Mandalas, prayers, and creativity

Today the Mandala prayer class that I am leading as part of our Wednesday night program will begin to create Mandala’s with either paints or with sand. I am really enjoying this class – and am able to participate more than facilitate. We spend time together, with quiet music, working on our own creative projects, and occasionally having quiet conversation. It is a time, for me at least, to simply be. A time to calm and to center and focus. I think that is why I like “creative” projects – when I work on them they help me to center in a different way than meditation does. These projects, like knitting, help me to touch a part of myself that doesn’t always get to stretch and unfold. And that helps me connect to God in another way.

Many years ago I used to work on craft type creative projects almost every week – like counted cross stitch, etc. But then I changed jobs, work became more demanding and I gave up my “creative” time... I realize now that I was really giving up a part of myself; closing myself off because the freedom and joy I found in creative work didn’t fit well with a job that I found burdensome, confining, heavy... I was unable to reconcile the two, so I simply stopped my work on creative projects. That job certainly was not a job I should have had – but from it I learned an important lesson: just because I may have the skills to do something, does not mean that it is what I am called to do. Giftedness and temperament and strengths also play a role. As does, most importantly, passion – that place where my desires meet the world’s needs. God gives us many gifts and graces, strengths and talents. And through the years we develop many skills, as well. Our passion is the place where these coalesce; where our love for God and for humanity merge with our gifts and graces and skills into a heart-felt desire to bring God’s healing love into the world.

Crocheting and creating with a beadloom are beginning to interest me, and will probably become my next "creative" learning areas. I used to crochet, my grandmother (who is now 100!) taught me when I was a child. I can still do the most basic stitch, but that is all. One day I will learn again, but not yet. The time is not yet, I am still enjoying knitting and have so much more of myself and God to explore through it.

What do you do to stretch and unfold the creative person within? How do you connect with God through the creative?