We read in Chapter Six, Baptism, that "Baptism sets an orientation for our life...Baptism recognizes the new life that is possible in the risen Christ...a life that is about staying aware of both the death and new life in our daily journeys and moving more fully towards the latter.
As I ponder this "new life" I am reminded of the link between creativity and spiritual growth. As one that dabbles with photography, I have realized how picking up a camera makes me see the whole world through a new set of eyes. Suddenly, textures are more dazzling, architecture more fascinating, and the world around me pulses with brazen colors that I usually skim over.
In the Lenten season, we spend time in the wilderness. Some think of this wilderness as the desert while others perhaps link it to an untamed forest. Either way, the wilderness challenges us to a feeling of being lost, without context, without a locus of surety for which to fix our gaze.
When I find myself captivated in wonder, when I let go and lose myself in the moment, I remember that it is God who first instills that nascent sense of marvel and delight within us. The world has been described as a stage, a canvas upon which we project our roles, our masks, our very selves, but it is also the place of God's revelation and its unfolding.
In Lent, we are challenged to relinquish the formalities of our everydayness and to risk letting God cultivate and carve out our desires and impulses, to revamp and make us new.
In our society it seems that depression and the constant onslaught of bad news robs us of the joy of waiting for the good news, living the good news, seeking the good news. It is so easy to find our hearts slumbering, devoid of any notion of beauty or truth. I suspect this is the hardened heart of which scripture warns, the gradual seduction of the world and unworthy wiles in our daily purview. What would it mean for our hearts to be rent asunder and broken by God? How would new creativity teem forth from us?
I never thought of myself as creative until after my son was born. No, it was not the act of bringing forth life, it was actually the time spent marveling in his beauty that led me to pick up a camera and look at the world differently. I had never before "indulged" that side of my brain: the playful, whimsical side that notices the smallest of details in the world around me.
I like what an actor said of creativity: “The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
What are you discovering about yourself this Lent? What is there in the wilderness of your intuition that calls you forth to a new place? Where and when do you let God become the subject of the verbs in your life?
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