Tag: creativity

Not Again…What Do We Do Now?

by Kay Klinkenborg, Church of the Palms UCC

Disappointed, angry, frustrated, discouraged, maybe even despair.  Here we are again with COVID cases rising.  We set our hopes and dreams on a different outcome and projected what our future for 2021 would hold.   But maybe, just maybe that is what creates our pain, of not accepting ‘reality’ as it is.   We had no guarantees, no promises, some stated hopes from the professional scientists. But we are in uncharted waters headed to a new land in which we haven’t lived before.  And we’re most certainly grieving that it hasn’t played out as we hoped.

Where does faith and hope fit in this current ‘reality’?  Right smack dab in the middle of it!  For if we allow ourselves to be projecting out front of ourselves as to what will be, we set up unrealistic expectations.  Faith is dealing with realistic realities, so we must practice realistic expectations for the months, possibly years ahead.

Our world prides itself that there are advanced countries with vast resources. But a fact of nature, Coronavirus, COVID has brought us to our knees. As has the ‘Red Alert of Climate Change’ announced this week by the UN report of climatic changes and predictions for the future.  But that is not the only pandemic happening in our world.  Disastrous weather events, fires, massive floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, famine, wars, racism, Afghanistan crisis, the rise of nationalism and white extremist groups in America and abroad.  Are we overwhelmed, YES and if we aren’t, we are numb or disconnected from reality.

So, what are the realistic expectations on which we need to focus?  I offer no panacea of actions, but I do offer life lessons that have brought me through tough times and documented by numerous others in memoirs and professional literature. 

First: we are not alone. Numerous scripture reminders of this truth comfort us.  Isaiah 43: 5 states: “Fear not for I am with you…” “FEAR NOT” is in the Bible 365 times.  Isn’t it intriguing to think that thousands of years ago people were leaning on those same words just as we need them today? And there is the profound gift of the Presence of the Divine in each of us, so we are here for each other.

Second: we don’t have to have all the answers.  Living with ‘unknowing’ is hard and stressful. But it is also a learned art in our spiritual journey.  Life doesn’t come with guarantees.  And if we are learning that for the first time…we must own our naivete.   We each come learning how to cope in new ways; how to be friends and present for each other.  We come learning that ‘ambiguity’, not knowing can be a personal place of growth in our faith journey.  In the book, The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering A Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty, Dr Estelle Frankel reminds us that “spiritual evolution doesn’t take place through inquiry…but meditating with complex questions.”   Sit with our questions…don’t be afraid of questions.   

Third: we can do this one hard thing!  Travel this journey, live with the unknown outcomes. Take one day at a time.  Believe in ourselves and the strength of God that underpins the core of who we are and lives within us.   We have all done hard things before we didn’t think we could do or find our way through. But we did. We are resilient!  We can remain resilient.   And tapping into our ingenuity and creativity and sharing that with one another is a miracle gift in time of struggle.   We can be a balm to others; we can allow others to be balm to us.

Fourth: we need to ask for what we need.  People can’t read our minds.  If we need a phone call or a visit with a safe vaccinated person and share a cup of tea, we need to speak up.  It is not a time to be shy.  Yes, some of us with underlying medical conditions must limit the size of groups in which we can participate; but we can still practice safe health measures.  And don’t forget our technology…phones and internet for some.  

Fifth: claim and practice our creativity that each of us can embody. Erich Fromm, in Man for Himself states: “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”  We have an opportunity to engage with the ‘extraordinary in the ordinary’ of our daily lives.  From the dishes we wash, the smell of clean laundry, the food we prepare.  Very mundane tasks we think; but Celtic spirituality teaches us these are the moments where the sacred insights and ‘ahh’ can pop open and bring delightful surprise. Creativity is like art…it is merely anything you do or produce or participate in that expresses who you are.  You don’t have to be a formal artist, it isn’t with paint, brush, or graphic pencils…but it can be.   One such experience was in a women’s group I led in Missouri; we had a share-our creativity-day.  Women brought home canned goods from their gardens; a term paper written for a college class; a pie they baked for a sick friend.  Crochet, knitting, quilt pieces, favorite recipes copied off to share. A letter of encouragement to their children. And the list went on.  Creativity expressing who they were and how they saw themselves in the moment.

“In Jewish Kabbalah tradition, creativity is also linked with the divine realm. All forms of creative expression is linked with divine nothingness, ayin.  According to Kabbalah, all wisdom, understanding, and knowledge flow from ayin.  Oft quoted is Job: 28:12:  ‘Wisdom emerges from nothingness [ayin}.’ “ Estelle Frankel, The Wisdom of Not Knowing; p 124.

What we fear about being stymied, bored, and restricted once again is we are about ‘nothing’; not able to do what we hoped for…again what are the realistic expectations?   

Sixth: take a serious look at the skills you brought forth at other times of struggles.  Lean back into what worked before.  Maybe it was prayer, quiet time alone, talk with a trusted friend, reading spiritual literature or the Bible.  Take a virtual walk with your computer in this time of heat waves…look up beautiful scenes and use your imagination to be in that place absorbing that beauty. Grab a favorite book or picture album off your shelf.  It can change a gloomy day into one of joy.  We all underestimate the skills we have used to survive in hard times.  I found that consistently with my clients and spiritual directees.  When I helped them begin to list ‘how did you do that?” they are astounded at the skills they brought forth to make things work.  We function so unconsciously many times, we don’t claim all that has taken place that reveals quite a remarkable coping individual. 

Seventh: it is not an abnormal reaction to these times to need to seek out professional help; even for a few sessions to talk with someone neutral. We are our own worst enemies in judging our coping skills as lacking.  Seek out a Spiritual Companion/Director or Counselor.  Don ‘t expect that any of us needs to go this alone.  It is a highly tense unexpected set of world circumstances; none of us has the map. But we can journey together, and support can make all the difference.

Eighth: don’t be afraid of reality.   Look this square in the face.  This won’t change tomorrow or the next day.  We must have realistic expectations…the hoped for, dreamed about end to this is not visible.  We must live in reality to be healthy and take adequate care of our bodies, minds, and souls.   Living out into the future is wasted energy; now I am not saying we don’t make plans…but let us learn to make plans to will require us to be fluid and flexible in these times.  Learning to ‘be in the moment like never before’ can become a mantra, a sustenance, a relief.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, ordained minister and public inspirational speaker wrote on her monthly e-letter a week ago: 

“Because actual reality is also the only place where actual joy is to be found. If joy is delayed until a preferred future comes about, we set ourselves up for despair. But if there is hope in THIS day. Joy in THIS reality. This life. This body. This heart, then certainly we can prevail.

We can. We will. We are.

Be gentle with yourselves right now.”  Nadia Bolz-Weber

I have no doubt we can continue on this hard journey, find our way, find joy where we least expect it, and experience a deeper faith and understanding of the Divine within us and others.  We can do this one hard thing:  look reality in the face, practice our faith, and be honest about our struggles on this unexpected tumultuous journey.

© Kay F. Klinkenborg, MA August 2021
Spiritual Director/Counselor
Retired RN, LMFT, Clinical Member AAMFT
(Assoc. for Marriage & Family Therapists)
Member Church of the Palm, Sun City, AZ

The Cure for Writer’s Block

by Ryan Gear

If you are a pastor writing sermons, or if you serve in any creative role, you have undoubtedly experienced writer’s block (or some other form of creativity block). All creative people feel blocked at times.

The pressure to produce sometimes motivates us. At times, however, we experience some funk that holds back our ideas like an emotional Hoover Dam. Perhaps we have begun to idolize some predetermined expectation of our work. Or maybe we’ve grown generally fatigued in our busyness. Or, instead of being intrinsically motivated, perhaps we feel uninspiring expectations from faceless masses of critics just standing there with their arms crossed, daring us to impress them.

So how do you break through the block?

I remember Bono saying something in an interview about how, for him, the key to overcoming writer’s block is to write songs about writer’s block. The suggestion is that in whatever media you create, whenever you feel blocked, just express what it feels like to be blocked.

In other words, you create from where you are, not from where you want to be.

It’s that concept, familiar to all creatives, that is at once both comforting and maddening… honesty. A block in creativity seems to come from having a subconscious edit button for some yet unexplored reason. An author I know refers to the “Censor”. We might have slowly given into expectations about what we should be creating. My counselor friends call that “shoulding on yourself.”

What if the experience of writer’s block is actually a blessing in disguise because it is an invitation to ask yourself, “What are you editing? What are you censoring? And why are you editing or censoring?” An even more probing question is, “Why are you blocking what is already in you?” As you perform the potentially gruesome soul surgery of answering those questions, your best work will spring from what is actually going on deep in your gut and not what you think you should be creating in your head.

Writer’s block is a flashing neon sign imploring you and me to be honest with ourselves.

If you’re experiencing a creativity block, here are some questions to explore…

  • What does it feel like to have writer’s block?
  • What great writers are known to have struggled with writer’s block?
  • What causes writer’s block?
  • What role do fatigue and depression play in writer’s block?
  • Do you have an overactive edit button? Why are you editing? Why are you censoring? What are you afraid of? Who are you trying to please?
  • What would it look like to be honest about how you feel and why?

Writer’s block is an invitation to get honest with yourself and explore what is really going on deeper within you. And yes, ironically, once you give up trying to create something awesome, that thing you create out of that vulnerable honesty will be what is celebrated as super cool and profound and mind-blowing. It is your honesty that will inspire others who, just like you and me, know deep down that they need to stop trying so hard and just be honest with themselves.

Hope, Creativity, and Art

by Rae Strozzo

In the midst of struggle, creativity is where hope finds vision.

We are in need of creativity and compassion in this moment.  This is a love letter to art and creativity that is so essential to all of us. Sometimes love is hard to see, and context is everything.  So first – the bad news.  

The current political moment seems so polarized and almost surreal.  We are at war now.  The U.S. is fighting itself as it has been since its creation but with a scary vigor. Fear seems to trump so much of what is good in the world if we spend our time on Facebook or watch more than 10 minutes of the news.  Shuffling through the lies to try and sort out what might be true feels like the new daily battle.  

The U.S. is fighting and exploiting other countries for the needs and greed of a few and the government and pop culture feeds it back to us as nationalism and what a “great nation” does for freedom.  All the while internally African American churches burn, Jewish community centers deal with bomb threats, and our Muslim brothers and sisters try to cope with threats, acts of violence and destroyed property.   Transpeople of color are murdered, gender expansive people commit and attempt suicide at astoundingly high rates, and lgbtq youth are homeless at much higher rates than their straight and cis gender peers.  

Walls are built to make and keep people illegal and separate, and families fear being broken up by immigration sweeps.  Our country incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, and that is also to make a buck at the expense of those people’s lives and the lives of their families – most of whom are people of color.  Many of our neighbors grow up trapped in poverty and in systems of oppression that get labeled welfare, child protective services, and the mental health care system and so on, but work against the people they are created to help and against the people who work in those systems who want to help.  

Many ignore these problems and systems, and we step past the oppression because it is as subtle as “professionalism” in a workplace that really just says look/be whiter.  Or we say we are moving to a better neighborhood or sending our kids to better schools without seeing that those are whiter neighborhoods and whiter schools.  We live in “Right to Work States” that really say it’s okay not hire people who aren’t white enough, straight enough, gender conforming enough, Christian enough because as long as we don’t say it, we haven’t done anything wrong.   

Now is a time when a college education is so expensive only the most privileged can have it without the reality of mountainous debt and where public education is stifled by our system of lack. We live in a time where art and music struggle to find access points to most people’s lives and where the funding for those things are viewed as unimportant and stripped away.   We are taught to blame the poor rather than help. We are taught to walk away from people who don’t see things the way that we do. We are taught that tough love is about shunning people from families, from churches, from communities, so that somehow they will want to come back to us, but in the way we want them and not in the way that the universe created them.  

We use our limited understanding of creativity to control other people. We use our limited understanding of creativity for greed.  Succumbing to those same limits causes us to destroy our planet.  Our creativity is limited by what we think we know and it is wasted on anger, fear, destruction, and an illusion of control. We stifle vulnerability because we mistaken it for weakness rather than a place where new ideas are born.  We are strapped down by prejudice and are unable in those moments to be our fully connected and creative selves.  Empire wants us to die for lack of imagination. White supremacy wants us to hold it up out of that same lack of imagination.

That is a lot, especially acknowledging that it isn’t even close to giving voice to all of what is up in the world right now.

But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.  I firmly believe this.  All of these situations are things that were set in motion by people.  Logic suggests that if people created it, then people can also dismantle it. So there is hope. If we can be vulnerable enough to hope, then we have a place to start to vision something different, and that means creativity can come back to us and with its divine purpose intact.

Hope is where real creativity comes in.  Creativity, as it meets compassion, produces healing and love. This is where the arts are a healing force. Creativity as it is connected to love gives us the capacity for participation in beauty. It is the ability to turn the wound into a foundation for solidarity and into an olive branch for the “other side.”

As it is said, those with the capacity for great anger hold the capacity for great gentleness. So too those with great creative power towards greed hold that power for generosity. Those with great creative power toward destruction also hold great  power for creation. All of us hold creative power.  It is the link that bonds all of us to each other and to the universe. Creativity is what makes us human. It isn’t just a painter or a musician who holds creativity. Creativity is our mirror of the universe. It is our tether to the divine.  

Artists are a part of the priesthood of the creative and have a connection to the creative energy of the universe. When artists share their work, they open that connection to and establish that link for others.

The creative process and the artistic result aren’t just for the artist. Art is about completing a cycle and about helping other people and the culture it is a part of change, grow, and evolve. Art is a sacred reminder that we are ALL part of the creative flow of the universe. That is its purpose. Art reminds people that they have things to express and to express them. Creative expression is divine language no matter how it is spoken.

The teacher who makes a place for a struggling kid to learn because they take the time to rethink how they teach is a part of that energy.   The police officer who figures out how to stop violence without using it has that energy.  The activist who rallies support while seeing the other side as people and not just an opposing force is a part of this creative energy too.  

These are just examples. All of us have a link to what makes us our best selves. That is our link to the creative energy of the universe. We have been given this gift. But it isn’t about our minds and not even about our skill sets. It’s about our willingness to get vulnerable and listen to what our higher selves are telling us.  To listen to what our souls are telling us. To listen to what the universe is telling us.  

The path that is uniquely ours in life is lit by love and compassion as motive. Come to life with love and compassion and the steps to take become real.  The creativity to make things happen in our lives and in the lives of others becomes real.  Art is made in song, in paint, in photograph, and in every kind word, in every loving action. Listening to the creative energy of the universe and using that energy for kindness and compassion can heal a lifetime of wounds.  

True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art says, “Thinking goes as far as the mind understands. Then what? Art.”

Change for the good of all goes only as far as our ability to create compassion.  Then what? Art.