Creativity

The Mother Cook gave me a book to look through called The Tightwad Gazette. It's a collection of the insights and advice of an incredibly thrifty woman who has perfected the art over the last couple of decades. But the more I read through it, the more I became convinced that it is no coincidence that this woman (and a large percentage of other frugal women I know) is also very creative.

I, on the other hand, am not. She addressed this issue directly in an article about the impossibility of divorcing creativity and frugality. Creativity, she says, is just coming up with new ways to solve a problem - which is exactly what tightwads do. As much as her advice should have inspired me, I felt discouraged by the fact that I am not creative at all. What I was confronted with, though, was the argument that creativity can (and should) be learned.

With this on my mind, at church last Sunday our pastor, Mike Biggs, mentioned the story of Job. He described the many-chaptered rebuttal of God to Job staking His authoritative claim over the universe. God asks Job: "Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone - while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" Part of His authority over creation is as its great Creator. And this is enough a part of His nature to point out to Job. He is the Creator, from Him comes creativity itself.

And I am made in His image. I also am a creative being. As part of having a remnant of the image of God as part of my nature, I am endowed with certain qualities that reflect Who God is. If justice, beauty and truth are to be held in high esteem since they are part of God's nature, surely creativity would also be included in that list. And if I see it as part of my duty to pursue things like justice and beauty, then I suppose I must also seek to develop and appreciate my own creativity.