GROWING TOGETHER

How can we become more aware of our creative gifts? Here are some simple creative exercises worth trying. In some cases they require you to write or draw. In others you may simply be appreciating works of art or music created by others. Try to return to an attitude in which you are not self-critical. Don’t worry about whether you can write or draw proficiently. Instead, concentrate on the pleasure of expressing an idea, or simply seeing the flow of your pen on the page, or the brightness of magic markers on the paper. Be sure you have some good creative tools that are inexpensive—magic markers, newsprint pads, inexpensive paper. (I remember once using a roll of shelf-paper and magic markers when my children were young; it looked like so much fun I had to try it!) Maybe your spiritual formation group or a friend or two can join together to do some special creative exercises, or engage in ways to appreciate your own creativity and that of great artists of faith.

Writing
Remember what Henri Nouwen says about writing as a tool for spiritual development: “Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what lives in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we began to write.”

• Write new words to a familiar song. “O My Darling Clementine” is a good melody if you can’t think of one. Don’t plan to write about faith; know that you exercise faith in the composing of the words.

• Write a letter to God. Thank him for your creative gifts, and for the gift of your faith.

• Write a brief history of your childhood memories of coming to know God. Can you remember an idea about God that you have outgrown?

• Begin a journal. Choose a fresh composition book and plan to write an entry every day for a week. Make sketches, too, if you like. Read your journal over to yourself or to friends and decide at the end of the week whether to continue.

Designing/Visual Creativity
• Rearrange your desk to make it more attractive or spacious. Get rid of the clutter. Add a picture, a vase of flowers, a lamp. Enjoy your handiwork.

• Arrange a centerpiece of flowers for the day your spiritual formation group meets. Reflect on the beauty and color of the flowers.

• Set the table creatively for a meal. Use an attractive centerpiece or create one.

• Set out a new row of plants in your garden, or arrange potted plants on an indoor shelf.

• Draw a picture of your workplace and reflect on what it may reveal to you about your daily work.

• Draw a picture of something or someone you find beautiful: a flower, a tree, a person.