Day 33 - creativity

Driving into Lisburn yesterday I was struck by the floral displays that the council have put round the bottom of street signs and in various containers, roundabouts etc in public places.   They all look so pretty at this time of year when flowers are coming into bloom and the sun is shining.

It made me start thinking about creativity and how we human beings seem to have a real need to decorate and create even though there is no hard practical purpose for art and culture.  Way back into the very earliest times people have been painting on walls and making statues and jewellery - purely for decorative purposes.  We like to reproduce things that we see.  We like to make things beautiful.  We like to put our own individual stamp on the places we live and work.   Why?

God is super creative.  And because we are made in His image we are too.  But maybe it is about a bit more than that.  Maybe expressing our creativity makes us more of who we are supposed to be and more like Him.  Perhaps there is something inside us all which needs to be expressed.  And which can't be expressed in words - or maybe can be expressed much better not merely in words. 

I smile when I think of Jesus being born into a carpenter's family.  He must have learned Joseph's trade as a young man and worked with wood for most of His life.  Im sure He spent long hours

making buckets and tables and chairs and doors.  But Im certain that He will also have made objects of beauty just for the sake of being creative.  I bet Mary had a house full of carved nicknacks Jesus had made for her.   Can you imagine what a plate or a jug or an ornament carved by the creator of the universe would be like?

I know lots of people who claim that they dont have a creative bone in their body.  But Im certain that this cant be true.  Somewhere inside all of us is a deep desire to make, create, invent, imagine.... perhaps those people have not been given permission to discover their creative language.  Perhaps they have just never given it a go.

Easter is a great opportunity for us to be creative.  We can make an Easter bonnet with the kids,  make a cake, create a greetings card,  find an inventive way to give an Easter egg.   Maybe your thing is computers  - why not photoshop together something meaningful with images and music and words and post it on social media?   Write a song or a poem or a sketch.  Arrange some spring flowers as a centrepiece for your table. Take some photographs.  Mow the lawn in satisfying stripes.  Have a go at cooking something new.  Paint a picture.🎨   Whittle something out of wood.  Or go to the beach and build an Andy Goldsworthy-esque sculpture out of stones and driftwood .    When we do these things something in us comes a bit more alive.  If we offer our imaginings to God we might just manage to create something much more life affirming and joyful than we could possibly imagine.  And we shall have fun doing it.