Dont let this gal loose with a camera!

The first words of scripture are about God’s creating all that exists. God is going about his business of making all things, the very first of which is the universe in which we live. if God were not a creating God we wouldn’t even exist and we wouldn’t have a world to explore, to transform, or to destroy as we choose to either join God in his creative process or go against him and destroy his great work.

We join God in the creative process because we are “made in the image and likeness of God” and share his heart even if we don’t share his powers or abilities. We want to be like him in all respects, even if we aren’t able to call whole worlds into existence, we fulfill the desire to create by having children , building a home, starting a business, writing stories, or creating poems, songs or art.  Even graffiti artists participate in creation, even though they destroy personal property of others. And while my Daddy threatened to fill me full of penicillin if I got a tattoo in high school, I was just wanting to be “creative” with body art back in the early 1960’s.  He wasn’t very liberated and I was just pushing his buttons!

Creating is a part of life, it is a part of my vitality and a part of my identity. The very act of creating releases an excitement that mere living does not. Recently at a spiritual retreat, the substitute leader was speaking of the materials he had in his workshop that we would use to make the stations of the cross for the retreat center. This would be a “hands on project” instead of the “lecture” the group was expecting from the original retreat leader who had come down sick and could not attend.  Because the retreat center’s mission includes reusing old materials, “recycling” and reducing the impact on the earth of the human footprint.  I was positively waxing ecstatic as I envisioned the materials and the opportunity to put my hands on the tools and work with the goods to create something new out of the “found objects” lying around in the old barn/workshop.

Unlike God, I can’t create something out of nothing, but I am in my element when I can create something new out of something old!  The beauty of art is not just in the work, but in the working.