My First Guest Blogger!

Do I like introducing one friend to another? I love doing that! It's especially fun when people are from different backgrounds and organizations. I get to do that for you today!

I was privileged to be the spiritual leader at a Unity church for about a year and a half. One of the best parts about that experience was meeting some amazing ministers in that denomination. Today I get to introduce a woman to you who I count as both a colleague in ministry and a trusted friend,  Ellen Debenport. 

Ellen is a celebrated author and speaker. Her book, The Five Principles, is a sophisticated but clear explanation of the universal spiritual laws that are the foundation of human living. While it's discussing Unity principles I tell people it's also one of the clearest explanations of our Science of Mind(R) principles around! She is currently minister at Unity of Wimberley near Austin, TX.

The Creative Impulse

Ellen Debenport

Several people have asked me lately where I get ideas for this blog or for the talks I give.

When I'm honest, I tell them the idea is usually dredged from somewhere in the back of my mind at the last minute.

I envy those people who bubble with ideas all the time, who have so many ideas they don't know which ones to pursue, or fear they won't have time for all of them.

Even so, I wonder how many of us would describe ourselves as creative.

Creativity is more than just talent with words or art or music.

• It's a chef, an entrepreneur, an event planner, a gardener.
• It's a parent making a long car trip fun for the kids.
• It's a teacher finding just the right stories and pictures to explain a new concept, whether for first graders learning arithmetic or rocket scientists reviewing a launch sequence.

I don't actually know many rocket scientists, but I know creativity doesn't have to be loopy and right-brained. It can be methodical and disciplined. Think of what it takes to design software for a video game. That's creative!

Romantic love inspires creativity, of course. You know you're in love when all the songs on the radio make sense. Now marriage proposals have become an art form.

I believe creativity is our most divine expression.

So why is it ever hard? Why do we not recognize it in ourselves more often? Why do we not cultivate it every day? And why do we procrastinate?

I admire a young woman in Canada, Samantha Reynolds, who noticed her life was being consumed as a new mother and vowed to write and post a poem every day just to keep her creative juices flowing.

Since her second baby, the poems are no longer daily, but she still sees through a poet's eyes. And, she noticed recently, so does her little boy.

If we are made in God's image as creators, if creativity is a child's natural approach to the world, then why is the inner critic so vocal when we attempt something new?

God created the earth and saw that it was good.

Whereas many of us look at our creations and say:

This is awful.

Everyone's going to hate it.

I'm too embarrassed to put this out into the world.

Maybe I should just start over.

When did we lose the joy in creativity? (I would say it was the first time we were graded, but that's another soapbox.)

I know so many people now who are working to recapture their creative joy, and – like children – they are less concerned with whether they have natural talent than with expressing themselves.

Good for them.

The focus required for creativity may be the best way we have to stay in the present moment. It's a spiritual practice.

Even better, many of us know divine help is available for these endeavors.

You've heard the story that every blade of grass has an angel bending over it, whispering, “Grow, grow.”

So do you.

I'm teaching a class right now based on a little book called Hiring the Heavens, about creating angel committees to help with any project. It's a fun way to organize the divine power of good in the universe.

And personally, I imagine angels – or whatever forms the Source of Creative Imagination takes – are cheering us on.

So, back to the original question -- where do my ideas come from? I ask for them.

Most weeks, I tell the angels that I absolutely, positively have to have a new topic, overnight. And it's nearly always there in the morning, popping into my mind while I'm still half-asleep, just in the nick of time.

Of course inspiration can be triggered from outside as well – books, speakers, a walk.

The fact is, we are creators every second of the day, creating events and experiences with our deepest thoughts whether we know it or not.

Even at the conscious levels of personality, we are composing our lives – where to live, which jobs to accept, whom to marry, whether to have children – and choosing our reactions with each new encounter.

We can't NOT create.

Wouldn't it be more fun to claim it? To think of ourselves as brimming with creativity and turn ourselves loose on the world?

If you could create anything right now, what would it be?