THOUGHTS

May 17, 2020

A revision of a blog post 2014

The Creative Urge

Have you ever felt like you had to create or burst?  Hopefully it is still a hangover from childhood.  It pleases me to no end to see the creative urge in my grandchildren, especially in this time of forced stillness.  

"Everyone is born creating;

everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when they hit puberty, they take the crayons away

and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, etc...

Being suddenly hit years later with a creative bug

 is just a wee voice telling you,

I'd like my crayons back, please."

Hugh MacLeod.

"So you see, imagination needs moodling along...

happy idling, dawdling, and puttering."

Brenda Veland

"My father used to call imagination heavenly magic

 - something that makes humans more like their Creator.

If God created things like massive oceans, endless horizons,

children's laughter, Happily Ever After,

If God created our endless mountain views, 

don't think He meant stories for us 

but to glimpse His world in ours through

things like painting, music..."

Pepper Basham,

a favorite fiction novelist

"When you start to think of the arts as not this thing that is going to get you something in terms of becoming an artist or becoming famous or whatever it is that people do, but rather a way of making being in the world not just bearable, but fascinating, then it starts to get interesting again."  Lynda Berry.

My art professor once singled me out saying, "Everybody ought to look like her," pointing to me.  "See how she really gets into her work!"  Now that was embarrassing because I was covered up to my elbows in paint with more on my hands then on my brush or canvas and messy all over.  It wasn't what I was painting he called attention to, but the process.  I could not create without wearing it.

"Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."  

I Corinthians 10:31

I love that part, "whatever you do." 

"Whatever," that about covers it all.  

Another one of my favorite quotes is,

"God often would enrich, 

but finds not where to place His treasure,

--nor in hand nor heart a vacant space."

Richard Chenevix Trench

Open your hand, your heart to make that vacant space.  

Clean off the crowded spaces and open the door to possibilities.

"Creativity is contagious.

Pass it on."

Albert Einstein.

"True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done,

the zest of creating things."

Antoine de St. Exupery