Creativity in Chaos

Being a Bible nerd does not always have many social benefits.

But it came in handy Monday.

Monday I went to court with one of my good friends in Georgia for her divorce to be finalized. Divorce is one of the most difficult and lonely things anyone can go through, of course. Right before seeing the judge, I asked her how she was feeling.

“I just feel untethered… I feel like I’m just being tossed around in the wind.”

That’s a strong image. You probably know how it feels. I do.

It was that moment in which being a Bible geek came in handy, believe it or not. I thought about how, in both Greek and Hebrew, the word for “wind” is the same word for “Spirit.” This changed the imagery in my mind of my friend being blown around in the wind.

Instead if seeing her tumbling through the air, thrown about by empty gusts, I saw her as being carried by the Spirit. Still jarring, no doubt. But now safe, covered, protected by the work and present of the Spirit.

The chaos of her life was unchanged. But it was a chaos in which she was not alone.

…

I remember the first time I ever caught the connection between the Holy Spirit and chaos. Believe it or not it came while working with teenagers. As a youth minister, I had struggled for weeks to get a youth group talking, and one night they started, and never stopped.

The night the teenagers decided to participate was chaotic. I thought it was fantastic. But when I debriefed with my team, only one of those words came up. Over and over again: chaotic, chaotic, chaotic.

That was a Wednesday night, and that same morning I had been reading the accounts of creation in Genesis at the university with my college students. When my youth workers complained of the “chaos” of talkative teenagers, the second verse of the Bible popped into my mind:

And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Formlessness. Void. Darkness. Deep. And?

The Spirit. The Spirit of God, moving.

It was then that something clicked for me that has never left me. Where there is chaos? There is also God, waiting to do a creative work.

The Spirit of God loves to hover over chaos.

Where there is darkness and void and deep, there is also the Spirit of Creation, brooding nearby, waiting to call life out of nothingness, to form the formlessness, to speak light into the darkness.

When we are thrown about, blown by every bluster, we are still yet caught up the wind, riding on the Spirit’s wings. Spinning about, but not alone. When you feel spun up by the chaos of life, we must remember: the Spirit is somewhere close by.

…

This very idea was further reiterated to me once at a pottery studio in Chattanooga.

The artist gave a demonstration of throwing a vase on the wheel, and I happened to have the seat right in front of her. As the wheel turned, she brought the clay up, put pressure in certain spots, and the once sloppy mess began to take form. She was talking all the while, and people were asking her questions.

A friend of mine asked the potter something, and the Potter sat back in her chair, contemplating for a moment to give a thoughtful answer. In doing so, she removed her hands from the almost-vase, but she kept her foot on the pedal. She leaned back, hands off, but the wheel— and, thus, the vase— spun and spun and spun on.

In the moment she leaned back, something automatic happened in me unconsciously: I jolted forward, hands out, ready to catch the falling would-be-vase. But it didn’t fall. It just kept spinning, and I’m sure I looked silly. And then that potter looked me dead in the eyes and said, “It can spin for a moment without my touch. My eyes are on it even when my hands are not.”

And that right there was the greatest two-sentence sermon I had ever heard.

Lonely, but never alone.

In beginnings, there is formlessness, darkness, and void, and yet there is also God’s Spirit nearby, ready to create new worlds out of the nothingness that seemed so daunting.

…

So far, I have been talking about God’s nearness in chaos, that the same Spirit who was present at creation is present at all of your recreations.

I think this is the single greatest truth of Christianity:that we are never alone.

But I want to take it a step farther this morning.

I want to suggest that not only is God with us in life’s chaos, but that in our darkness moments of grief, in our most out of control moments, the nearness of God’s Spirit lends us her creativity.

I have always desired to be a creative person but never feel like I can achieve such. I am jealous of those of you who can paint, sculpt, dance, sew, design, and decorate.

But this is something that is so fascinating to me from our stories of creation: God doesn’t starting making with stuff. God creates by speaking. And, even more wildly, this is one of the ways in which we can emulate God.

If you can speak light to the darkness, then God’s creative Spirit is at work in you.

In moments of formlessness and void, God’s creativity, God’s creation-ing, if you will, flows through us as we tumble in darkness and speak life.

I really truly believe that there is a type of creativity that only comes during moments of grief and hardness. There is a gift of expression that comes through us only by God’s nearness to us in those times. It is a grace that accompanies us at our weakest. Not of our own power, newness of life springs forth even when death knocks at the door.

There are songs and poems and words of kindness that only tears can write. There are actions of love that are only spurred when grief kicks its heels. Sorrow and sadness give us some of the best art this world has to offer because we get stripped to the bare minimum of love. There are ways we create justice and love, divine moments, and new worlds because we must lean on God’s Spirit.

When there is tragedy .When there are tears. When you are tired and taxed, somehow some way, we are graced to go on and maybe even to sing a new song.

For when I am weak, then I am made strong. There is a type of life that only comes out of death.

…

Now what do I mean, a grace to be creative in chaos? Just to arrange the flowers, and make a good powerpoint, or throw a kid’s birthday party when all hell is breaking loose? Maybe. I think those things are life-giving in the midst of great sadness and hardship.

I also mean the creativity ability to see the unseen. To catch a holy vision of what could be before it is. The faith to give substance to things others only hope for. The faith to believe what you cannot see. This faith is holy creativity.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says to Thomas, “blessed are they who have not seen and yet still come to belief.”

I think Martha displayed this kind of holy creativity when she sees Jesus after her brother’s death. “If you had been here… this would have gone differently,” she can say because she can see.

She can look at sickness and imagine wholeness. She can see tragedy as an opportunity for a miracle. That’s some creativity right there. And it gives her the boldness to go out to meet Jesus on his way, and say, “hey… what are you going to do about this?”

The Sisters in Bethany teach us our ability to hope is directly tied to our ability to imagine. You cannot hope for what you cannot imagine. How can we hope for opportunity and restoration, reconciliation, healing, and change if we can’t even imagine it?

I think about Mary and Martha at the death of their brother Lazarus, who were so disappointed not only because of the death of brother but because they knew it wasn’t necessary as they could imagine an alternate way with Jesus. “If you had only been here!” they both say to him.

They had high hopes because they had imaginations that had encountered Jesus. They really believed Jesus could make a difference. And they loved their brother enough to ask for it.

Faith, hope, and love are, of course, a dangerous game. So let’s take the risky business of imagination and push it another step farther. This is not just about us and our desires, the life of the world depends on it.

For some beautiful and scary reason, God has decided that we should get to participate in the redeeming of the broken world. So the sake of our world depends on us partnering our creativity with God.

If we can’t imagine it, we cant hope for it. And if we can’t hope for it, we can’t work towards it. But we never do it alone.

…

The women of the Gospels tell this story. And not only do they receive the Holy Spirit alongside their brothers, they are restored in relationship to their brothers. Jesus brings Lazarus back to Mary and Martha. He sends Mary Magdalene to the twelve disciples. And he places his mother, Mary, in the home of the beloved John.

To conclude, I want to ask us some questions. Pretty straightforwardly.

1. If you can’t yet feel the resurrection power of Christ, can you have the faith of Martha? Can you conjure the courage to creatively serve while awaiting a new creation?

2. How might God be recreating you in this moment?

3. Where do you need God’s creation-ing Spirit to come alongside you in the chaos?

4. How can I join with the God of Creation to be creative in this moment?