Creativity: Participation Over Perfection
Somewhere in the middle of seminary, I decided to take a step out of my comfort zone and signed up for an art class. I needed to do something different with my brain. I was reading three to five books a week (and skillfully comprehending .5 books worth of all that info). I was cranking out essays and research papers and sermons at a furious pace. The part of my brain that handled words was getting a strenuous workout. The creative center? Not so much. I needed to balance the exercise. So I signed up to learn to draw with charcoal and soft pastels.
When I say out of my comfort zone, I mean it. Drawing was something other people were good at. I’d been told outright by at least one elementary school teacher that I wasn’t any good, and I took that info to heart.
But…
I love getting lost in an art museum. My weekly refuge on my free Mondays was the Art Institute of Chicago. With a use-worn membership, I scoured its galleries, getting lost one section at a time, one week at a time. Spend enough time amidst all that art and you’re bound to start getting inspired. I didn’t just want to look. I wanted to do. I wanted to make. And I wanted someone to teach me.
The photo here is just one of the pieces I came home with. It’s not perfect, but it came out of my vision and my hands as we studied a live model that particular day. And perfect wasn’t the goal. Perfect was what that elementary school teacher was getting on me about, and what I internalized as “not perfect = don’t do.” But the class wasn’t about perfect, it was about process.
The process of taking time to create opened up my brain in ways it hadn’t worked before. The scholarly work became less of a struggle. The sermon ideas flowed a little more freely. I felt like a more whole version of myself.
So, I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t quite keep up with the practice. Seminary gave way to search gave way to a cross-country move gave way to the daily grind of the pastor. Art turned into something I couldn’t allow myself to do because it was not work. Creative time was my reward for doing the other things. I can’t have dessert until I finish eating my peas.
What a terrible trick I played on myself.
I’ve slowly regained my creative practice over the last several years. I make time to write creatively. I pick up an instrument every now and then. Last month, I unburied all my pastels after years of being tucked away in drawers and boxes. This month, I might even use them.
Creativity makes the day flow sure and easy. We were meant to participate in creation.
What will you create with the time you have?
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I’ll be away on vacation for two weeks starting July 25th. I’ll return to the office on Tuesday, August 11th.