Creativity first

It may have been an on-the-go busy week but I discovered that inspiration can strike any time, any place and any state of being.

Never mind that it was 6:30 in the morning and I was still bleary-eyed, dog-tired and definitely not firing from all cylinders. Great ideas just kept flowing out of me and I could only gratefully scribble down what turned out to be a remarkably cohesive commentary.

Tonight D. shared that despite having had a stressful week and going through a challenging period, she has been churning out lyrics to glorify God and she also knows that it did not come from her.

(Thanks D., for being so open to Spirit in your life and allowing yourself to be such a wonderful instrument. I really wanted to tell you this after your sharing so I tell it to you now for I know you will read this :D )

Later A. shared that when she visited De La Salle earlier this week she didn't quite understand why creativity was top on the list of attributes La Sallians should have. Until this evening... when she realized we are all called to be as creative as our very ingenious, fecund and original Creator.

A. reckoned that gratitude should've been on the top of the list. I think she's right, but also that gratitude and creativity are close cousins.

When we are creative, it's usually out of necessity - to find a new and better way. As Anthony Bourdain loves to point out, it's the poorest of economies that birth the most delicious cuisine.

Out of necessity, they use inedible or usually discarded parts of an animal and through the alchemy of cooking, create something sublime out of what is otherwise waste.

However, we can be creatively charged out of gratitude, a gratitude that engenders hope, that in turn pushes us to respond and fuels the sheer doggedness that keeps us plugging away creatively in spite of initial failure.

It is a profound sense of gratitude found within the heart that appreciates the gifts within and without - and leads us to using the gifts wisely and innovatively.

Thus creativity is a grateful realization that all in life is gift and an invitation to give thanks by using the abilities and capabilities, inherent and learned, to bear fruit.

So when we begin to feel that life is out of control and that a situation is way beyond us, don't lose hope, trust in the creativity of our God and in His inventive inspirations.

After all if we are in a living and intimate relationship with the Father of creation, surely some of His ingenuity must rub off. And it does.

So be creative. And fulfil your call in life.