Creativity Fills in the Holes

Creativity has been on my mind a lot lately during Lent.  In our rush to give something up and keep it out of our lives for a time I think we always forget that when we take something away we should also be thinking of how we fill that void. Creativity seems to be the perfect thing to fill the void as we let something go—it is an act of worship and a way to process our letting go.

Creativity is an expanse.  It fills in the holes left out of intentional or unintentional loss.  This is why so much art is produced out of pain and suffering.  To create we must give something up or give something away.

Creation, in essence, is a gift.  The great expanse of the world is a gift to us.  In turn, we continue to give up our time, our possessions, our habits, and our pretenses in order to create.

There is a danger to our creative arc, and that is if we give something up and fill it with overindulgence: if we set aside time and fill it with watching TV, or set aside a night for a special dinner and fill it with Stouffers pre-made lasagna we have missed something.  Just giving up something is not enough—we must let something grow and flourish out of our selflessness.  If we fill selflessness with laziness or overindulgence, how far have we really gone in our creativity?