"God and His Creativity"

Carmen: A bottomless emptiness, a total state of Nothingness.

Don: No light, no time, no substance.

Carmen: Then God starts it all off, and all of a sudden –

Together: stuff everywhere.

Don: Like a painter throwing paint on a canvass, God creates heaven and earth with such a state of chaos and confusion.

Carmen: No form, no function, just vast spaces of dark, shapeless, lifeless matter.

Don: And floating above it all, God's Holy Spirit, ready for action.

Carmen: God calls out, "Lights!" and light covers the skies and night is swept off the scene.

Don: He gives the light the ability to blink, creating what he calls "night" and "day", designing the first official day in history.

Carmen: Day 2 begins. God takes out the most enormous paintbrush and creates a dome in a million shades of blue with the ability to change color depending on how the light shines on it.

Don: He calls this "sky", and in this huge expanse, this universe-sized stadium, he creates details such as thunder and lightening.

Carmen: Day 3. God surveys his work so far, and decides, "Too much water.

Don: We need something to walk on, a huge lump of it. Call it land, and let the sea lick its edges.

Carmen: So God made it, and he organized the land and water into sections, with all different shapes and abilities.

Don: He created giant sections of mountains, where snow would fall. He created deserts, where little rain would fall and the earth would be made of sand.

Carmen: He molded the earth to all different shapes and kinds of land, from the Grand Canyon to the Swiss Alps.

Don: He took a look at his handiwork so far, and said, "Too plain. We need some color. A million shades."

Carmen: Immediately the earth goes wild with trees, bushes, plants, flowers, fungus.

Don: Here's where he starts to really do his best work yet. He creates tall trees that can grow up to 400 feet tall. He creates special little weeds, like the three leaf clover, with the occasional four leaf thrown in for luck.

Carmen: He creates flowers – now he's really on a roll with this whole "creation" thing - and he covers the land with every shape, every shade of color, every possible aroma you can imagine. He creates roses, which will be the flower of love, and gerber daisies which will last for two weeks after they are cut, and lilies in a million different beautiful shades that will be the symbol of spring.

Don: He decides it's not just enough for this stuff to smell nice, it should taste good too, so he goes into produce creation, forming grapes and potatoes and lettuce and watermelon and gourds and radishes. He gives them colors and flavors all different and unique. He looks at all the greenery, and says, "This is good, I better make this last." So he gives it a growth permit, and seeds appear on every one. "Yes!" says God.

Carmen: Day 4. God says, "We need a schedule. Sun for the day, and moon for the night. We make them in such a way that they are self sufficient, and so that they create a schedule with season, days and years. And we need stars! Think of a number, add a trillion, and now we're talking. Think of it as jewelery for the sky."

Don: Day 5. Okay, animals. A million different types of each. And let's have some fun with it - let's get a couple of really good ideas, and then make some different variations. Like fish - I've got some thoughts about those. Let's play around with their colors, and sizes, and let's reallly get creative with their shapes.

Carmen: And dogs - I think those are really going to be a hit. Let's give them some pizazz. I'm seeing everything from huge and ferocious to small and cuddly. I think those could be a fashion trend someday.

Don: And birds - I think these can be practical and totally outrageous. Now let's take a couple of body parts and really exaggerate them – like the neck, the nose, the ears, the teeth, and let's even throw in a couple of horns every now and then.

Carmen: And let's give them the ability to adapt over time. And let’s have some fun with their skin - let’s do some really wild colors and crazy patterns, and let’s make some parts bald and some with some parts furry. Fabulous!

Don: Day 6. Let's make people. Like us, but with flesh and blood. Skin and bone. Minds and spirits. And let's give them the ability to be different - over time, let's make each one unique. Just like the animals, we'll take an idea and play around with it. Different colors, different features, we'll even make some furry like the animals - no two humans will be the same.

Carmen: Their job description – make babies. Run the planet well. Love and serve the one true God. God looked at everything he's made and says, "Fantastic! I love it!"

Don: Day 7. Job done. The cosmos and the earth complete. God takes a bit of R & R and just enjoys. Let's keep this day special. A battery recharge day.

Together: A rest day.

Carmen: If you think of God, and had to describe him in five words or less, what words would you use? What do you think would be the first that would pop into your head? Loving? Good? Holy? Unfortunately, creative isn't usually one of those words that would often be used to describe God.

Don: What if you had to think of the most creative people in the past century? Who would they be? Disney? J.K. Rowling? Ansel Adams? Steven Spielberg? What makes each of this people creative? Is it their achievements?

Carmen: Or is it the brilliance and ingenuity of their ideas? Or is it that they have the same gifts and abilities as all the rest of us, but they just happened to be in the right place at the right time? They just happen to believe in themselves and embrace the creativity they have been given?

Don: See, the unfortunate thing is that when it comes to God, we underestimate his creativity. We shortchange him, and we allow ourselves to take credit for what God has done, when in reality, God's creativity is so much a part of who he is that the Bible even begins with a detailed description of his artwork. We accept the idea of God as Creator, but we ignore his extravagant creativity, his sheer inventiveness and playfulness.

Carmen: The good and bad thing about God's creation is that it's all around us. God's amazing masterpieces are everywhere surrouding us whereever we go and anywhere we look, but because of that, it becomes common to us.

Don: How many of us look outside when it is snowing and think, "God personally handcrafted each individual snowflake different?" I look outside and think, "How long is it going to take my husband to shovel all of this up?" Do we look outside in the summer as we drive around thinking, "Each grain of wheat is a gift from God for us to eat?"

Carmen: Or do we think, "I wonder if this year the weather is finally going to cooperate with the farmers." We are so surrounded by the world that God has made for us that we've become too spoiled to actually see it. To us, the creation story has become equal in grandeur as a fairy tale or an urban legend. When in reality, the story of God creating this amazing world is far more than we ever read in to.

Don: What about the idea of God wearing an old button down shirt put on backwards, you know like you used to do in kindergarten? He's got paint spattered all over the shirt and clay up to his elbows. He's got glue in his hair –

Carmen: does God have hair?

Don: and he's laughing hysterically as he makes the baboon's back side, and smelling each of the flowers after he makes it (and maybe saving a bouquet or two for himself!) and deciding as he formed each of us which ones of us would be able to sing, and who would have curly hair, and who would be double jointed.

Carmen: Our God is a God of grand, majestic landscapes, but he's also the God of of the gritty details of creation. He is just as in his artistic element forming rugged mountains out of nothing as he is designing the whitest softest sand grain by grain. Mark Buchanan writes, "God's creativity is, in one sense, the most obvious thing about him. He grandstands it, parades his crafts and wares and potions, brash and gaudy as a gypsy's wagon. But in another sense, God's creativity is hidden. He's elusive with it, playful, coy. Much of what he makes he tucks away, in microscopic minuteness or cosmic immensity, deep beneath us or far above us. He saves his most intricate work for the insides and undersides of things."

Carmen: Our God is a God of contrasts. Who else could make compost and manure into fertilizer? Who else could turn coal into diamonds? And I hope you don't get offended by this one, but who else could take sinful, dirty, rotten scoundrels such as me and you, and love us and call us his beloved children?

Don: Our God is a God of multi-purpose items. To me, this is the most dazzling aspect of his creation. When he made the cow, I'm sure he was thinking, whipped cream is going to taste really yummy on those strawberries that I made yesterday, and a big slice of this cow is going to taste real good cooked over an open flame, and the skin will be able to make a mean looking leather jacket or a high quality pair of shoes. He knew that the sun would not only provide light to the world, but would also give us heat, and suntans.

Carmen: He knew that the moon would not just reflect the light of the sun in the night, but would also control the tides of the ocean. He knew that stars wouldn't just dress up the night sky, but also serve as navigation tools. He knew that water would be used to wash, and freeze, and drink, and cook, and smooth stones and push boats and flush toilets. He knew that trees would be a wonderful commodity, as they would be the home of birds, and would provide shade, and would turn in to beautiful furniture, and paper - what a great design that was - for love letters and drawing and oragami and postits and books.

Carmen: We’re going to do a poll, and there’s no pressure, and we’re not going to pick on you or tease you or make you wear a funny wig or anything, but how many here would say that without a shadow of a doubt they are gifted with creativity? Raise your hand.

Okay, now how many of you are meat-and-potatoes, I-don’t-like-to-try-new-things, I’m not creative and am never gonna be kinds of people?

In Orbiting the Giant Hairball, writer and artist Gordon MacKenzie describes his frequent visits to grammar schools to speak to children. He often began by asking, "How many of you are artists?" When the audience was kindergartners or children in the early primary grades, every hand immediately shot up. The percentage declined to about half when he addressed children in the middle grades. By the time Gordon met with kids in grade five or six, only a few students tentatively raised their hands. Gordon found this predictable pattern everywhere he went.

How sad. All of us start out thinking of ourselves as little creative geniuses. We acknowledge and celebrate our God given creative talents and abilities, but somewhere, for some reason at around age eight, we build a box around ourselves and we start to dwell inside that box. And as we grow, the box around us stays the same size. We physically become bigger, and what we’re capable of becomes greater, but the way we see ourselves and what we are capable of able to do stays the same size. Somewhere along the way we apply the label of “creative” to those we deem can "draw really good pictures". We then relegate ourselves to the larger part of the population who simply aren't very gifted in the creative realms.

For those of you who didn’t raise your hands at being creative, I’ve got a little scientific evidence that’s going to blow your theory and your view of yourself out of the water. Alex Osbourne, author of Your Creative Power, writes, "An analysis of almost all the psychological tests ever made points to the conclusion that creative talent is normally distributed - that all of us possess this talent. The difference is only in degree; and that degree is largely influenced by effort."

Those of you who call yourselves “the uncreative” let me just tell you right now that you’re wrong – there’s no such thing as a person who is not creative – there’s just active and inactive creative people.

Creativity does not mean that you can draw. Or sing. Or dance. Or play an instrument. I can’t do one single one of those things, or at least, I can’t do them well. Creativity is the art, and those different things are the tools, or expressions of that creativity. But we limit ourselves on what we consider to be creative. Creativity is not a technique but an attitude. It’s the way that we approach our lives, and it’s just as valid if you are a professional painter as if you are a financial planner or a mom or a student or a…fill in the blank with what you do – not just your profession, but each thing that you do in your day and your life. It’s for businesspeople trying to close a sale, it’s for engineers trying to solve a problem, it’s for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.

Dewitt Jones, who was a photographer for National Geographic said that “creativity is falling in love through the lens of the camera”. And that’s just what it is supposed to be – falling in love with the world, through whatever means you should choose. It’s approaching each challenge and problem and new thing and relationship and every day occurance and seeing it for the very first time with a fresh set of eyes – not your old, in-the-box, I’m-not-creative eyes, but with the eyes of someone who is created in God’s image and who has the Creator of the world on their side and who lives life not as the age that you are, but as a former indergartener in a bigger body.

Don: The film Amadeus, and the play on which it is based, dramatizes and romanticizes the divine origins of creative genius. Antonio Salieri, representing the talented hack, is cursed to live in the time of Mozart, the gifted and undisciplined genius who writes as though touched by the hand of God. Salieri recognizes the depth of Mozart’s genius, and is tortured that God has chosen someone so unworthy to be His divine creative vessel.

Carmen: Of course, this is total crap.

(Don cuts in on this sentence). There are no “natural” geniuses. The young Wolfgang was exposed to everyone in Europe who was writing good music or could be of use in Wolfgang’s musical development. Mozart was hardly some naïve prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let the music flow from his fingertips. It’s a nice image for selling tickets to movies, but whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won’t know how to harness the power of that kiss.

Don: Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose. That’s the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart. Certainly, he had a gift that set him apart from others. Still, few people, even those hugely gifted, are capable of the application and focus that Mozart displayed throughout his short life.

Carmen: As Mozart wrote to a friend, “People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.” Whatever scope and grandeur you attach to Mozart’s musical gift, his so-called genius, his discipline and work ethic were its equal. For those of you who have never before embraced the creativity God has given you, here are four ways to start to develop the creative side of yourself.