Creativity

When we exercise our wonderful ability to be creative, its my opinion that we draw pretty darn close to God.

After all, didn’t the Big Fella exercise the ultimate example of creativity when he created the universe? Yep, I think He knows a thing or two about creativity.

All kidding aside, it stands to reason at least in my feeble mind that if we are created in God’s image, then we have been given the gift of creativity with which to produce some remarkable things. As children, we seem to instinctively know this. Just watch your own children playing sometime; you’ll quickly notice that they are creating all the time.

As kids we used to create almost every day. Whether it was baseball fields out of tennis courts or dirt lots, or new worlds to conquer and explore out of a neighbor’s backyard, there seemingly was nothing that stood in our way in terms of using our imagination. We created a whole, whole lot out of seemingly nothing.

So, what happens to us as we age? Why does it seem that our ability to tap into our creativeness seems to diminish with time? Did we suddenly become shut off from our own internal fountain of imagination, just because we got older?

Well, yes, sometimes we do get shut off from our own ability to create. “Real life”, whatever that is, sometimes discourages us from utilizing our creative abilities. For a variety of reasons, oftentimes the temptation is to tend to shut down our imagination, and focus upon what is real and concrete. If we aren’t told outright, then it is often strongly implied that imagination is the province of children and daydreamers.

So, off we go to live in our inside-the-box lives, cutting ourselves off from a veritable fountain of youth: Our imagination.

I think this is a sad, sad way to live, yet I too at times have fallen victim to what others have perceived I should be doing, namely being “normal”, and keeping my “nose to the grindstone”, leaving that imagination stuff to kids.

What a load of bologna!

There’s nothing written in the great Handbook of Life that says as we get older, we must leave our imaginations behind. Nothing. Not a sentence. Heck, not a word. Imagination is the stuff of dreams, and dreams are the ingredients of creativity, and ultimately, creation. If someone hadn’t imagined as a grown-up how wonderful it would be for man to go the moon, then, well, we wouldn’t have ultimately made it.

I’ll bet that person was pretty much dismissed as a day-dreamer too.

Folks, God wants us to create. God wants us to use our imaginations, or else, why would he have seen to it that humans would ultimately possess this capacity? Our ability to dream, and then follow through on those dreams, is what makes us different from the animals, and all other living creatures. We can imagine possibilities. We can see these possibilities, and then if the desire is strong enough, make them real through creation.

What greater tribute can we give to God then to use our own abilities to create the future?

So go ahead and imagine. Heck, tonight, why not go outside, and just picture yourself standing at the plate with the bases loaded, down 3 runs, in the bottom of the ninth inning, in the last game of the World Series. See yourself in a little play of sorts, a recreation of a potential heroic moment that many warm-blooded American males dream about. Have some fun, and play…the neighbors might think you’re a bit daft, but who cares?

And then, swing for the fences. You just might connect.

-The Minister