Finding Spirit in Creating

The whole introspective and creative process is not complete without spiritual illumination. The act of "listening to the work" arises from the openness of a soul to receive the soft promptings of the Spirit.

I find myself resonating with Rachel's post of late as she gathers archives of her own spiritual journey in 2008. How incidental, I posted a comment on her page that I was doing the same thing just last weekend. Sifting through my writings hidden and in public. Turning pages of old journals and understanding myself a little bit better. Allowing myself to sit through the process of God creating and transforming me in these circumstances.

She writes,

In this season--despite the "not-knowing," the pain, the fear, and the frustration--I can be grateful for so much. I am the daughter of the Creator of the universe, who guides my life with tenderness and compassion. In a way that I will never completely understand, He loves me. Yes, He loves me, despite the fraility of my faith. I can give Him nothing that He has not first given me, yet He receives the gift of my entire self with greater joy and pride than the loving parent who accepts the colorful crayon scribblings of her little one and displays them as if they were a piece of priceless art.

The more that I realize my utter unworthiness of His love, the better I am able to receive it gratuitously. Here is a holy exchange: He takes all that is ours and unites Himself to it, only that He may give us all that is His. Yes, it is an exchange that is radically one-sided, yet He does not use the enormous inequity of it to coerce us into slavery. Instead, He calls us as free persons to adoption as children. And we can give Him no greater gift than our "yes" to brought into His family and into divine union with the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit.

More than the merging of my left brain and my right to restore and refresh my creative abilities, it is really an integration of my humanness with my spirit. The peace between my faith and my flesh. No one could have said it better than Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Artists.

The distinction between the moral and artistic aspects is fundamental, but no less important is the connection between them. Each conditions the other in a profound way. In producing a work, artists express themselves to the point where their work becomes a unique disclosure of their own being, of what they are and of how they are what they are. And there are endless examples of this in human history. In shaping a masterpiece, the artist not only summons his work into being, but also in some way reveals his own personality by means of it. For him art offers both a new dimension and an exceptional mode of expression for his spiritual growth. Through his works, the artist speaks to others and communicates with them. The history of art, therefore, is not only a story of works produced but also a story of men and women. Works of art speak of their authors; they enable us to know their inner life, and they reveal the original contribution which artists offer to the history of culture.