Spiritual Life - Creativity

This is my latest Spiritual Life column for the Ilford Recorder:

“Begin, begin,

let something be.

Make a blot,

a dash, a stroke.

Make your mark.”

I read this poem last Saturday at the Private View for an exhibition I have organized throughout December at the Tokarska Gallery in Walthamstow. It suggests that we understand ourselves and the world as we make things or make things happen; in other words as we use our God-given ability to create. The art we have included in this exhibition offers us that kind of understanding through their expression of creativity.

Earlier in that same week I had been at the 15^th Anniversary Assembly of TELCO, The East London Communities Organisation, where the phase ‘mark your mark’ was also being used. TELCO has made its mark with successful campaigns for a London Living Wage. Last Wednesday, they celebrated jobs gained by local people through their London 2012 Jobs initiative.

A 61 year old lady who had experienced periods of homelessness and who had thought she would never work again was among those who had gained jobs. Our creativity has been given to us by God to make that kind of mark on our communities and on the lives of others; as well as also being for the marks we make when we paint or write.

The key thing is to make a start in some way, to begin to use our latent God-given creativity. In Church recently, many of us have been reading Jesus’ story of the talents in which he makes the same point; don’t sit on your gifts and talents, instead make a start to make your mark!

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Radiohead - No Surprises.