[Previous entry: "The Fad Driven Church"]

02/06/2008: "The Creative Bug"

music: "Mysterious Ways" by U2

Sometimes the bug bites you. It would appear that I have been using Raid for a very long time. I think my "Raid" could be entitled "life change". Instead of letting it feed the bug like it can do so well, I reverse engineered it so that it killed it. Let's see if I can now return the formula to its natural state.

What is the creative bug? It's a bolt of lightning that hits you in the head and sends amperage pulsing through your body. Your legs run to the nearest source of information gathering, such as a laptop, moleskin, sticky pad, crayon and wall, etc. etc. and some more etc. Your arms flail about, often uncontrollably as you try pass the current out of your mind in a way that is both legible and sensical. You make up words. You stream your consciousness until it runs dry. You breathe a sigh of relief. You stop to wonder if you spelled "breathe" correctly for only a few moments. You'll ask forgiveness from your English-teaching mother later.

The bug is pure energy that can't be measured. It's a cricket of power. How did I ever come up with a Raid formula powerful enough to kill a bug that is, by definition, pure power?

And so, as I smile at this gigantic power cricket, welcoming him back into my life, I think about our relationship. So often I call upon him only when asked. It is hard to plan your life around his visits, though he often arrives at the worst possible times. And he doesn't always do what he is supposed to do. He's not a tame cricket.

The question that keeps swirling about in my mind is how do we, the Church, cultivate a healthy power-cricket infestation? The box we have tried to keep him in for so long has almost starved him. He must look a certain way and act a certain way and only at certain times. It doesn't matter if what he produces is excellent, just as long as it's different and he tried hard. Of course, the Church is so out-of-touch with culture that we wouldn't know excellence if it hit us with a 2x4. We rely on commissioning him to do things we've already seen, and take us to places we've already been. In fact, if he doesn't take us right down the road we expected to travel with no surprises, he has failed.

When Paul wrote about the attitude of Christ in Philippians, the only way he could do it was to break into poetry. David spent hours writing songs about God. Many of them made the final cut in the Big Book. The Bible is full of lyrics, prose, poetry, and music. It seems that somehow God just can't be understood completely without a tune. So why do we do it backwards? We present a set of beliefs then commission art to try and neatly explain them. What if we reversed it? What if we grew in our understanding of God by exploring our creativity? Let the cricket out of the box and see what happens.

I'm not saying we get rid of the Sistine Chapel and the Hallelujah Chorus. Those were some great commissions. But let's be free to explore our faith through creativity. Let the spirit guide us in a language that can only be spoken with images, rhyme, music, color, and sound.

Open up that window to the soul and let the power-cricket in.