Creativity and Perfection

I love all creative things.  I love creating.

 

I have listened to a fascinating talk this evening by Julie Burstein about creativity and the tension in creativity between what we can control and what we have to let go of.

 

She describes how when we are creative, we can't control everything - we have to let go of some things.  If we have a strict idea of what we want to achieve and what we want our creativity to look like, we will restrict ourselves and our creativity.

 

Creativity and perfectionism are often enemies.

 

I remember in Art GCSE at school my Art teacher telling us how she had been at a workshop and each person had to paint something.  They were asked to pause after about 20 minutes and share with the rest of the group which part of their painting they liked the most.

 

They all proudly pointed out which bits they thought were best and explained why.

 

And then the tutor asked them to paint over those perfect parts - to wipe them away - and to continue painting.

 

You can imagine my teacher's feelings as she was asked to paint over what she perceived to be the best part of her work.

 

But she said that after wrestling with the idea, when she did finally paint over the 'perfect' bit, she was much freer in her painting.  She wasn't limited or restricted by trying to make the rest of the painting as 'perfect' as the small bit she was proud of.

 

If we hold on to the idea of doing something (anything) perfectly, it will stand in the way of real creativity.  We will tiptoe around the perfect bits, scared to disrupt or ruin them.

 

Scott Adams says,

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes."

 

Or perhaps we could say, Creativity is allowing yourself the freedom to be less than perfect.

 

As someone who has spent a long time trying (and obviously failing) to be perfect, this is so freeing.  I want to be creative, I want to be free to make mistakes.

 

Paul urged the Galatian church,

"Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand!  Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you."

 

[Galatians 5:1 MSG]

 

Even something as seemingly good as perfection can become a form of slavery.

 

Let's not let our drive for 'perfection' strip us of our God-given, messy, colouring-outside-the-lines creativity.

 

 

 

 

Afterthought

One of the things I have loved about camping is being able to see so many stars every night.

There is no light pollution in the middle of the campsite and the sky seems to stretch out endlessly.

I love looking up at the sky and waiting as my eyes adjust and more stars appear one by one by one. Until the whole sky is littered with silver sequins and I realise just how small I am and how huge God is.

And what I can see doesn't even begin to encompass all of God's creation. It doesn't even begin to reflect the hugeness of the Creator.

In the creation story in Genesis, it describes how God created the sun, the moon and the stars:

"Then God said, 'Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.' And that is what happened. God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars."

[Genesis 1:14-16 NLT]

I love the last sentence. Five words. It is almost an afterthought, a post-script. No hype. No exaggeration. No embellishment.

He also made the stars.

God doesn't need our exaggeration or embellishment. We don't have to hype Him up. He is awesome. Without our help.

Sometimes, by exaggerating what God is like in human terms, we actually distort our view of Him. We think we have understood Him better but, really, we have made Him into something we can contain and control and comprehend.

But that is not who or what God is. He is incomprehensible. And we need only look at the stars to be reminded of His greatness and His magnitude.

Coffee, Cups and the Cosmos

Whilst I like coffee, I'm not one of those people who is completely fuelled by it.  You know, the sort of person who is dangerous to approach in their pre-coffee state, or is completely useless before they've had their morning cup (tea, on the other hand, is another matter...)

However, our church is full of coffee people.

It is in such popular demand that we have come perilously close to running out of coffee on several occasions.  And this has sometimes been coupled with the equally devastating problem of no cups.

Naturally, this discovery, less than an hour before the service is due to start, has led to a panic for the hospitality team and an emergency trip to Sainsbury's for coffee and cups.

However, a few times, even though we have looked everywhere for coffee cups, someone else has gone to "have one last look" and has returned joyfully wielding coffee and/or cups.  Somehow, somewhere, we have found coffee where we thought there was none.  We have found something where we thought there was nothing.

In the same way, Genesis tells us that God created the world from nothing.  In his modern retelling of the Bible ("Word on the Street"), Rob Lacey rewrites Genesis 1:1-2 like this:

"First off, nothing. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God starts it all up and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function– just darkness ... total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready to play."

Now, whether you see the creation story in Genesis as the literal word of God or an allegory, the message is the same: God has the power and the ability and the resources to create something out of nothing.

Why does that matter?

Not only does it show us God's power, it gives us hope when we feel at the end of ourselves and as though we are stuck in a dead-end situation. 

"When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead-end, because I am God, your personal God."

[Isaiah 43:3 MSG emphasis mine]

When we feel that there is no answer to our problems, when we don't have the energy to keep going, when we don't have the money to pay the bills, when we don't have the coffee to fuel the church, God can make something out of nothing.