Cultivating a Creative Soul

Legs curled on the desk chair beneath me, I sat in front of the computer screen staring blankly at the words that would appear and delete almost simultaneously.  “I guess this is what they call writer’s block,” I mused to myself. Nothing good would come.  And then, when I thought maybe the next few bits would be worth saving, I ended up throwing them all away.  Ugh. The creative well seemed to be dry, but the deadline for pages due was most certainly not a thirst quenched.

My mind lingered on conjured images of Shakespeare dipping quill to ink and scribbling words… “wherefore art thou…” time and time again until He knew it was just right.  I imagined Mozart slamming frustrated fists onto ivory keys when He couldn’t get the progressions to flow into melodic rhythm.  Picturing Michelangelo tapping tools against rough marble until hard stone seemed to turn to soft skin, I finally got up from the desk and sprawled on the floor, face pressed into the carpet. I crammed rubber buds into my ears and turned the music loud, allowing my mind to follow the highs and lows of the praises echoing into the cochlear chambers of my heart. Something began to resonate.

I crawled into the soft brown armchair and dipped a paintbrush into my water glass.  Diluting pigments on the plastic lid of a $5 set of paints, I watched water and color become one, then three, then dozens of hues mixed together before me.

My brush swept across the paper as my mind considered all I’d meditated on earlier in the day.  I picked up a pencil and sketched the words in the center of the paper, and once they felt good, I gave them permanence in ink.  Something broke free and I forgot about the white screen that glowed blank just five feet from this new cozy seat.  I painted for an hour, music in my ears, a brush in my hand, until I felt satisfied.

Stepping back from the 5×7 card that set my spirit free, I suddenly felt a newness move into my fingertips.  Switching from the cozy brown chair back to the stiff desk one, I faced the keyboard again with fresh perspective.  Before I knew it, I was five thousand comfortable words closer to reaching my deadline.

I learned something that day, that somehow I hadn’t realized before.  Just as water flows freely over paper, so does the Spirit of God flow freely in our creative souls.

How could we ever forget that the ultimate creative lives in us?  Or think that the creativity evident in the world around us, doesn’t extend into variety of creative spaces of our own souls?

Maybe you’re more creative with numbers than with paints?  Or perhaps you express yourself more freely in creating solutions than stringing words together on a page?  Whatever your particular set of giftings, know that in His goodness, God made you to create.

And we celebrate that creativity with you!

This fall at Allume, we want to intentionally make some space just to create together.  We want to breathe life into the places you know God calls you to create individually, and to hold hands with one another to see what God will create in us as a community.  So this month, we encourage you to consider more of our Creative God and the ways in which He may speak to you, encourage you, and use you for His Kingdom.

When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. – Ps 104:30

*What do you feel called to create?  Have you ever been curious to create something outside of your comfort zone?  This month, I encourage you to try something new that sparks your creative interest. Write, paint, take a walk to explore creation itself. Don’t worry if your process is perfect, or if you mess it up, just get in there and create, and know that even Shakespeare himself crumpled paper a time or two.