The God-Given Desire for Creativity

God is the most creative person alive. I suppose that’s hardly news, but you may not have thought of it that way.

Here’s another thought: because we’re created in His image, our creativity reflects Him.

Ken and I built a lake home (literally), and that required a great deal of creativity. Of course, our major creations together are our four children. On a less grand scale, I create meals every day.

Looking beyond myself, salesmen create sales, accountants create ways of interpreting sales, mathematicians create formulas the rest of the world doesn’t understand, engineers design stuff, contractors build stuff. When I taught for a vocational college I encouraged some of my students by telling them they created when they repaired things that didn’t work. It’s an important concept.

Was there ever something you wanted to create but it seemed beyond you, out of reach? As a child I dreamed of writing stories or poems but when I tried, I was never pleased with the results. Although I achieved a measure of success writing for our small-school paper when in high school, I put it behind me—until I wanted a “little” extra money, answered an ad, and became a published writer in the field of journalism. When I returned to college, I wrote a few poems for a creative writing class.

Last Saturday, however, I went with a friend to a Book Release Party that was a new milestone. She and I each had a poem published in The Talking Stick, an annual literary journal published by the Jackpine Writers Bloc.

Not only was this my first experience with publication since retirement 11 years ago (other than my blogs), it was the first time I was ever published in a literary journal. A group of people had determined my work had artistic merit.

Now, I hope I’ve convinced you all writing requires creativity, but this was creativity of another kind and acceptance as a writer in a new genre was sweet.

When I began writing a few years ago, it was something of a health issue. I had no ambitions to write professionally again, but my rheumatologist asked me, as my condition improved, if I was doing the things I used to do. Well, I’d started sewing a bit, primarily to save money, and I was going to a pool for exercise. Helpful as these activities are, however, neither fulfilled me.

So I began writing. Almost immediately into the process, I realized I needed readers. Writing is, after all, a form of communication. That led me to a writer’s group—where at least the five or six members of the group would look at my work once a month. That led to writing pieces in different genres for meetings—personal essays, descriptive passages, short stories. That led to thinking about creating a blog or two. And along the way I began writing poetry.

The poem submitted to Jackpine wasn’t the first or the last submission I’ve entered in contests. I have eight more out there right now that I’m waiting to hear about, three that I’m sure are stronger submissions.

Why, at this time in life, would I pursue such a thing? I can’t quite explain it, but I feel writing has helped restore my mind and it's given me back to myself. I used to say I wasn’t a great journalist, but I was a competent journalist. Now I have to say I’m not a great artist, but even when I push myself and get tired, I revel in the effort. I'm creating in a manner than excites me: I'm responding to the God-given desire for creativity.

So here it is. Didn’t win any prizes, but it made the cut.


Clearing the Lake Lot

Gold and orange leaves imprinted against
a seamless gray sky. His chainsaw grinds
through fallen logs that crack and collapse
with soft thuds and he cries in anger
when a splinter pierces his glove.

I drag the scratchy branches littered around him
and throw them on our fire. Twigs and leaves
disappear in flame and sparks fly. I singe my hair
when I pass through smoky air to reach slivery chunks
of wood for special campfires. Loading them into
the squeaky wheelbarrow, I haul them to the edge
of our property and stack the pieces in a long,
low pile to mark our boundary.

Fatigued by mid-afternoon—done for the day—
we hunker together in silence on a rock to share
a thermos of hot coffee and pieces of dried fruit.
By turning into the wind we distance ourselves
from the fire. Whitecaps pound against the shore,
and we go for a walk on the hard, wet sand.