March 8, 2007

• Speaking of Creation...

  I am frustrated recently because I have 100 or so incompleted projects in my mind that I want to get to.  I have been trying to get one done per day.  Here are three of them, a Christmas tree out of season but I don't care, a kimekomi ball and a kimekomi doll made out of old kimonos that I dismantled.

  

  

  God is indeed the creator, who created the universe, this world and everything in it.  And then He created man.  He created man in His own image.  Since we have lost the image this is difficult to understand totally.  He made us with the ability to think, create, love and communicate.  God is a creator, and as beings made in His image we are creative.  There is more to this, but I don't have time to research it right now.  We can have the best idea of man in God's image if we look at Jesus.  That is who God wants us all to be like. 

  God created man with the intention of having him rule over creation forever, which was the most creative work possible.  God is the creator, and He made man to create as He does.  Man was to create to the glory of God, and it was to be man's joy to do so.  Work was supposed to be fun and pleasurable.  God would look at the creation that man had done in His name, and delight in it as man delighted in God who gave him the ability.  The reward for doing good work was to be the opportunity to do more creative work. 

  When man chose to withdraw his hand from God's defined right and wrong for himself, he also unintentionally redefined the nature of work.  It lost much of its creative aspect in that it became a struggle to survive.  Work became a non-creative drudgery.   Man stepped out of the creative work that God had intended man do.  Fallen man still retains some of God's image and is still a creator, and does produce some very useful things with the brain that God gave him. 

  Sometimes man does try to create a god, because he is afraid of nature, or because he feels something spiritual, or because he wants some kind of philosophical system by which do live.  Man is a spiritual being, and it is natural that he would want a god.

  The Bible begins with "in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."  Why do we have to believe the God of the Bible?  I think that the Biblical account of how the earth got here is the most believable.  Compare the Bible to, for example, the Japanese Shinto creation legends of a god and goddess going around a pole, engaging in "productive activities" and having a baby island.  That baby didn't work out well because the goddess spoke to the god first before getting on with the business.  They had to try again with the god speaking first, and the rest of the Japanese islands were born successfully.  That sounds more like a local fairy tale that does not explain much.  We can look at other creation stories that involve gods fighting with monsters or other gods.  I don't think there is any creation story in Buddhism.  The God of the Bible does not fight or cohabit with anyone.  He just sings the universe into being with nothing but His words.

  God is indeed all powerful, all knowing and everywhere, and these are things that man can never be.  He should not even try, because God's realm belongs to God alone, and if we even think that we can take his place then we are trying to do the impossible and are in deep doo.  God is of course is pleased when we do our best, but He knows that we are fallen and yet loves us anyway.

  It is interesting that man has the idea of an afterlife.  Christians are not the only ones.  The ancient Egyptians had it, Buddhists have it, Hindus have it, Moslems have it.  We have an idea of living forever and a desire to do it.  We wish that we could just be, without ever having to suffer.  That is exactly what God wants to give us, and He wanted to give it to us so badly that He came and died to do it.  He came to give us life now and in eternity, and He came to give it to us in abundance.  He wants our lives filled with love and creativity now and in the life to come.

  Another thought on creativity:  I have a friend who sometimes feels down, but when he does he says that he puts his energy somewhere else other than dwelling on the "downness," and goes on to create something.  Yeah, don't waste your suffering, turn the energy off the suffering and go create something!  I really gotta remember that!!  God is happier if I create something in His name to His glory rather than whining about how He is not moving fast enough to accomplish my goals.  Oops!  Accomplish MY goals?  Is there something in need of readjustment here?  Isn't God a wonderfully patient teacher?

  • 01:46
  • 1 Comment