Just last night, I discovered myself to be not creative enough. You-- we can see it in the simple ways. One of them is by looking at the way I write in this blog. Sometimes, the laziness and sloth even in the way of thinking of mine is clearly seen. As the result, my writings sometimes were just merely a writing.
I am struck last night, when I was in a senior recital(by an invitation) of a soloist concert of Melissa Christina by the creativity and such gifts in music she with her friends developed well. As the instruments of Piano played by great pianist, the violin, Cello, and flute made a very harmonic and tender music, I keep thinking how creative they are.
The old classical songs of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Ludwig, and some other western composers and conductors were sung beautifully last night and as far as I see the audience were very enjoying them.
One thing comes up into my mind is the creativity. What actually the 'creativity' means. In my opinion, the creativity must be the acts, thoughts and efforts that implement the careful devotion to Christ (I borrow the term from Fr. Stephen), and this is only reaching its truly nature when and if only we devote it to God alone for his glory, and in the highest point and the center of its heart is monasticism, and thus asceticism.
Many times in this modern world, we think of creativity as a 'self-actualization', 'self-potential maximization' which always related to the pleasure seeking, 'success'- pursuit and many other things which focused on the self. And personally, I was one of many people thought that way.
Lord, have mercy on me a sinner! It is all not about a poor and insufficient sinner like me. Only in Thou, Thou alone and trough the communion and life in Thy body, by careful devotion unto You; deny myself and bear the precious cross that thou entrusted to us, and thus to me; then in this can I find true creativity. By whatever gifts, strength and even weaknesses and tears..... by Thy mercy to bear fruits!
Lord, have mercy on Thy unworthy servant!
Brother, your words are true. You have hit the mark!
ReplyDeleteCreativity is not what people think, not what the world tells us.
Only One is the Creator, only One is Truth. If we serve Him with our whole being, mind, heart, soul, strength, then His life is in us, and so is His creativity—His creativity, not ours—and yet He lets us take pleasure in what is created by means of us poor artists, poor poets, poor singers and songwritters, poor dancers. That is, when we do everything in Him, forgetting ourselves, and not worrying about what good our work will be. It is not ours to evaluate our own work, not ours to own it, but offering it as the fruit of our life, to simply share it with others, without trying to please them or ourselves.
That is creativity.
"It is not ours to evaluate our own work, not ours to own it, but offering it as the fruit of our life, to simply share it with others, without trying to please them or ourselves."
ReplyDeletemarvellous, brother! And, this reminds me to the saying of Elder Macarius of Optina about 'evaluating' and 'assessing' our spriritual labor:
"Do not attempt to assess the quality of your prayer. God alone can judge its value. To us, our own prayer must always appear so poor an effort, so inadequate an achievement, that the cry of the publican spontaneously rises to our lips. [252]" (http://www.stvladimirs.ca/library/elder-macarius-humility.html).
You see, my brother, Orthodoxy is One, across times, lands and languages. There is only One Holy Spirit, who teaches us everything.
ReplyDeleteAnd what He teaches us is the same everywhere.