best we could, our inner critical voice.  As a result I felt very liberated and free to explore.  I was not afraid of failure because failure was not an option.  There was no such thing as failure.


In one of the exercises, we were invited to find a comfortable place and observe.  We were told to simply pay attention and see if anything grabbed our attention.  If it did, then just write what comes to mind.  It was early spring and I looked out the window.  I noticed all the different shades of green I saw.  I am sure I noticed this before, but I never really let it explode in my mind.  I wrote:


Green, green, many shades of green.

Finally awoken, finally free.

Sometimes droopy and sometimes lean.

Down in the grass or high in the tree.

Green keep growing like our dreams!


Today is God's Present!

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