April 2007

Continuing on our Creativity & Spirituality series.

Groups of four were gathered and given a single styrofoam cup. Everyone was invited to communicate to one another what their hopes for the church might be.

The only catch was that they could only communicate in silence through manipulating the styrofoam cup.

What we discovered during the process…

- The simplicity of the object forced us to think of ideas that we did not have before

- There was an admiration of how people were able to creatively express themselves with the object, gesturing, positioning, tearing, ripping, shaping, and decimating it.

- Those who might not speak up otherwise, were heard

- Because people took turns to manipulate the object, we learned that quite often the reality is that we rarely are offered a clean slate. Much of our work often must be built upon the impact of others before us.

- One group thought outside the box and found my stash of additional cups. Most of us often assume that we can only work with the resources that we have been given, not what we might have ‘access’ to.

- Our community of faith is latent with ideas that have not been expressed until people had an opportunity to communicate through a different medium

Continuing on our Creativity & Spirituality series.

I’ve been at IKEA seven times in the last eight days. I’ve found it extremely conducive for my school work, writing, scheming & dreaming. It’s got an excellent $1 breakfast, bottomless coffee or drinks, and a LACK of an internet connection.

I absolutely love having the world at my fingertips, but when it comes to my personal creativity and spiritual formation, the abundance that is offered by the internet doesn’t really help me.

There, I’ve said it. I know my wife will use this against me the rest of my life now.

There’s an interesting poster on the wall at IKEA that describes how their designers always begin by fixing a set low price before designing anything. ie. check out this simple innovation.

They say this forces their designers and engineers to be inventive and creative.

Could it be that our creativity and spirituality have been stifled because we have too much?

Here’s a great video of someone painting with simply ketchup and fries.

Continuing the series on Creativity and Spirituality, the song writers today are the prophets and poets of our time.

I think I’ve spent all my life looking for myself and God within music. My wife can attest to the number of songs I rant about endlessly in where I find faith and song converging.

Here’s just one song that rocks and speaks at the same time.

Some say love is not for sinners
I believe that isn’t true
‘Cause when I was finished sinning
Love came down and showed me you

And you told me how to get there
So I tried to find a way
Then I ran into your garden
But I tripped out the gate
I tripped out the gate

What are you doing to me?
I’m so into you
And the hardest part is knowing
That I’ll never follow through
You’re slowly killing me
And I wish it wasn’t true
Cause I’m so into you

Like a ton of bricks it hit me
And woke me from this dream
No matter how hard I tried to wash my hands
I could never get ‘em clean
I could never get ‘em clean

The dude’s clearly writing it to a girl, but do you see how it echoes the story of Christ? It highlights our complete inability to make things ‘right’ even after coming to faith. Faith is this endless journey, and there are parts in it where you ‘trip out the gate’ and find yourself lost in such beauty it’s undeniable.

Other songs people mentioned in our class included songs by K’OS, Rufus Wainwright, Edwin, Coldplay, ruben studdard, and Sarah McLachlan… anyone else got others?

Innovation is a subset of creativity. It is about taking something that exists and transforming it into something new that is equally if not more extraordinary and beautiful.

If you know anything about religious culture, it often has an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality. We’re the chosen few and the rest of the world is going to hell. Keep yourselves pure by staying away from the culture.

However over and over again in the Scriptures, it describes Jesus and the people of God engaging the culture. Though what they said and did at times were counter-cultural, they did it in a way that encountered-culture.

In Titus 1:12-13, Paul recites and approves the words of a pagan prophet. The book of Acts describes Paul in Athens quoting and affirming the Greek poets of the time. One would have to imagine that for Paul to do so, he must have been attentive to, studied, and reflected upon the people, the literature and art of his culture.

The Apostle Paul was an innovator.

He was able to look into the world around him. See the traces of God that was there. Re-frame it and translate it back to the culture in a way that allowed them to see the beauty and wonder of God in more rich and profound ways.

One of the assignments was to find a song on the radio (ie. not a ‘Christian” song), where you discover deep spiritual truths of God within… got any?

Continuing our Creativity & Spirituality series…

Seeing the Divine, takes time.

In Exodus, after wandering the dessert for forty-years, it describes Moses seeing something there he had not ever seen before. He encounters a bush that did not seem to ‘burn up’.

As Moses approaches he discovers God calling out to him from within the bush saying “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5)

How long had Moses walked through that piece of land, never realizing that it was holy?

Or the better question might be, how long had Moses been staring at that bush to realize that it was not burning up? That it wasn’t some minor forest fire, but that there was something mystical occurring?

In the book of Mark it describes a centurion standing in front of Jesus upon the cross, hearing him cry, and watching him die. After which he comes to the realization that “Surely this man was the son of God!” (Mark 15:39).

The same question applies. How long was the centurion gazing at the cross, before he realized that he was seeing God?

Could it be that God is closer than we think?

If only we took the time to really look?

The Scriptures describe this man named Jacob who after reflecting on a dream and discovers, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:17).

In our Creativity & Spirituality gatherings, one of our assignments was to take a digital photo or find a photo of something or somewhere we saw a glimpse God in someway. Here’s a collage of some of what came out of it.

Mine was the ‘tank man’ picture. I see God in the regular Joe that has the courage to stand against oppressive forces in the world.

With the semester wrapping up I’ve been completely swamped with papers and projects. I’ll continue the series on Creativity soon after.

For the mean time here are some sweet links.

- A great article with accompanying art on Google.

- Article on Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins returning to his spiritual roots.

- Thanks to Joeie & Weewian - What happens when a world class violinist with a $3.5 million violin plays for loose change in public

- Thanks to Yuling, a phenomenal letter of apology to Asian Americans by YS president Mark Oestreicher due to a publishing blunder

- and on the commercialization of Jesus a la Will Ferrell

I think you’ll enjoy this one - recapping Stellar’s first four months of life.

Make sure you’ve got the volume up for this.

If you’re having problems viewing the clip you can try here or here.

What if the whole earth was actually filled with the glory of God?

What if all of creation is groaning and hoping for even more beauty yet to be revealed?

What if since the beginning of time all creation has been screaming out that there is more to life than the visible?

* You can read a bit more on this from a previous post at the vox bookclub.

So I found some old unwanted tiles underneath the deck of my friends’ home, left discarded by the previous owner.

I brought them to our creativity and spirituality class and had each student choose a tile. They were extremely grimy so they were each asked to go wash them off. As they cleaned the dirt off of the tiles they were instructed to imagine themselves as the tile being cleansed by the hands of God.

Some tables were put together with a large blue camping tarp laid over it. This again was to stimulate a fresh environment that was also conducive to creative messiness. Dollar store paint and brushes were laid out.

Somewhat inspired by Steve Taylor’s “The out of bounds church“, everyone was asked to silently reflect, imagine, and paint as I read from Genesis 1, while Moby’s track “God moving over the face of the waters” was playing. mp3 of shortened version of God moving over the face of the waters

This is what we created when we put sixteen tiles together…

She can’t sit up on her own yet, but she sure knows how to kick it back on the corner of the couch.

Here’s another one of Stellar. Please excuse the corny audio.

When God created us as creative beings, he must’ve known that we were going to make a mess of things.

Attempting to creatively teach creativity for me had its share of unfortunate incidences as well.

I should have known better that with candles and crayons available people would’ve put the creatively put the two together and caused a toxic fire.

I popped popcorn in class (to represent the anticipation of the Israelites in repeated exodus and our current anticipation of a new heaven and earth). However I accidentally bought a cheddar brand that really stank up the room.

People in the class jotted down their sins of the ways in which they have not been their unique creative selves. I was going collect the pieces of paper to set up a small controlled bonfire, but because of the above two mishaps and limited ventilation we had to skip it.

Some creative ideas simply point us to what not to do again.

However I believe most creative failures, are simply successes deferred.

They’re steps towards something beautiful.

Maybe in the right space and time, or with further innovation, no creative idea needs to go to waste.

Have you ever had any creative failures?

Might any of them be on the verge of something beautiful?

During our Creativity & Spirituality sessions I attempted to creatively take people through the overarching narrative of the Scriptures.

One simple and interesting exercise (inspired in a different context by Phyllis of Sketch) was this…

Take a moment and jot down the three most important and treasured things, ideas, or people in your life today.

My class had crayons and paper to write or draw this out, but that doesn’t mean you should just gloss over the question.

…

I’ll give you another moment.

…

It’s okay if you can only think of two. (so sad).

…

Done?

…

Now I want you to imagine that these things or people no longer exist…

…

They’ve been taken from you.

You’ve lost it.

It’s been ripped away from your soul.

…

Now, describe in a word or two how you feel…

(I’ll debrief on this a bit afterwards)

Continuing our series on Creativity, and the last post on being the ‘workmanship’ of God the Master Artist, let me introduce you to someone special…

She has 300 bones. Yet no knee caps.

She can’t sit or stand on her own. Yet her thighs are becoming stronger than concrete.

She is incapable of saying a word. Yet she is able to replace a million blood cells every single second.

She has the most ridiculous smile.

She has her mother eyes, and her father’s genetic disorder (G6PD).

And of the 6.5 billion people who walk the earth today, and of the 90 billion people who have ever existed, not one person has ever had the identical DNA, fingerprints, personality, strengths, and creative gift mix that she possesses.

Her name is Stellar Voxanna, and she is my daughter.

She is an original work of art.

And if you don’t know it yet.

So are you.

Years back I was taught to memorize Ephesians 2:8-9. It speaks of how every one of us have been saved by grace through faith, and that it is not something we alone can work ourselves towards, but it is a beautiful gift from God should we be willing to receive it.

However as wonderful as that truth is, it never quite did it for me. Not that grace wasn’t enough, because I’m well aware of how messed up I am. But I had this gnawing feeling of… Well, now what? I had been saved by grace through faith, just like the next dude. So very ordinary.

But then I discovered the very next verse. Ephesians 2:10 which says that we are “God’s Workmanship”.

That word workmanship comes from the Greek, poema.

Every human being is God’s poem. Artwork. Masterpiece.

God is the Master Artist.

Who creates not with paint and sculpture, but with living flesh and spirit.

There is nothing ‘ordinary’ about that which has been created by the hands of the Master Artist

We interrupt our current series on Creativity with a new episode of “Am I smiling?”

So I went to walmart to get new passport photos (when I really should have went to costco for half the price).

I’m told my writing on my sweatshirt is not allowed. I take it off.

I’ve got a white t-shirt on under. Also not allowed.

I end up putting on one of their graduation gowns to cover it up.

I feel ridiculous and no smiling is allowed.

After several shots with coaching I walk out with my passport photos.

I line up for an hour in Ottawa to submit my form.

Lady at the counter rejects my application, because she thinks I’m smiling!

I say it’s just beautiful content. She laughs, and turns me away.

My brother in-law thinks it’s just the ‘joy of the Lord’ radiating from me.

What do you think?

Ever hear one of those messages that attempted to prove the existence of God with the fact that the Scriptures begin with “In the beginning God…” ?

Whether there’s a God or not aside, what I love about the Scriptures is the way it describes God.

Taking that entry point into Genesis further, it declares “In the beginning, God created…”

He created.

He doesn’t just sit there.

He doesn’t just think about stuff.

He doesn’t just hope.

He Creates.

He’s the Creator. A Creative being. Creating is core to what he does.

And then the Scriptures state that He created us, you and I, in his Image and Likeness.

What part of that don’t we understand?