Monday Morning Music Ministry

A little departure — not a “religious” message; but, I hope, a spiritual one!

It is to share a moment with you who are engaged in creativity. Nobody run for the exit, because in a way, we all are so engaged. I thought of this because I was on the phone this afternoon with a friend, and I bollixed up a couple of things having to do with numbers… typical for me, stupid things. Some of us typically mumble things about “right brain, left brain,” but working in the creative arts is not always the same thing as exercising creativity!

Many of my friends are writers or cartoonists, and what I am about to say is common to them, and to musicians and poets and singers and painters and composers and actors and photographers. And public speakers. And counselors. And designers. And decorators. Teachers. Pastors. Charity workers. Those entrusted with law-enforcement. Ministers, by definition. Even accountants (ha) and politicians making claims and taping commercials (ha ha) have to be creative. Certainly mothers and caregivers, a thousand ways every day.

… Actually, you can’t name a human activity where creativity does not come into play. And if you think you have found someone, or some profession… surely that person ASPIRES to write or perform or draw in private time. Or to receive that mysterious, soul-satisfying sustenance from enjoying the works of people who do — which is, just as real, a Bond of Creativity.

All of this is commonplace — banal if it is in fact so universal — except that we don’t always realize it. We don’t appreciate it in others, but anyone who creates some work of art, on any level, bares his or her soul to a world that can reject or ridicule or despise it. Yet we do what we do because we have to. We have to share it; we have to “let it out”; we have to touch someone we probably will never meet. The cliched creator who lives a hermit-like existence is actually the most open and vulnerable of God’s creatures.

Create… creatures… Creator. Here we bring a message full circle. If we fail to appreciate creativity in others, surely a lot of us tend to miss the creativity in ourselves. It is there, it should be encouraged, and, as a principle of life, must be exercised to be healthy and strong. Some people believe that to say that humans “create” anything is blasphemous — that only God can create anything. I think that is true if you are playing word games.

God has given us, among His unique gifts, sparks of creativity. Anything we “create” is therefore an extension of His grace and His glory. J S Bach began every one of his works with the words, “Help me, Jesus,” and ended every work with the words, “To God be ALL the glory.” Nothing we can create is apart from Him.

Illustrating my message is a secular song, not by Bach but by the singer/songwriter Lacy J Dalton. It perfectly catches the creative process — the inchoate passion, the unquenchable dreams, the insane struggles, the breakthroughs; the success that is not always commercial, but measured by the “Aha!” moment in whatever pursuit you choose. Her metaphor is the singer/songwriter (the best art is inescapably self-referential). 16th Avenue, Nashville’s street of dreams where recording studios and performance stages abound, is her metaphor of the world. Oh, she nails it. Aha!

Appreciate your own creativity this week, and that in others. Celebrate it. Exercise it. And remember its source — the One who is reflected and honored in what you do.

Click:  An Anthem to Creativity