Created to Create

Truth be told, I meant to write this post about nine weeks ago when I began this journey into creativity and prayer.  As part of this class, besides the random google-ing I've done about prayer and creativity, different artistic practices and techniques and the background of movement in meditation and prayer I was also tasked with reading a chapter or two from Daniel Wolpert's book "Creating a Life with God". 

If you haven't read this or any of Daniel's other books, I highly recommend you take the time to do so.  They are accessible and inspiring.  In this book, Daniel has a chapter called "Creativity and the Divine: To Create is to Pray".  For being a short chapter (only 10 pages) it packs quite the punch, explaining what it means to be created to create and what that means for prayer. 

Daniel begins with the Bible and the fundamental and foundational image of God as one who creates which is carried out not only through the Genesis story but through the entire Biblical narrative.  He explains that "Creativity is the sign that God is God; no one else can create as God creates." (92).  At first hearing this, it would seem as though we should all throw in the towel since nothing we create could ever amount to anything compared to God.  But then, Daniel links the creative power of God to God's love.  It is through the love of God that all things are created and brought into life and that includes human beings who have been created not only by God but in the image and likeness of God.  Daniel says, "So, just as God sees visions of what is to be created and then creates, so too we are designed to see visions and create in accordance with the power and presence of God in our lives." (92). 

We are created out of love and given the power and ability to enter into that creative process.  This is a pretty basic idea found throughout the Bible but how does it relate to prayer?  It is very simple actually.  Prayer connects us with God and creativity connects us with the creative power and creative acts of God and that means that entering into creativity becomes a prayer practice.

We are all created to create and it is our own leanings and getting-in-the-ways that separate us from this form of prayer.  We have all grown up in a culture that teaches us that we are not creative and yet the more I have talked with people the more I have heard an underlying desire to create despite feeling inadequate and under qualified.  I believe this desire trumps what we have been taught by the world because it has been written into our very DNA by the creator of world.  But in order to engage in creative acts, in this kind of prayer, we must get out of our own way and trust in the creativity that is within us.  So I leave you with a quote from Hildegard of Bingen:

"Humanity too is God's creation.  But humanity alone is called to co-operate with God in the creation."