Creative Spirit

The Creative Spirit: Savoring the Moment

Steve · January 1, 2015 · 21 Comments

noah — Savor your life like a first birthday cake. SJG photo

I’m up early on New Year’s Day and contemplating the new year that now faces me. These new years, it seems, come in rapid-fire succession the older I get, and every year I sit in this place with this computer on my lap and wonder: What happened in the past year and what will happen in the year ahead?

The first question (what happened last year?) is a tricky and important one. For the issue at hand is not simply remembering as much as it is appreciating, what sunk in and affected me because I was made more aware of it. How many good meals do I remember, how many stimulating conversations with family and friends, how many pieces of music did I allow to seep into my soul and change me? Which books struck, inspired and challenged me? Perhaps most importantly, how did I allow God into my life in the past year? How often did I sit quietly and savor the presence of God in the quiet of this room, in the holiness of liturgy and the sacraments, in the company of friends, relatives, colleagues and strangers?

Most of us would likely say we appreciate these things. But we are called to a higher standard. We are called to savor them for what they are — gifts of the spirit, sent to make our lives richer and more meaningful and to draw us closer to the sender. All too often, and through no conscious decision as much as unconscious living, we miss all these things. They still happen to us (these meals, these conversations, these sacraments) but we haven’t noticed them and thanked the sender. We’re missing the moment and forgetting the gratitude.

hymnal — Count Your Blessings. SJG photo.

So all this leads us to the coming year, a chance (as always) to begin again, to live more purposefully, more authentically, more aware of the gifts given and the call to respond and share. For those called to the creative life, in whatever form, this is a call to recognize those gifts and transform them into something others can see, hear, taste, experience.

Today I’m beginning a challenge and throwing it out there to see if anyone wants to join me — a year of living in higher awareness and gratitude for the gifts around me. For me, this will take the physical form of a new journal (provided as a gift from my good friend Jill Stratton) in which I will be recording the blessings and moments and opportunities that come my way this year, in hopes that I will be more thankful, more aware, more creative in turning those blessings around and giving them to others. A year of savoring each day a little more intensely, a year of appreciating every gift that comes my way. The journal is just for me, but I have no doubt it will fuel and enrich my writing, my music, my photography and art, my cooking, my service to others.

I can’t help but be reminded of the old hymn:

Count your many blessings name them one by one.
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Ask yourself in silence: How aware of my blessings and gifts am I?

The Creative Spirit: Creatio ex nihilo

Steve · December 27, 2014 · 4 Comments

bass — Street musician, Maplewood, Mo. SJG photo.

One of the essential elements of creativity — one of the things that makes art “art,” — is that it begins out of nothingness. When we create, we echo and reflect God’s creation of the world out of the darkness and void. All things are creatio ex nihilo; they come into being from nothing, and that’s what makes the creative process a sacred one.

That’s not to say that we break new artistic ground each time we face an empty canvas, an empty page or screen or sit with our hands perched above the clay, the keys, the strings, the fabric. As in so many aspects of life, we stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. We write out of everything we have ever read. Compose because of what we have heard. Paint and sculpt and sew and assemble because we have walked through museums and experienced the works of others’ hands. Still, however humble, our own work begins from a moment of nothingness.

In talking and corresponding with writers, they will often say that they don’t have anything to give the world that hasn’t already been given thousands of times and by writers far more talented than themselves. And they are right, of course. If I worried about the originality of my ideas every time I wrote a blog post or a reflection in Living Faith, I would never write at all. Indeed, in the world of literature and art, so much attention is often paid to the idea of originality that would-be artists can become disheartened. Each time a sanctimonious critic decries the work of someone as “derivative,” someone lays down their pen, their brush, their journal of ideas and mutters, “what’s the point?” (As if that critic has anything new to say!)

For in this rarified air of the world of high art, such an approach to art criticism leaves many with seemingly nothing to do. But for people of faith who create because something deep beckons them to do so, the call is not to originality above all else. Rather, it is a response to a moment of inspiration out of silence — nothingness — that might serve to direct others’ attention to the Creator.

Street artist, Melaka, Malaysia. SJG photo.

The subject of the art needn’t be religious in the typical sense of the word, of course. A simple still life watercolor of an apple — its reds and yellows and greens summoning up our senses to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” has the ability to draw us near something sacred, if we allow it to do so, if we put ourselves in a place of openness to God and God’s creative, Holy Spirit.

The canvas or paper may begin blank and the light-bulb moment of creation is perhaps ours to savor and celebrate, but only when we realize that our moment of creation out of nothingness come out of our everything. For in that moment of silence is God, and in God is all that we need.

Ask yourself in silence: What can I create today? What image grabs me and demands incarnation?

The Creative Spirit: Mary’s ‘Yes’

Steve · December 20, 2014 · 8 Comments

Williamsburg silversmith shop. SJG photo.

Today I begin a new series of reflections about the role of the Spirit and of spirituality in the life of the creative person. Whether you are a professional artistic type, an occasional poet/artist/craftsperson or someone who just thinks that maybe there’s something deep inside them waiting to come out, I hope you’ll find in this series some inspiration that will move you toward recognizing the ideas germinating within you and putting down words and images that will enable you to share them with others. For that’s the role of the artist, to bring ideas to life.

I am up before the sun today, waiting to greet a busy day in these waning days of December, trying to latch on to an early-morning idea that will spur my brain into its creative mode. I’m trying to conceive, looking for a spark of something.

The gospel reading for today is one we all know. We’re only a few days from Christmas here in 2014, but this story from the very beginning of Luke’s gospel finds Mary before her child has even been conceived, confronted by an idea and a voice saying:

“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.”

And she replies: “Really? I don’t think so. I’m not really prepared for that and, by the way, I’m a virgin, so…thanks anyway.”

But this voice is calm and insistent and is having none of her initial hesitance: “Ah, but this isn’t about you. This is about God in you. It may seem impossible, but nothing is impossible with God.”

And Mary answers with a simple, “yes.”

forge — Smith's shop in Williamsburg. SJG photo.

It’s the beautiful beginning of the story of the Incarnation, and as I read and reflect on it this morning I am reminded that Mary’s “yes” to this conception serves as the perfect model for the creative process, for all of us who sense something moving and growing inside us. I will never conceive and bear a child, and yet I must be willing to accept and nurture the fruits of the Spirit that have been planted deep within me. The creative and artistic process requires a willingness to move beyond “I’m not really equipped for this and don’t yet have all the right experiences” to a simple “yes.”

The incarnation of Christ in the form of a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and born to a virgin is the ultimate metaphor for all who create. It’s unexpected and new. It’s a bit dramatic and filled with poetry and startling images. It’s unbelievable and yet contains the truth. As we sometimes say when astonishing things happen in real life: “You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.”

That the nativity is a great metaphor for the creative process doesn’t make it any less real, and the incarnation (the word becoming flesh) of Christ didn’t stop when Mary gave birth. The incarnation continues in all of us, and it’s a particularly vivid reminder of the responsibility of all who create.

As we arise each day and search for ideas and meaning and insights, as we face empty screens and journals and canvases and sketchbooks, the Word (co-present with God since before the creation of the world) moves around inside us and kicks us like an unborn child aching and yearning to see the light of day. We give birth because of his birth. We create because we have been created.

Speaking of light, it’s starting to fill the world around me. I’ve turned an hour or so of darkness into something new. That’s all God asks of us.

Ask yourself in silence: What’s inside me that’s aching to come out?