Can creative outlets save the world?

I found this post to be an inspiring and awesome call to action; especially as the author refers to the artistic ambitions of the young Adolf Hitler. Can creative outlets help us to address some of the gravest issues facing our civilization (war, violence, terrorism, etc.)? I dare think so. Yes, perhaps it really is that simple. 

The post caused me to recall the chilling words of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “Boy Breaking Glass” in which she says, “I shall create! If not a note, a hole. If not an overture, a desecration.” 

Creation will occur. Regardless. The question is: What will be the nature of the creation?

I am deeply interested in art therapy and psychology. And I have always been drawn to stories of young people who have been encouraged to vent their frustration and confusion through an artistic outlet of some sort (whether or not they become professional artists). 

Last year, I had the privilege to teach a class on editorial cartooning to a group of middle-school children with the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program. It was amazing to see what could come out of a quiet child who had never tapped into their creative potential. Regardless of their artistic skill, it was clear that these kids had something important to say about the issues that mattered to them. It was life-changing for me and reinforced for me the important place that creative expression occupies in human life.

We’ve heard about rappers who would’ve been drug dealers. We’ve heard about jazz artists who would’ve been hustlers. We’ve heard about at-risk youth who find redemption and cathartic release through public theatre.

The profession doesn’t matter as much to me as the therapeutic nature of creating. So I totally agree with a comment on the post that said, “Sometimes, the simple act of being quiet with a bunch of markers and paper for an hour or two can be therapeutic, whatever the artistic value of the finished work.”

I know that worked for me. As a child, I loved to draw stick figures. Soon I started studying the work of comic book artists my illustrations began to improve. A whole new world opened up. Realizing my interest in drawing, my grandmother would bring home reams of printing paper that her company would throw away so that I could have drawing materials. “From so humble a beginning…” Such is creation.

There is so much creative energy inside us that needs to be directed. I believe that repressing the impulses to create and to contribute will only hurt us in the end. In my view, creative expression is going to happen no matter what and any efforts to actively repress/suppress/oppress those impulses will only ensure that the later expressions of those impulses will take more malignant and unhealthy forms. (Recall: "I shall create...if not a note, a hole...")

I say we help people discover constructive outlets for their creative impulses. 

I can only speculate as to what my life would have been like without my creative outlets. I believe that realizing my creative potential so early in life kept me free from a lot of the troubling traps native to a lower-class, urban environment. I am convinced that my having an artistic outlet contributed greatly in helping me to grow and mature. 

Art was a consolation for me through lonely, boring and quiet times. It was how I believed the “divine” communicated with me. When I was confused or disjointed, I could always find refuge in the act of creating; and I still do.

I believe art helps us to process life. By cultivating the creative impulse, we develop new ways to looking, listening, touching and tasting the world around us and exploring the depths within.

I make my money as a public relations executive, but I am an artist who thrives off the creative process- both at work and at home; whether I am playing guitar, sketching illustrations, composing a poem, or writing a blog post. 

I do these things, not to make money- but to make “me.” 

Demons...Really?

Have you ever heard bizarre, nonhuman screams coming from the other room? Have you ever had that eerie feeling in the waking hours where your mind is alert but a heavy pressure on your body prevents you from moving? Have you ever felt a haunting presence closing in on you under the cloak of night? Have you ever done something “sinful” in the privacy of your bedroom only to wake up the next morning to a prayerful parent telling you that they sensed a fierce clash between angels and demons was taking place somewhere in the house the night before?

If you have, I’d love to hear more details about your experience.
But if you haven’t, you are not alone.

I haven’t either.

However, I know many who have had such experiences and the sincere conviction in which they retell their accounts leaves me to wonder.

Just last week, I went to hang out and catch up with a small group of my Christian friends. My friends are complex individuals with memories full of profound experiences who would describe themselves as Bible-believing, orthodox Christian, conservative evangelicals. They are committed creationists and faithful servants to their understanding of God and the Bible. They are compassionate and thoughtful individuals who are skeptical toward the views of nonbelievers, mystics, New-Age types, self-help authors, right-wing fundamentalists, cults, liberals, televangelists, mega-church leaders who advance “the prosperity gospel” and all who accept the theory of evolution. And there was a time, not long ago, when I would describe myself in similar terms.

Over the past seven years, many of us have grown close by working on service projects together. We have participated in each others’ development into dependable friends, mature husbands and responsible fathers.

But over the years, some of us began to depart from the majority opinion and pursue more unorthodox pathways of fulfillment. I don’t think any of us were surprised by this. Even in our early bible study conversations years ago, one could hear subtle hints indicating that some of us thought about God and life’s purpose just a little differently than the rest of the group. These differences would only become more pronounced over time.

During our most recent gathering together, we joked around for an hour or so about random topics such as local job cuts, our kids, the Obama administration and the latest entertainment news. But as the evening progressed, the discussion topics became far more serious as some of my friends began to share stories about their encounters with—of all things—demons.

It began with one person’s off-handed joke about demon possession until, soon, everyone in the room, one-by-one, began chiming in with stories of their own encounters with what they believed to be demonic forces.

It was as if a line was being drawn in the sand and I found myself on the other side of it. Like an outside observer, I watched as my friends reaffirmed their fellowship with similar experiences. As the stories were told, I heard phrases like, “You too!” and “Yeah, that’s the worst.”

The situation was awkward and I couldn’t help but to be cynical; silently questioning both their judgment and my own. How ironic was it that these individuals who sat before me sharing their personal encounters with demonic forces also happen to skeptical and distrusting of the scientific method? How ironic was it that these individuals who believe in demons also told me that they cannot accept evolution with any confidence because it leaves too much unexplained? Functioning with their assumptions about reality, I’d think some invisible and benevolent force controlled my sudden urge to fire off a witty and obnoxious remark pointing out the obvious, double standard here.

I couldn’t believe we were having this discussion. But I listened.

When someone tells me about a demonic encounter they have experienced my first reaction is to place that person firmly in the crazy category. But part of me neither wants to dismiss their stories nor the conviction in which they tell them because they may be indicative of a deeper, psychological reality to which I should pay close attention. Of course, this is an area beyond my expertise and again I am left only to wonder and ask questions.

I struggle with the fact that the Bible has plenty of stories similar to the ones my friends shared that night as its pages frequently describe a supernatural, otherworldly realm beyond sensory comprehension. The noble and appealing character of Jesus is easy to embrace when you focus primarily on his paradigm-challenging command to love one's enemies and his creative parables about the prodigal son, the persistent widow and the Good Samaritan.

But the New Testament doesn’t stop there. It seems to me that in order to embrace this Jesus—according to the New Testament—one must also profess belief in a strange, spirit world where angelic and demonic forces wage a constant and invisible war for the eternal souls of human beings. To embrace this Jesus—according to many biblical texts—it seems that one must also accept the ideas that demons can possess human beings; that certain individuals can wield miraculous powers and perform miracles that defy the laws of gravity and physics; and that a personal God exists and is capable to speaking to and through selected prophets.

When I read what the gospels say about Jesus of Nazareth, I find an inspiring figure that said and did many admirable things throughout his final years. But if I am required to believe and defend far-fetched ideas and speculations about a spiritual realm in order to follow the way of Jesus, then Christianity is a pill that I cannot swallow.

At this point in my life, I don’t believe in a Devil, Satan, demons, evil spirits, or any sort of personalized beings of incarnated evil. However, I do believe that humanity has a dark side; a selfish part of us that desires to satiate our unbridled appetites without considering the needs of others; a dangerous part of us inclined to hate out of ignorance and to kill out of fear; a susceptible part of us easily possessed by the spirits of indifference and apathy. And as mysterious as human evil is, I suspect this dark side of our existence has a biological and naturalistic explanation instead of a supernatural one. I suspect we can find more explanation for the origins of this dark side in the reptilian remnants of our brains than we can find in the tempting suggestions of a mythological serpent.

I find enough in the natural world to be afraid of than for me to occupy time and energy worrying about realms unknown, unseen and—dare I say—imaginary. I have more fear that a stray bullet will interrupt my earthly existence than that any demon would ever attack, influence or possess me.

Interestingly, some would posit one of those circular, conversation-ending arguments claiming that someone who doesn’t believe in demons is not able to believe because they are already under a demonic influence. I have no patience for that kind of exchange.

You can call it what you want, label me however and rely on whichever authority you find trustworthy in this dynamic and ever-changing thing called life. I’m going to try to make sense out of this the only way I know how: by continuing to ask the questions and pursuing explanations to the mysteries.

When Explanation Meets Mystery

This is a post by Gordon Atkinson, author of one of my favorite blogs, Real Live Preacher. I resonate deeply with his hopeful attempts to draw meaning from the ongoing and creative tension between scientific explanation, on one hand, and what he calls "dark mystery," on the other. Along a similar line of thought, I've recently been reading the late psychologist Carl Jung's book Man and His Symbols which explores this tension throughout the collective human experience- affirming the human impulses to worship and explore while also critiquing materialistic movements that seek dismiss or devalue humanity's perpetual obsession with the unknown.

In January 2008, Atkinson wrote an essay for The Christian Century magazine exploring this theme. The essay was entitled "Brother Scientist."

"Life has always been most interesting for me at the rolling boundary between scientific explanation and dark mystery. Science is always moving forward, rolling up more data and triumphantly explaining old mysteries. At times it seems as though the ancient world of myth and dream has turned tail and fled. Not so. For every acre of forest that science paves over, myth and legend giggle and reveal ten more acres of untamed wilderness behind them. As our ability to understand the universe grows, so does our capacity for looking outward and upward and seeing all that we do not know. There is more mystery to explore now than ever before in the history of humanity.

Some people see the boundary between mystery and science as a battleground with barbed wire and trenches on either side. But I think that the place where our searching and empirical minds meet the mysteries of the world is the realm of worship and poetry. Before Adam and Eve, the world was chaos, like a vast unconscious mind with no boundaries and no definitions. The world itself hasn't changed, but our human perspective is continually solving mysteries and creating new ones as fast as we can.

Our love of answers has always been nicely balanced against our penchant for awe and worship. Reality is both a thing to be conquered and also something to be worshiped. This is the human way. I wonder when it was that science and religion stopped seeing each other as ancient twins of the human mind and started seeing each other as competitors.

While I and others like me slog it out in the worshiping world of mystery, brother scientist is observing, collating and solving mysteries as fast as he can. I don't want him to stop. I like the way he slays ancient gods. What I want is for us to embrace each other and walk though life together. He can solve old mysteries and I can celebrate the new ones."