Friday, March 02, 2007

Friday Five: Artsy Crafty

From RevGalBlogPals:

During Lent here at Suburban Presbyterian Church, we are exploring the creative and liturgical arts, with classes and speakers dealing with storytelling, iconography, dance, visual art, writing, and so on. The theme is "A Beautiful Thing," inspired by the story of the woman anointing Jesus and his declaration that "She has done a beautiful thing for me." (Mark 14, NIV)

We are working on the notion that everything we do can be considered a beautiful thing--a creative offering to God--whether it's gardening or scrapbooking or accounting or sorting clothes at the clothes closet or child-rearing. And so:

As a disclaimer, I recently found myself emerging from the darkness in which all energy went into existing and nothing was left for creating. As I spend more time in the light, I hope the creative energy will grow. My answers today are not especially brilliant, but at least I'm playing again.

1. Would you call yourself "creative"? Why or why not? Not particularly, but I have done some creative writing, taking lectio devina to a different level. I write in first person the experience of someone in the passage. I haven't shared any of these with anyone.

I saw an ad somewhere that spouted "creative solutions." That pretty much describes what I do well, find solutions that work for people. I don't know how creative that is.



2. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you currently do that you'd like to develop further. I would love to do more creative writing. Hopefully, as written requirements for school, CPE fall away, there will be more time. I'd love to write devotions for Guideposts or Upper Room. For now this blog will have to be my outlet.

3. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you have never done but would like to try. Redecorating our home. I've done a little of this, but we are in need of major updates.

4. Complete this sentence: "I am in awe of people who can write creative lyrics for songs. I love a good turn of phrase. One of those is from Point of Grace's The Great Divide: 'There's a bridge to cross the great divide...There's a cross to bridge the great divide.' Some other songwriters I admire are Terri Hendrix and Betty Elders."

5. Share about a person who has encouraged your creativity, who has "called you to your best self." (I'm pretty sure that's from the Gospel of Oprah.) My friends dogblogger, Mai, and Patti all remind me to recognize the gifts I've been given. I tend to focus on what I can't do.