Chapter VI Creativity

Creativity

The Rule of Life

The Reverend Canon Charles LaFond

Chapter VI

We are made in God’s image and are made, therefore to reflect God’s essential existence as creator, lover and giver.  Just as a child has his father’s nose or mother’s cheek-line, we have our Father’s creativity.  There is no such thing as an uncreative person.  There is only a creative person whose circumstance has yet to allow creativity.  And so, I will create.

Work addiction, worry, laziness, boredom, anger and grief will all erode the creativity which I want to foster in my life.  I will try hard to be aware when one of these creeps into my life so that I can attend to it before it has too much effect on creativity.  And my recollection at the end of each day, as I prepare for sleep will, I hope, include those things not only for which I am thankful and about which I grieve, but also those things I have created and let loose into the day and onto the planet; hoping with great hope, that what I have created was good and kind.

If I have created anything of which I am ashamed, such as perpetuating a rumor, or making an unkind comment; I will try to take time to notice it, by God’s grace, and ask forgiveness, making amends.  We create so much kindness and goodness by what we say; however we can also, when careless, create the opposite when we speak recklessly.

I am a potter.  So I will work hard to carve out time each week for throwing pots, glazing or firing.  I will create simple pots after the great craftsman’s movement of Hamada and Leach, allowing for the wabi-sabi tradition in which a blemish or flaw can be seen as a pot’s best feature.  And I will seek to push myself to try new things, push into new glazes and experiment with new clay bodies.  And as a part of my creativity, I will also use my pots for tea, the chicken-broth I drink at bed-time, soup and meals.  In my kitchen, I will use the pottery I make in the studio – one room away.

My friends who like to create will be a source of great joy for me and I will hold creativity high on the list of the attributes of my friends.  We will make pots and meals and poetry together.

At times, I will write and pray in silence and that too will be a creative time.  If I am not writing, making pots or cooking, I will wonder what might be upsetting me, seeking help to find the source of the grief or loss which is blocking creativity.

I hope to be able to find creativity in playfulness and will look to Kai as a teacher in creative playfulness. And I will be intentional about making time for beauty – natural and man-made – so that the creativity of others is something I am intentional about seeing, appreciating and enjoying.  And finally,  I will be a created creature, aware that one day I will no longer exist – that like a pot or a dog, I will wear out and die – the awareness of which will spurn me on to be creative while I still have the energy and faculties.