I told my sister that she needed to find a creative outlet. I thought it would be good for her--some media for her energy. Some scratch for her productive itch. A canal to direct the stream of her amorphous ideas.
Indeed, this is necessary to who we are. We are creators. We, those of the imago dei, were created to create, to dream houses, to craft words, to grow babies inside our own bodies.
But too often Fallenness invades our flesh, transports the army of pragmatism in plain, gray train cars through our veins, and beats our winsome novelty into submission to productivity.
We must fight these foreign forces. A battle of lightning passion flashing in eyes that behold beauty that turns the struggle inward vacillating between mundane necessities and life-giving dreams on paper, canvas, and bronze. A war of light and color, hope and laughter.
This is why the hopeful among us insist on creative outlets. If we are to do battle against Fallenness in our world, we must embrace who we always have been: creators.
In the film Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams' character, John Keating, tells his poetry class, "Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
I love the romance of this statement. And I believe it puts things in a new and helpful perspective. But I also think that in some other sense poetry, art, painting, dance, and singing are necessary to sustain life.
To live in pragmatism is no life at all. This is why, in part, the war-torn, the refugees, the poverty-stricken, and the abused are so deprived of life, because their ability to create has been taken away, stolen, and nearly destroyed. A life without creation is a subhuman existence.
Creative outlets--for those with the opportunity--are necessary because they recognize and enhance our very humanity.
At the same time, the concept of the 'creative outlet' compartmentalizes and trivializes this experience which is actually central to our lives. They aren't nice-if-you-can-get-it but naturally necessary. 'Outlet' implies that these artistic expressions are peripheral to our being, auxiliary to our existence, when in fact it is creativity that is at the very core of who we were made to be. Made to be makers. Built to be builders. Dreamed of as dreamers. Meant to have meaning. This is humanity.
These outlets are merely the copper pipes out of which flows the scarlet blood of our hearts and minds onto the page, into the air, and stomping, dancing down the pavement.
This earth is our territory and we were intended for observing its aesthetics and shifting its parts around to arrange new, fresh, and novel beauty. Here is the very place for our lives to revolve around the Creator not in bland and functional duty, but in smooth and striking originality.
Here is a place for creating.
Indeed, this is necessary to who we are. We are creators. We, those of the imago dei, were created to create, to dream houses, to craft words, to grow babies inside our own bodies.
But too often Fallenness invades our flesh, transports the army of pragmatism in plain, gray train cars through our veins, and beats our winsome novelty into submission to productivity.
We must fight these foreign forces. A battle of lightning passion flashing in eyes that behold beauty that turns the struggle inward vacillating between mundane necessities and life-giving dreams on paper, canvas, and bronze. A war of light and color, hope and laughter.
This is why the hopeful among us insist on creative outlets. If we are to do battle against Fallenness in our world, we must embrace who we always have been: creators.
In the film Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams' character, John Keating, tells his poetry class, "Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
I love the romance of this statement. And I believe it puts things in a new and helpful perspective. But I also think that in some other sense poetry, art, painting, dance, and singing are necessary to sustain life.
To live in pragmatism is no life at all. This is why, in part, the war-torn, the refugees, the poverty-stricken, and the abused are so deprived of life, because their ability to create has been taken away, stolen, and nearly destroyed. A life without creation is a subhuman existence.
Creative outlets--for those with the opportunity--are necessary because they recognize and enhance our very humanity.
At the same time, the concept of the 'creative outlet' compartmentalizes and trivializes this experience which is actually central to our lives. They aren't nice-if-you-can-get-it but naturally necessary. 'Outlet' implies that these artistic expressions are peripheral to our being, auxiliary to our existence, when in fact it is creativity that is at the very core of who we were made to be. Made to be makers. Built to be builders. Dreamed of as dreamers. Meant to have meaning. This is humanity.
These outlets are merely the copper pipes out of which flows the scarlet blood of our hearts and minds onto the page, into the air, and stomping, dancing down the pavement.
This earth is our territory and we were intended for observing its aesthetics and shifting its parts around to arrange new, fresh, and novel beauty. Here is the very place for our lives to revolve around the Creator not in bland and functional duty, but in smooth and striking originality.
Here is a place for creating.