Creativity
The Creative Mind of Christ
Sunday, June 3, 2018
God created each of us with particular gifts that we can discover and use in the service of co-creating a more whole and loving world. There are many parts of the Body of Christ; I am only one part, a “mouth.” When I first began to teach, no one was more surprised than I was that some people valued what I had to say! If I am able to speak well, it is only because somehow, by grace, God has helped me get my false self out of the way. When we are centered in our True Self we are most in touch with our creative source and most open to be a conduit of Love.
Fidelity to contemplative practice over months, years, and even a lifetime opens our hearts, minds, and bodies to the ongoing creative flow of Spirit. From our experiences of contemplation—union with Love—we can then live and work in ways that are more compassionate and healing.
We humans are creatures of habit; our brains are wired to think the same thoughts again and again like a broken record. Most of these habitual thoughts are dualistic and negative. We are obsessed with labeling things good or bad, right or wrong. Only very rarely do we change our minds about these pre-determined, fixed assumptions. Obviously, this limits our ability to be creative and think outside the box!
In contemplative practice, we refuse to identify with any one side (while still maintaining our intelligence and ability to think critically). We hold the tension of seeming conflicts and paradoxes, going beyond words to pure, open-ended experience, which has the potential to unify contradictions. This is a creative tension because when held with loving intention, something utterly new and creative can emerge.
Authentic and full knowing is subject to subject through a process of mirroring, seeing and being seen, observing reality as it is. This is the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:16). It really is a different way of knowing, and you can recognize it by its gratuity, open-endedness, compassion, and by the way it is so creative and energizing in those who allow it.
Truly great thinkers and creatives take for granted that they have access to a different and larger mind. They recognize that a divine flow is already happening and that everyone can plug into it. In all cases, it is a participative kind of knowing, a being known through and not an autonomous knowing. This is how we can become co-creators with our loving Creator.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Just This (CAC Publishing: 2017), 38-39.
