The Creative Impulse
The making of images is uniquely human.
– lecture I read once
I don’t remember teaching any of the children to create: they merely do so, constantly. They make weapons out of recycled objects, buildings and meals and shopping experiences out of bits of paper. They invent elaborate worlds, characters, storylines, battles. And they are always drawing. Not all adults draw, for sure—but isn’t it interesting that nearly all of us begin life drawing? Communicating through illustration happens before communicating through the written word, and even after our kids learned to write, they would be sure to put pictures into their notes.
Sometimes I look back and think that much of my life has been about rediscovering that creative impulse. Not that it ever went away; it was just sublimated into acceptable forms of cognitive and technical creativity in the world of medicine and science. Even then, there was always something more overtly imaginative on the side: knitting, novels, writing. But once I had the luxury of more time to myself, I discovered how life-giving the creative process is, how essential and legitimate and healthy it can be.
At root, I imagine the creative impulse as moving in two directions. In one sense, there is no purer example of imago Dei, this idea that we are made in the image of God. God is the only one who truly creates, who makes something out of nothing, but surely this impulse that we have to imitate that by creating something out of other things is an echo of that. When I create, I experience something of the divine; I live out something true to how I myself was created.
That is one movement: God the creator, transmuted into me, created in his image. The other movement goes in the opposite direction; it is me, reaching up. I read once this definition of art: “The quality, production or expression of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary experience.” I don’t know why other people create, but the reason I create is because I want something more than ordinary experience. I want to remember something about a person or place, but capture it in a way that lasts forever. I want to imagine something fantastical that cannot exist, travel to a place I’ve never been, because it satisfies some longing I have for wonder, or unity, or perspective. I want something more than ordinary experience, and this is me, reaching up, believing I am myself created for something more than this earthly plane, and daring to imagine it.
And in these movements, I am finding my own voice. I may be inspired by what others create—that in itself is a remarkable thing, that someone else’s vision should compel me not only to admiration, but the desire to create as well—but ultimately, and always, there is something unique that I offer, and the finding of and growing into that is part of the process. I am learning what that process takes: community, in the form of co-creators, mentors, audience, commissioners. A particular brand of space, freedom, and time, which isn’t always readily available but which is important to find.
In the end, this finding of voice is more than just glorified self-expression. It is the discovering and experiencing of God’s unique life in me, and mine in him. Perhaps that is how it is with all things that we find life-giving.
