A New Song

Absolute, unchanging, and divine Truth is one thing, but human experience is another. Emotions, angst, turmoil, and joy: these things were often left out of my theology. This disconnect was felt in my heart and at the edges of my mind, but I could never put a finger on its root cause. But through the writings of George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, and others on creativity, imagination, fantasy, and the arts I started to understand this tension. It was Dorothy Sayers' work The Mind of the Maker that helped me the most. She builds her premise from the observation that there was only one thing to know about God by the time man was declared to be made in his image in Genesis 1:27: we know that He is a creator. And thus it seems to follow that at least part of what being made in God's image means is that we are creative as well: we do not choose to be creative; rather we are creative.

It's true that Scripture has much more to say about the imago Dei, but we would be remiss if we didn't pay attention to Sayers' conclusion. God is a creator, and thus so are we. But it's important to note that there's one major difference between God’s creativity and our own: He creates from nothing while we require pre-existent reality before we can create. God brought forth the universe from nothing, but the first act of human creativity in Genesis 2 is when God placed man in the garden with the beasts that He had created, and then told Adam to name them all. The text says, “Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (Gen 2:19, italics mine). It's interesting to note that after creating matter and after giving man the capacity for language, God then expectantly waited to see what names man would create for the animals in the world around him. Could it then also be true that God expectantly waits to see what each of us will create as a result of our response to Him and His created world surrounding us?

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Poem Written in Response to Psalm 108

Though battles rage and foes surround

Deep in my heart there is a sound

A single note that’s barely heard

That grows in strength fed by your word

The note rings clear throughout my soul

When I am broken or am whole

At times this note I barely hear

At times this note is held so dear

And there are times this note I hide

Trapped in a prison deep inside

To lonely cage it barely rings

Reminding me that I should sing

Yet in those times there barges in

A symphony outside my skin

With notes of glory over all

With notes that make the little tall

These notes will tear the cage apart

And free the song within my heart

They'll move my lips in joyous song

A song of love heard by earth’s throng

Yet often times my heart is weak

And bare comes from me a little squeak

I mute the song you’ve brought from me

And then am silent as can be

Lord keep my heart from these foul moods

When I am silent, sit, and brood

And when I mute my one true voice

The only way I can rejoice

To sing of your great steadfast love

That faithfully comes from above

This song is why you did me make

So Lord, my dead soul please awake

The prison doors in me break down

So I can then sing of your crown

A song in me formed by your hands

To far be heard throughout the land