Creation isn't just the process of making something, though this is how many perceive creation. Creation is the process of making something new, it's as much about rebirth as it is about birth. The bible gives us the best examples of creation.
"In the beginning, God created..." (Genesis 1:1) God wasn't just making something that didn't exist before, but he was in fact changing the nature of what already existed. He did make something out of nothing, as in the big bang, but at the same time He already existed in the nothingness and thus He changed the nature of His own existence. He went from one being to the one being over many. He created an isolated existence to a world that was made for relationship. He made more than something out of nothing, He made somethings out of nothing.
This speaks to us about the nature of creation. Creation isn't just making something out of what wasn't there before but it is changing the nature of what already exists and in the change, communion happens...relationship is born.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says - "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" This means that relationship and creation is one and the same, when one happens the other is born as well. When we come into a relationship with Jesus, we are made new, we are both re-created and created at the same time.
This is true of great art as well. When we give birth to a piece we are fostering community. This happens in a couple of ways: 1) Art connects us to our creator. It defines who we are in relationship with the natural AND the supernatural world. Our need to create is also the impulse to find our true identity and purpose. As we search by creating, are we not searching for meaning? Everyone who is alive resonates with this, whether they believe in a higher power or not...the need to create is a cry out into the darkness for understanding, it is a call that demands an answer, it is a scream to try to fill the void with something.
2) Art connects us to each other. When we create we usually don't do it in a vacuum and even if we do...our hope is that someone else may, someday, see our work. Our creative impulse asks the simple question, " does anyone else understand what I have been through?" We HOPE someone will answer..."Yes. I know what you have been through and I have been there too." Why? Why do we need someone to answer us? Because we want to know we aren't alone. At the end of the day most people don't want to be alone. That is why we have fears. We fear because we feel alone. We fear death because we fear we will be ripped from this life, away from those we love, or even just...those, and thrust into a place without anyone too commune with.
3) Art connects us to ourselves. We, in fact, need to commune with ourselves. Part of our search is to "know thyself" We want to know why we are the way we are and why we do what we do. Art helps us see that. A piece of art isn't just for someone else to see it, it isn't just about trying to discover the divine in the humane, but it is also an attempt to find ourselves. This searching for ourselves is so that we may be enlightened, that we may be changed. In fact this search for ourselves is to make us new.
The creation process renews us and changes us. When we create we are connecting to the spirit behind creation, we are calling others to see and know us AND to renew their perspective on life and we are renewing ourselves. The process of creation is one blessed by the divine for renewal of thought, mind and body, it is to foster community between the Children of God and their creator, and it is to bring us into relationship with our God.
