From the RevGal site:
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:
1. Would you call yourself "creative"? Why or why not? Actually, this is a part of me that has taken awhile to claim. I have now come to a place where I can call myself creative, not because I'm wildly talented artistically, but because it's something I love to do. Music helps me stay in touch with my creative side, although I've never before considered it particularly creative. I also like being crafty through cross-stitch and knitting/crocheting (the latter is a growing area). Painting and photography is something I enjoy as well, though I'm not spectacularly great at it...though, as I said, I enjoy it. In thinking about it....I believe I am a very creative person, and I don't give myself enough credit for it.
(Incidentally, I believe everyone is creative in some way...they just need to tap into themselves and find it!)
2. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you currently do that you'd like to develop further. There are so many to choose from! Right now, I would love to develop better skills in photography, especially with old-style cameras with a manual focus. I think it would be great to learn how to develop my own film as well!
3. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you have never done but would like to try. Writing a song. I'm not a brilliant lyricist by any means, but it would be fun to try my hand at writing a piece of music. I've unfortunately let my keyboard skills atrophy so it would be difficult to translate what I hear in my head to notes on a page, but if I play around enough I might be able to do it. Scrapbooking is another.
4. Complete this sentence: "I am in awe of people who can _____________." Write meaningful poetry. I just don't have that kind of way with words.
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. There are two people (well, three actually).
(1) I took a class in January 2006 called Ministry and the Imagination taught by Dr. Elkins and Dr. Westfield. Basically, it was a week-long seminar where we got to pick a workshop (mine was painting) and talk about the place of creativity in ministry. You can see my project (still a work-in-progress) here.
(2) Ben sparks my creativity and is always encouraging me in my endeavors. He's so darn creative too; it's neat how we sometimes just feed each other in that way.
(3) This person is probably completely unaware that she has encouraged my creativity in any way, shape, or form, but I'd have to go with my sister. She writes incredibly deep poetry that I am always in awe of. She makes me want to be a more creative person.
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