The squirrel lay dead in the road, half flattened against the pavement. Tears blurring my vision, I had to pull over.
There was something wrong with the world. It was black and white, and that wasn't enough.
It had been building for months. I had disconnected from my friends. I had yelled at my mother. And now, the death of one of God's creatures was more than I could take.
You see, seven months before that day, I'd packed my Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Debussy and moved into the world of Kierkegaard, Augustine, and Tertullian. I was giving up music to pursue theology. In light of exegeticals, preaching classes, and Greek words, the time for piano and flute simply didn’t exist.
Except this phantom itch persisted.
The part of my life that expressed my worship of and relationship with God through music withered, and depression set in.
I'd neglected the spiritual discipline of creativity.
Created in the image of our Creator God, we are called to create. One way to cultivate a life that reflects our redemption and our hope of resurrection and restoration is to practice creativity among the spiritual disciplines. Living the creative life embodies the joy, peace, and love shared between the Trinity, between God and man, and between man and his neighbor. In other words, living the creative life embraces what it means to be fully human.
Often, we think of creativity as a trait belonging to a certain personality type. We fail to think of it as something essential to being human. This is both a limited way of thinking about creativity (which can be found in all areas of life including engineering, business management, nursing, parenting, and even cleaning—take Mary Poppins, for example) and a failure to realize that creativity must be cultivated and practiced as any other spiritual discipline.
Since that time, pulled over on the side of the road in my oversized Ciera, I've become passionate about the practice of creativity in the Christian life. Thankfully, my professors gave me freedom to write songs or song sets at times in place of papers, skits, and even a full musical in place of a thesis. Today, I practice it through story-writing, piano- and flute-playing, knitting, gardening, coloring, Play Doh sculpting, and a slew of other disciplines.
Re-engaging my imagination is my Christianity is like seeing God in color.
Which brings us to why I'm here today. This weekly column will focus on Christianity and Creativity, on re-engaging our imagination in our Christian life both individually and as a community.
I look forward to exchanging ideas with you!
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Heather Goodman secretly wishes to be a Broadway star. She enjoys tea every afternoon, tortures herself with Pilates, and has a penchant for breaking out into song and dance. You can sign up for her free ezine, Glimpses: Christianity in Art and Life, on her website at http://www.heatheragoodman.com.
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I stumbled on your post and completely agree. Being a "Brady Bunch" mom, working, trying to help at church, and still find time to write and take pictures…whoo…it is overwhelming!
I feel so much closer to God when I am doing the "creative" things in my life. I'm fulfilled, inspired and have a sense of well being. Your picture truly puts it all in perspective.
I will definitely be back!
I gave up my creativity at one point in my life too. Now it's like going from Kansas to Oz now that I've made the decision to make it an active part of my life.
Heather,
I'd have to say, you've been nearby as I rediscovered both a love for writing–prose and poetry; also, for seeing life with wonder. I've realized both feed my soul, and once in a while, I'm able to delight in other creative expressions I once passed by.
Sometimes we need "permission" to pursue creativity. Thanks for encouraging and "granting" it kinda sorta.
This really resonated with me. I am forever trapped between my passions for music and theology. I was a double major in college and took a year afterwards, searching for the next clue about what should be. I almost went to seminary but rather at the last minute chose to pursue my Master of Music degree instead. At the time, I felt that a real "career" in any type of ministry was out-of-reach for me as a woman. I tried out music ministry as it seemed an obvious marriage of my two loves. No. Didn't do it for me.
(Ironically, my husband is a Minister of Music now.) Though my higher degree is in music and I make my money in music, I am still enthralled by the writings/thoughts of great theologians. I can't wait to check out your blog. I feel you are a kindred soul!
Most people asked if I wanted to do music ministry–natural outflowing, right? Except I never felt passionate about that. Sometimes now I play in church, but music ministry is not anything I ever wanted to go into. I'm also not involved in church ministry (outside of volunteer). I guess I never wanted to be on staff in a church.
So now I have two of the most "useless" degrees. And I wouldn't trade either one of them.
Wow Heather, thanks for sharing your story with us. I am defintely looking forward to where you will take us on this journey.
Heather,
Being a creative soul myself, your words absolutely resonated with me. I think all too often, when we're being creative, we think we're not being "productive" to the greater good. And that really couldn't be further from the truth, could it?
I can't wait to read what you'll have for us next!
That's so true!
God's given us this beautiful vision of the future, of a restored, harmonious, beautiful earth.
I think working in God's kingdom means sneaking in the beauty from the future to today in every way possible.
I blogged recently about how people's words can change the course of your life. One example I gave was a pastor who told me that I wasn't creative. I am an engineer, so in theory it's a good assumption.
I went on from there to crochet, bead, lampwork (make glass beads) and write my way to the most creative time in my life, all thanks to that one offhand comment. I consider it worship to use the creative side of me, to utilize the creative forces that the creator God endowed me with. Definitely an improvement!
Lisa–I love stories like that! Too often we compartmentalize, the creative people and the logical people (for lack of a better term) instead of looking for how we're all creative in different ways. I love that you challenged yourself to try new things!
And I bet that not only in those different pursuits are you creative but you use creativity in your engineering.