Creating or Consuming

Over the last few years, God has been slowly awakening me to my own creativity. It is hard for me to think of myself as a creative person. When I think of a creative person, I think of a great painters like Caravaggio, Cassat, or Monet. I think of poets and sculptors, great men and women.

Somewhere along the line, I believed the lie that creativity was for the professionals. "Our part is to appreciate. Theirs is to create." 

My children have been a big part of this renewal of my creative side. They create all the time. Lego. Songs. Dances. Paintings. They are not inhibited. They have not been told that they shouldn't create, or that their creations don't measure up. So, they create freely and expressively.

They create because we were all made to create. When we create, we image forth a part of the very nature of God. When we create, we participate in, and express, His creative work. He is the Creator and we are creators. 

I feel like there are cultural forces that work to turn me into a consumer rather than a creator. It takes virtually no effort to turn on the TV, or click through the web. I can read, watch, and consume the creativity of others so easily. It takes effort and work to create. But there is something deeper; something more nefarious. 

It is easier and safer for me to consume the creations of others than to risk creating something myself and putting it into the world to be critiqued and ridiculed by an increasingly caustic and cynical culture. We delight in judging and mocking the creations of others. We have art critics, film critics, and music critics. We have fashion police who professionally mock even the simple creativity of clothing choices. We have elevated criticism to an art form...an art that actually discourages art. 

I am reminded of the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

I choose to embrace and express the creativity that God has given me. To rise above and expend the effort. To push down the fear of mockery and to put myself into my writing, my art. 

I choose to contribute...to create!