You Are Creative
All human beings—I think—have a simple calling: to add to the world. There are many ways to do it. I’m an artist, and that’s my way. I write, I sketch, I make things with my hands. It isn’t much, but it’s what I’m called to do.
I think you’re called to be creative, too.
Even if you don’t consider yourself creative, you should know that it’s in you. You’re made in the image of a creator, so you’re made to create. It’s that simple.
But the actual creating part—finding your vocation, learning to cultivate a lifestyle leaning into your own creative nature—is a bit tough sometimes. Maybe you’re designed to add to the world by teaching, maybe by being a priest, maybe by being financial planner, maybe by being a mechanic.
There are ways to make in any vocation—the kind of making that adds to the world.
But no matter what you do vocationally, I believe that the practice or writing—sitting down and reflectively putting down your words in journaling, poetry/story writing, or even in simple observation of your daily life—can begin something great in you, and enhance your own calling by way of creating something each day.
This rehearsal is powerful, proactive, and—in a language disposable culture where we we emphasize product over practice, and information over formation—provocative. So, as a daily-writer, here’s my best advice:
1. Trust the process.
Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, learning to rely on your gut in writing will rarely steer you wrong. It’s important to remember that your life is a poem. And poems that we make on paper are just extensions of our living poetry. As Ephesians 2:10 says, you are God’s workmanship—God’s poemia (where the English word “poem” comes from)—and that’s reason enough to engage this process with confidence. Workmanship implies time, energy, and progression. So it’s best to just go with what comes out while you write, even if it seems to make little sense, appears upsetting, strange, gushing, or sentimental. Those things are just your gut talking, so you should probably listen up! Besides, you can always revise it later.
2. Get away from measuring.
To write well, you must get rid of expectations and standards. Let come what offers itself; put down everything that emerges from you without regard for quality. Never erase or eradicate, simply scratch out things you don’t think you want. Where you are and what you’re doing is just right—nothing more or less is needed; you don’t have to humble or exalt yourself, cower or roar: just be. This world might have told you otherwise, but things are different now. In writing—while you’re creating—there are no gaps, errors, or needless sidetracks. Everything you write could be revised to something more lovely later. Like our faith, our writing is never what it will be when it first presents itself. Put away your high standards and welcome what comes. Its transformation—and yours—will come soon enough.
3. Remember that what you create is something close to holy.
It’s true, though you might not believe it. No matter how flat, ugly, or bizarre, what you’re making in your times of solitude is complete. Even if it doesn’t seem complete in what it says, it is so in what it is. When you create, you reflect the Creator in the opening of Genesis, and you should look down on your little creation and say it’s “good.” Worry about the beauty of the thing later, since beauty and holiness are two different animals, and often unrelated.
4. Practice silence.
When you’re writing, stay focused on the hard work of it—be in that moment. No screens of any kind—turn off the phone, TV, or computer. You might ask: what if I write on a computer? For a month, I’d like you to try the pencil and page. Get a journal or notebook or looseleaf. Paper is silent and simple; computers are filled and connected to all kinds of noise—the bellowing chaos of the news and politics, the blabbering of social media, and the soft, tempting glow of every kind of distraction. Be content—just for a short time—to sit unwired, unbothered, in the quiet of your home. Be still and enjoy it. Do as Christ urges in Luke 12 and consider the lilies—be present, pay attention—don’t cultivate concern but focus.
5. Practice slowness.
Find that place—that physical location—in your daily routine that makes you feel at peace in your life and do your meditation and exercise there if feasible. At home, in the break room at work, in the calm of a cluttered coffee shop—wherever you feel comfortable and can work undistracted. Clear a way for yourself—look outside, calculate, meditate, mull. Chances are you already have a place in mind and that place slows you down, blocks out the speed of the world, or helps you focus; a place that allows you to sit unnoticed. Be intentional about your time and try to set some aside to work in this book at the same time every day. I suggest the morning, when you and the day are both new again. Contemplate, focus, deliberate—take your time and make it sacred again. Designate a space as holy, maybe even to the point where you only utilize that space for writing, for creation and communion.
As an author, I try to use my words daily and add something to the world—something that might make it more beautiful, however small. This is my best advice right now, my way to contribute. These are the rules I try to work from each day I sit down to make.
Of course, when it comes to creating—to making manifest that still, small voice inside you—rules are more like strong suggestions, nothing hard and fast, so there’s no need to be stringent about the thoughts above.
The important thing is this: that you begin making something new today—right where you live.
Dave Harrity is author of “Making Manifest: On Faith, Creativity, and the Kingdom At-Hand,” from which this post was adapted. The 28-day devotional-style book features meditations and writing exercises designed for individual and communal spiritual formation. His poems and other writings have appeared in journals and periodicals stateside and abroad. As director of Antler, he travels far and wide conducting workshops on faith, imagination, worship, and creative writing. He’d love to come visit your church, seminary, college, or other religious community. Feel free to contact him here and order “Making Manifest” here.
Image used from Flikr Creative Commons.