VIRTUE: CREATIVITY
RESOLUTION: I CHOOSE TO REVEAL THE BEAUTY OF GOD ACCORDING TO MY STRENGTHS AND GIFTS.

Human Story: Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

When we wrestle with questions, doubts, and fears, it is as if “we have been groping along in the darkness. The creative act helps us to emerge into the light” (Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art, 112). Madeleine L’Engle wrote these words about creativity after a well-seasoned career as an author, which includes having received the Newberry Award for A Wrinkle in Time (1962) amongst other awards in her repertoire. L’Engle’s works are known and cherished for not avoiding the difficult and uncomfortable questions and aspects of faith, as she artfully crafted literature that not only gave her an outlet to grapple with and process uncertainty, but also granted her readers a space to do so as well. L’Engle insisted that art in any form “helps us to know that we are often closer to God in our doubts than in our certainties, that it is all right to be like the small child who constantly asks: Why? Why? Why?” (113). For L’Engle, the gift of creativity was designed for the very purpose of exploring, questioning, and making sense of God and life. And the act of creating was to become most fully alive – to have a way to tolerate the “what ifs” and “whys” and “how comes” that populate daily living.

“All life is a story, a story unravelling and revealing meaning. Despite our inability to control circumstances, we are given the gift of being free to respond to them in our own way, creatively or destructively” (105). Responding to life in love is the nature of divine creation; we have the opportunity and privilege to respond in the same manner. Madeleine L’Engle’s literature and life exemplify faith’s dependence on an active and creative response to the unpredictable elements of one’s life story.

Lesson: Mark 9:18, 20-29 (ESV)

… “So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”… And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

There are many healing stories throughout the gospels in which Jesus interacts with the sufferer by both questioning them about what it is they want and also about what it is they believe, specifically in terms of who Jesus is and what they believe Jesus can do for them. This case is no different in that regard, but it is different in the candidacy of the father’s statement of faith in that he openly declares his desperate hope that it is possible for his son to be healed but also acknowledges how difficult it is to hold on to such belief! In fact, this father is probably the most honest character in Mark’s gospel. Throughout the book the disciples constantly declare with certainty Jesus’ sovereignty but when challenged, they deny him. The father in this story at least tells it as it is – he believes, and he also disbelieves. His faith is not blind, he is not ignorant of his situation – he came to the disciples in good faith, but they did not have the faith to heal his son. And so, when brought to Jesus (for he and his son were brought, rather than him going to Jesus on his own accord), the father did not come with the certainty that other sufferers seemed to inherently possess. He came with enough desperation to at least ask. Jesus, however, does not turn the man and his son away because of his unbelief, and even though he admonishes the man’s statement of “if you can,” Jesus has compassion (the very thing the father asked for). There are times when our faith may be great and strong, but there are also times where our faith may be uncertain and desperate. It is a comfort to know that we can cry out “I believe; help my unbelief!”, and it is enough. 

Remembrance

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Challenge

Do something this week that is a different type of creativity for you. Here are some examples. Choose one or two (or more):

• Write a haiku about your favorite person.

• Make a terrarium.

• Make a card for someone and send it with love. It can be really a simple collage with stamped lettering or a little watercolor.

• Try drawing or writing something with your non dominant hand.

• Make a deck of scripture cards.

• Think of your own creative idea and do it.

Reflection

Unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint or clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career. -  Madeleine L’Engle

Further Growth:

2021: Book of Common Prayer Proper 25

Old Testament: Jeremiah 14:1-10, 19-22
Psalm: Psalm 84
New Testament: 2 Timothy 4:5-18
Gospel: Luke 18:9-14

2020: Book of Common Prayer Proper 25

Old Testament: Exodus 22:21-27
Psalm: Psalm 1
New Testament: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Gospel: Matthew 22:34-46