Thank God for creativity
We'd be in a real pickle without it.
I have a 10-year-old child who is endlessly creative. L draws, and he has already developed a distinctive style. He beatboxes. He writes stories with funny flourishes and dialogue that sounds like it came from the mouths of real people. He codes video games. He has a well-stocked costume box, and when he’s tired of doing everything else, I will suddenly be introduced to a character L is channeling – Ninja Bunny or a dangerologist or goodness knows who else. I am delighted by all of this, and I constantly wonder, “Where did this kid come from?”
L’s dad and I are not creative in the modes that he is. My visual art attempts are limited to paint-by-number kits. My only vocal performances are – were – my long-ago karaoke days. I wouldn’t know where to start writing a piece of fiction. The platforms L uses for coding, with all their numbers and options, make me want to retreat to a dark, quiet room to calm my senses. I have great appreciation for cosplayers – and we’re around a lot of them when we go to regular events at our local comic book store – but it’s been a while since I’ve put on a new identity myself.
It’s not fair, though, to say that I’m not creative in other ways. I have lots of ideas. I use them as fodder for articles or for coaching frameworks or curricula. I am a spiritual entrepreneur, which has required me to be ever-innovative and nimble. I am at my best as a coach when I can access an image or resource for my coachee and me to play with. The people I work with are at their best when I can help them claim the label of artist or architect or social scientist in the contexts of their ministries. I love this work because I am constantly inspired by my coachees’ ingenuity. And, on a personal note, I have been known to love a good dance break.
The truth is that we are all creative, whether or not we’ve been told that, whether or not we’re as yet able to say that about ourselves. We all play, we all build things, we all experiment, we all make choices as we move about the world. These are all expressions of creativity. And it’s no wonder that we are all inventive. The first chapter of the Bible emphasizes the maker spirit of a God who fashions the world out of an overflow of love and takes such great joy in God’s own imagination. There’s beauty and noise. There’s laughter. We can know God – and God’s raucous spirit – through the created world. We can recognize the divine in one another because we each have been created and are creators ourselves.
Why, though, is it so important that we are creative? Well, first of all, using our whole selves in resourceful and original ways reflects and honors and connects us to an inventive God. It draws us to one another, too. Creativity catches the eye and makes us want to know more about who its creator is, and what we create reveals much about us to those who pay attention. Imagination is also what can allow us both to envision a hope-filled future – a reality much different than the one we inhabit, with its divisiveness and denunciation and destruction – and to live toward that better future. Then our inventiveness can help us steward our world and all that is in it well. Goodness knows it is going to take new approaches to reverse all the abuses of the Earth that are contributing to rapid climate change and to right all the wrongs perpetrated against those who have been marginalized.
This claim that creativity is foundational to connection and is a saving grace is not just a nice idea, though. There’s science behind it. When we are fearful, our brains and bodies are designed to direct all of our resources to staying safe. We will run away from the danger, stay in place and battle it, or basically play possum, making ourselves as nonthreatening as possible. This is all good and necessary to a point. When we are in imminent danger, we need to be able to act on behalf of our survival. But this is not the most helpful approach to long-term stress. When we live in anxiety, we cut ourselves off from connection with others, thinking they could hurt us. We are also locked out of the parts of our brain devoted to higher, bigger thinking – in other words, our creativity. Luckily, even small, mindless acts of creativity like painting, working with clay, sitting in the presence of beauty, and finding humor can open us back up to people and ideas. Ingenuity is both the key to accessing our imaginations and the result of turning that key.
Thank goodness, because we live in a world of persistent threat. Change is a constant, even change within our beloved institutions like church. Membership declines, staff turns over, the neighborhood changes, and legacy ministries come to an end. And this is against the backdrop of life-or-death battles with dehumanizing, even murderous, forces. We must be able to access our creative resources, whatever form they take, for our own thriving and for the healing of all the world. When we do so, our lives become sacred texts that inspire and guide others. We do the work that moves us all closer to peace and equity.
We have built innovative, artistic muscle for such a time as this. Let’s lean into creativity as fully as we can as individuals and as a community. When there is change in our congregations, let’s tap into imagination. When we are renouncing the forces of evil, let’s experiment, design, and fight back with beauty. Our God-given and human-exercised creativity will both give us all hope and make that hope come to pass. So let’s use it to pour love into the world and delight God and make a whole lot of joy-filled noise.