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.

Thanks to Wordle.net for creating this graphic.

Have you ever noticed throughout the Bible, how many names are used to identify God? Jehovah, I AM, the Alpha and Omega, YHWH. Jesus is the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah, Emmanuel. This song talks about some of Jesus’ names.

In Genesis, Jacob wrestles with God and is given a new name, Israel, because he struggled with God. He wouldn’t give up until God agreed to bless him — which God did by changing Jacob’s name.

Names were much more important in Biblical times. Your name was much more than what someone yelled at you to get your attention; it was the essence of your being. That’s why your name might change after an important life event.

What is your name? Not the name that your parents gave you, but the name given to you by God. What does God call you? Has your name changed over your life? Are you working toward a different name?

There is a name that sums up the essence of you. What is it?

If you could choose your God-name, what would it be?

Original song credit: J.J. Plasencio