Reflections of the Creator

 

Creativity Reflects God in Everything We Do

The summer is coming to a close and with it, the need to spend time mowing the lawn and watering the flowers. It doesn’t take that long of course, but it’s one more time suck away from writing. My Cubs games are another one. I paid for MLB network this year thinking I might only watch a handful of games. Turns out, I have the opposite problem. The team is playing well and looking to make a deep playoff run. That means it’s hard to turn off. The biggest reason for not writing as much is the 3 nights per week of personal training I do. This is new since June. I’m busier than I was at the beginning of the year by orders of magnitude.

New Realities

But even with the new responsibilities I could squeeze in a 700 word blog once in a while. Something has shifted in my attitude toward writing and I can’t pin it down. When I started the blog over 10 years ago it was a way to keep myself accountable to the process and improving in the craft. Putting it online is more about having to look at how long it’s been since my last post. Currently I’m only putting a new one out every 3 or 4 weeks. 7 to 10 days used to be the longest stretch I allowed myself without feeling like a slug who watches too much baseball. I’d scribble something out just to complete the empty space on my wall. Now I can' hardly manage that.

A lot of my favorite pieces over the years are thrown together bits of opinion that formed a semi coherent article. That sense of responsibility to the page has drifted away like a helium balloon. It’s still up there somewhere above my head on a very long string. I haven’t cut the string and let it float away just yet. When you start something creative it isn’t easy to just cut it loose. Maybe I’m stretching the meaning of the word “creative” here, but in the most basic sense the articles are mine. The ideas, thoughts and opinions presented on the site went through a filter in my brain and came out as an expression of me. Some were clear and concise, others were muddy and needed a good wash. But the quality isn’t really the point.

Old Examples

It’s how the ideas define you, how they’ve changed and what still remains core to your identity. Not what opinions have been consistent across time, but what intangibles still color your work.

 I’ll use PJ O’Rourke because he’s was a favorite of mine for so long. He was consistently funny and irreverent in a playful way. I was too young for the National Lampoon years and even much of what followed. But his journalism for Rolling Stone and even the books he wrote in the 90s put a smiley face on some very dull topics. His mixture of 60’s hippy and witty libertarian was the perfect attitude for the kind of journalism he pursued. He missed on a few of his books late in life, but I never held it against him. 

His opinions changed over time with the culture, but his writing was always smart and funny. He enjoyed discussing politics and culture, and always found a way to infuse his trips with humor.

I think the recognizable part of a person’s work is what it makes it unique. This is true in all realms of creativity. It provides the color. I was never a big Van Halen fan but I always knew his guitar the second a new song hit the radio. Kindergarten was as far as I got in studying music. The nice way to say it is, music wasn’t a good fit for me. I was kindly asked to try something else by my teacher after a few sessions with a recorder. But even with my unsophisticated understanding of music, Van Halen is easy to pick out. This isn’t to say that all work is brilliant, just that’s it reflects its creator.

Conclusion

A lot of this unique style is unintentional and imbeds itself into our work. The nature of creativity comes from the ultimate Creator though. Even when we don’t acknowledge Him, we are His handiwork as Paul says in Ephesians. Our creative acts are an outgrowth of our Father in heaven. In this, we reflect our maker. If I didn’t write another word on my webpage again, I hope that the small collection at least reflects the God who created me. I hope that’s the color of my writing. 

For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 (Holman)