Does creativity matter?
Does it have any special value in the world?
Isn’t it essentially a selfish activity to be doing some hobby when there are people starving/people without hope/ people with broken hearts….?
Creative people use songs, stories, pictures, gardens, art works, installations, baking, poetry, colour…. all of those things and more to declare the things that need to be declared.
– to call to action
– to give hope
– to create an escape
– to stand alongside
– to communicate across language barriers
– to grieve
– to celebrate
– to build community
– to protest
– to teach truth
– to express things for which words, cliches and platitudes fail
– to make us laugh
– to connect us to others
– to declare the beauty of the One who made it
– to grieve the brokenness of current reality
Sometimes it hurts my heart to think about the creative voices silenced by the lack of safe place, for creative voices dulled by lack of exercise, for creative voices silenced by self-shame.
I long to see more communities of individuals claiming their creativity – owning it without shame and without pride. Claiming, exercising, using this gift we are given to be to be able to pierce holes in the darkness and let the glory shine through.
I am going to write more about creativity. I want to invite you on the journey to engage your own creativity to declare glory and to engage your faith more deeply by exploring it creatively.
Would you pick up your little pin/pen/paintbrush and will you use it to make a hole in the darkness and let the glory shine through?
Maybe you just need to give yourself permission to value your creative gifting again. Do that today.
Let’s not be about doing it as we’ve always done, let’s realise the untapped, unvoiced, uncharted territory of creativity in us and use it to tell a story that someone needs to hear.
Miriam Jessie 