Creativity

I'm a pastor. I didn't plan on this when I decided to become one, but a large part of my job is simply being creative. This is good and bad. It is bad when I'm lazy (which is more often than I'd like to admit and will probably write about later). It is good because creativity can powerfully affect people. I wish I were more creative than I am. I wish I could be more like this guy.

Or I wish I could be more like a great writer. I have a favorite poem. It is called "Design" by Robert Frost. It shouldn't be my favorite because I'm a professional holy man and all, but I am captivated by the word pictures and thought process it causes within me.

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small. 

Or even a great photographer. Have you seen these pictures floating around on Facebook?  http:www.boredpanda.com/animal..

The time that must have gone into all 3 of these projects must have been astounding. Creativity is taking hours and hours (or 9 months) of diligent, thoughtful work and cramming it into a bite-sized morsel that hits people deep where they live.

One of my favorite stories is where God tells humans to fill the world and subdue it. My environmentalist friends won't be too pleased about that. There's a festering theological perspective that says you're a terrible person unless you drive a Prius, recycle, feel bad about the industrial revolution and eat organic. That's partially true, we should take care of what God has given us, but it's also true that I'm allowed to enjoy my iPhone, to enjoy the blessings (which are many) that come from plastic, and to enjoy driving a big fat white Ford F-100 from 1967 that get's 8 MPG, runs on leaded gasoline, and only has 4 gears. It's time we found the balance between stewardship and enjoyment. Whenever I get to travel and see the world God created and the world we've been allowed to create by His good graces, it astounds me.

Have you ever been to Berlin? Manhattan? Cairo? San Francisco? Prague? I hope you never look at a city's skyline the same way again. Or maybe you're partial to another skyline. The point is that these are massive, amazing structures that we humans have made. We've come a long way from living in caves, and it isn't wrong..

"You never really finish a creative project..."

 I don't move boxes, or clean toilets, or build houses and so there's an aspect of my job that isn't ever finished. I once had a professor who was writing a paper he would have to present to a bunch of big wigs from other schools. He had fallen behind on the project (I bet because he was watching The Walking Dead on Netflix). He gave us some lame excuse for not grading our tests on time and working on his paper (at least I thought it was lame); he said, "You never really finish a creative project, you just run out of time to keep working on it."

I think that is true. Creative projects never really get finished. We just run out of time to keep working on them.

So, whether you realize it or not, you're part of this grand scheme. The creation of the world is essentially ongoing, and you have a role to play. My deepest desire is that you would believe this. I pray you can see that God has created you and has a purpose for you. In fact, I wish we all could realize that, because soon, each and every one of us is going to run out of time to play our part.

Travis.