“Created, creator"

H,

I remember struggling, in my younger years, with the idea that art meant anything to God. It was my old Pentecostal soul, the one that always mistook serving the whims of the movement or person at the head of the movement with living in the high ideas of God. I thought every expression had to speak about Them in the most overt sense possible, even if it did not ring true. I still had the idea in my head that this was a praise hungry and insecure god who looked through all the pages of life to see how many mentions He got.

Of course, once I rid myself of these stolid ideas, I discovered that all my mind was in that question of deity. I could not write a paragraph without exploring what the idea of God meant. It was already in my mind as the path to meaning. It does and will come out clearly in all my art.

This should come as no surprise. All of truth is accessed in stories. They present to us as an eternal tale culminating in the merging of story and life in a forever blend. That He is creator and maker of all things should have alerted me to where the artistic impulse comes from. The questions we ask and the answers we find and the creativity we use to get from question to answer are all parts of our God-side. It is a creator creating creatives. It is God as creator and what is the most vivid image of where we will be when we see Them: right hand side, co-creating an eternity that is still being written.

So, now art for me is that reality. It is not propaganda. It is not an advertorial. God needs no public relations unit. We must tell stories that elevate truth and speak to the inherent value of every life. Do not waste a word. Do not make anything glib or light for folly sake or take away from the glory within or without. Let it always sing. Let it be honest. Let it say what you think and feel and know and want to think, feel and know. There are no barriers to the human mind. Let us create as we were once created.