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April 27, 2005
Via Creativa
VIA CREATIVA
April 17, 2005
As I re-read the section on the Via Creativa in Matthew Fox's book, Original Blessing, I remembered the streak of creativity that runs throughout my mother's family. I remember my grandmother sitting with her tatting, always working with her shuttle, creating something lacy and beautiful.
My aunt Nina made braided rugs. She bought all the coats and woolen suits from the Salvation Army store, took them apart, and used the wool to braid lovely rugs. They were in high demand, for her sense of color and careful craftsmanship resulted in beautiful, long-wearing rugs. She also baked special cakes for weddings and parties. In the small community in which she lived there were no bakeries, so her cakes were highly valued.
My mother sewed all her life, until her vision failed. She also had a good sense of color and fine craftsmanship. At Easter-time she blew eggs and painted delicate flowers on each one, decorating them with small bits of lace and ribbons. And she baked the best pies in the county--or at least that's what her family and friends claimed.
One of my brothers was a trombone player, and had a high school band. My cousins painted ceramics, carried on their mother's cake baking, and planted beautiful gardens. I have acted, made costumes, designed and run the lights, and collected and made props for theatre productions. I also was a fabric artist and love to garden.
In the next generation we have writers and photographers, great cooks and a gymnast. My daughter Stacy is a talented artist, and--I have to brag--her son, Aaron is, at eight, creating paintings and collages worthy of framing.
When Matthew Fox says that the Via Creativa is essential to our spiritual life, I embrace his idea enthusiastically. Let's explore this idea today.
Matthew Fox is a former Dominican priest. The ideas he wrote of in his book, Original Blessing, were too threatening to the Vatican to allow him to continue teaching in Catholic Universities. He was dismissed from his positions and officially censured. The Episcopal Church embraced him with open arms, and he is now a priest in that tradition.
This sermon is the fourth in a series presenting his ideas. I first shared with you his heretical teaching that instead of being born with original sin, we are born with original blessing. Fox delineates four paths we can follow in creation theology, the Via Positiva, the Via Negativa, the Via Creativa, and the Via Transformativa. We have examined the Via Positiva which he describes as "a way or path of affirmation, thanksgiving, ecstasy. " (Fox, Matthew; Original Blessing, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York, 1983, p. 33.) We have also explored the Via Negativa, the path of depth, the path that recognizes pain and suffering, and chooses to learn from them.
Today we look at the third path, that of the Via Creativa. Fox says that, "Because (Creation Theology) pays equal heed to both the Via Positiva and the Via Negativa, it celebrates the union of the two in the Via Creativa. In letting both pleasure and pain happen, both light and darkness, both naming and unnaming, both cosmos and void, we allow a third thing to be born; and that third thing is the very power of birth itself. …It is the image of God, the image of the Creator, coming alive and expressing its divine depths and divine fruitfulness. It is our creativity which is the full meaning of humanity's being an 'image of God.'" (Ibid. 175)
Fox is a leading contemporary panentheist. You are familiar with theists, who believe in a god, and pantheists who believe that the divine is personified in Nature. Panentheists believe that the divine resides in Nature, AND that there is something larger. The "something larger" may or may not resemble the traditional god of the Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition.
This idea is closely tied to process theology, which says that the divine is that which creates good. Therefor, humans can be part of the divine. And this is where the Via Creativa comes in. Fox quotes Thomas Berry who says, "Contemporary creativity consists in activating, expressing, and fulfilling the universe process, the earth process, the life process, and the human process within the possibilities of our historical moment." (Ibid, p. 178.)
Fox claims, and I agree that our traditional fall/redemption theology tends to stifle creativity. That is, the faith that says that humans were created, and soon fell into evil through the sin of Adam and Eve, and were only redeemed by God sacrificing his only son, Jesus--this faith leads to rigid thinking, hierarchical constructions of society, and creative impulses rewarded only for inventions that control people. Fox wants to free people to express their creativity in ways that contribute beauty and good to the world
This does not mean that everyone needs to be a professional artist. It does mean that we can all create beauty if we free our right brains to express their impulses. In addition to the traditional arts--painting, sculpture, music and dance--we can create gardens, fragrant nutritious bread, and lovely altars within our homes. We can craft tables and quilts. We can write poetry and play instruments. We have allowed radio, television, and movies to usurp our creativity. They bring us the creations of others, but do not encourage us to produce our own.
To produce art and crafts, we must exercise our creativity. As a myriad of piano teachers told their students--practice, practice, practice. To help you get started, I'm going to offer you an opportunity to practice right now.
In your Orders of Service you will find a blank piece of yellow paper. In each pew you will find a cup with a selection of crayons. Please select one or two crayons and prepare to put something on paper.
Karla will provide us some "music to be creative by." To inspire you, I suggest you take a moment--maybe close your eyes--to remember the emerging green spring landscape you traveled through this morning. Perhaps you will draw inspiration from our beautiful stained glass windows. Maybe there is a dream image residing in the deep recesses of your right brain.
We're going to take three minutes to express ourselves on paper. Let the chatter of your left brain fall away, and awaken yourself to the deep feelings and images buried in your right brain. Three minutes of music and creation--starting now.
…………………………….3 minutes music………….
Please finish your creations now. I encourage you to take other opportunities to create in whatever medium you are most comfortable. Often the act of creating serves as a type of meditation. I am sure my grandmother's tatting was a form of meditation, as is the needlepoint I enjoy.
Panentheism and the Via Creativa celebrate the divine female, which is imaged as Goddess or the Mother of God. Fox quotes Meister Eckhart who says, "We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born." (Ibid, 222.)
We religious liberals, who often envision divinity as within the heart and spirit of every human, can embrace the idea of mothers of God. For if divinity is in each person, it follows that every mother is a mother of God. However, part of our divinity, part of our godliness is giving birth to more than children. We give birth to ideas and objects of beauty, as well as infants who hold within them the seed of divinity. Each person, male or female, has the potential to birth a fragment of God to help heal our hurting world.
Panentheism, feminism and the non-literal meaning of motherhood are closely intertwined. Adrienne Rich defines feminism as "developing the nurturing qualities of women and men." (Ibid. p. 223.) A society that embraces this definition of feminism, and a creation centered spirituality, would be a society that nurtures creativity. It would also be a society that celebrates the Divine Feminine, including the Motherhood of God.
Fox says that, "Wherever compassion and wisdom are missing, there the full presence of God does not yet exist. … God must be born and must be allowed to grow up into human society and social structures, and …humanity is responsible for the birthing and the nurturing of God--all this has for rather obvious reasons not been heralded as integral to the Good News of late. (Ibid. 226.)
Where does the idea of sin fit in creation spirituality? If we are meant to be creators with the Divine, bringing forth good, what then, is sin? The dominant definition of sin, preached by those who embrace a fall/redemption theology is "privation of good." That is, those people who deprive others of good, whether the deprivation is of life or property or simply decent treatment, are sinners. Fox suggests that this centuries-old definition is no longer valid. He suggests that we define sin as the "misuse of good, the misuse of the greatest good of the universe, which is the image of God in humanity, our imaginations." (Ibid. 231)
It takes imagination to construct concentration camps to facilitate the most efficient means of killing millions of people. It takes imagination to build a transportation system that quickly delivers them to those camps. It takes imagination to build weapons of mass destruction. It takes imagination to devise systems of interrogation that result in the breakdown of the human spirit, and pain and dam-age to the human body. Imagination is a good, however its misuse can result in evil. Therefor those who misuse it sin. Fox suggests that misplaced imagination results in sadism "and its counterpart masochism." (Ibid.)
Creation theology emphasizes freeing the right brain from its restrictions. It calls for people to use their imaginations to do good, to resist the call to sadism or masochism, to birth into being art, literature, music and lovely crafts. "One meaning," says Fox, "of salvation that is uncovered in the Via Creativa, is the awakening to our divinity.
It awakens us to possibilities; it arouses us from pettiness, boredom and acedia. (laziness) … The news of our divinity … brings about an expansion of the mind, of the person, and of the societies we choose to create after our own images. To remain silent on this important doctrine, as most of the fall/redemption tradition has done for centuries is to invite the demonic. Divinity repressed, which is creativity repressed, will not stay for long. Like a cork held under water, it must assert itself in one form or other." (Ibid. p. 235)
The idea of being co-creator of the Cosmos is exciting and salvific. Just think what it would mean if everyone understood him/herself to be a co-creator of the Cosmos. Would it not free every human to exercise his or her creative powers with care and love? If we truly believed that every child carries the seed of divinity within them, would it not inspire us to nurture them with greater respect and admiration? The creation of Beauty is also salvific, for it adds to the good of the Cosmos. If we believed this, would we not take exquisite care in our every day creation of meals, of our home environment, of our relationships with others?
Because Fox is a Christian, though one who challenges orthodoxy, he examines what Jesus means in creation theology. He points out that Jesus was "a poet, a storyteller, an artist. He was not a priest or a theologian, or an academician or a dispenser of sacraments primarily, but an awakener to the sacrament of the cosmos, to the kingdom/ queendom of God in which all persons are immersed and which immerses all persons." (Ibid. 239)
Jesus chose to speak in parables, in the form of story. The Jesus Seminar tells us that the parables are as close as we can get to the true words of Jesus. Therefor, the parables, which often end in a question, or imply one, trusts the listener to use their own intelligence and wisdom to intuit the answer.
Jesus also claimed to be both human and divine. I have long thought that he intuited the seed of divinity within himself, and sensed it in others. I read his teachings as telling his listeners and those of us who follow, that all are children of the Divine. This is a salvific teaching of Creation Theology, one that frees us from the fall/redemption theology we inherited.
Creation Theology calls us to embrace creativity. We are called to reclaim our heritage as creators of beauty. We are called to re-vision what we call art, and re-learn how to make it a part of our lives. We are called to recognize the divinity within our hearts and within the hearts of all humankind. We are called to birth good into the world, and to care for all children on this beautiful earth.
Let us walk the Via Creativa with joy and gladness. Let us bring joy and beauty to accompany us on the way.
Amen.
Blessed Be.
Shalom.
Saalat.
Posted by nanak at April 27, 2005 01:02 PM