Creating God

When I started to learn of God, I heard that God was a judge.  I heard that God was a Father.  I heard that God was Almighty.  But I never heard that God was an artist.  Growing up, “artist” was a label reserved for those funky, beret wearing intellectual liberals that lived in some far off land called the East Coast.  My brother was a brilliant actor and I took tap, jazz and modern dance.  He was discouraged from pursuing his art, probably because he was gifted and my parents were afraid that he would be disappointed by the painful world that awaits those who seek to make a life of it.  But I was never discouraged from signing up for as many dance classes as I could fit in and I know now that it was because I wasn’t very good.  I soaked up every minute of it and savored the fluffy, glittered costumes that were ordered for our recitals each year.  In college, I thought I might refine my dancing skills.  I knew that I couldn’t make a career of it, I just wanted to dance.  Ever since I can remember, I have made it a point to move my body every way it is willing to go.  As a kid, my mom showed me how to entertain our guests with a wooden spoon, a karaoke machine and some smooth moves.  I can dance in the car, dance in my dreams, dance to most any kind of music.  Before Jeremy arrived and claimed one of the guest rooms as his own, I dedicated an entire room to dancing.  I would plug in the radio, close the door and dance until I could no longer move.  I have always loved to dance, but it is not particularly pretty to watch.  So during my senior year in college, I figured I might try again.  I enrolled in an introduction to ballet class offered by the local community college.  My nerves were eased just a bit when I arrived on the first day to discover that nearly everyone in the class was eligible for the senior citizen discount.  I thought for sure that this would provide me the comfort I needed to begin my attempt to learn the proper way to dance.  As the class commenced and the instructor invited us to place our hand on the bar, put our legs in First Position where the balls of the feet are turned out completely; the heels touch each other and the feet face outward, it was immediately clear that as much as I loved to dance, I was reminded again that my body was not made to be positioned in such a way. 

But even though I wasn’t made for dancing that can be viewed or appreciated by an audience, there is something about dancing that brings me to a place I can never get to in any other way.  I am one of those people that spends much of my time analyzing nearly everything and I struggle to turn off my brain.  Dancing for me is one of the few experiences that invites me to enter into another realm.  It is as if I am lost in the moment, caught up in the Spirit.   It is so embodied, so out of the head, so beyond and because of that, it is holy. 

Martha Graham, the dancer and choreographer regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance, famously said, “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

The experience of which she speaks is not just about dancing; it is about the creative moment, the unfolding found in crafting, that leads a soul to feel more alive.  It is the unfolding, the new artistry that emerges as possibilities unfurl, unravel and find expression on paper, in words, in movement, in song, in clay, in color.  And I believe that we are most like God when we are smack dab in the middle of creating something.  Let me say that again, we are most like God when we are right in the middle of creating something.  We are most like God when we are allowing the life force to find expression through us, in part because of the fact that there is no way to recreate what comes out.  It is holy because it will never happen occur again in just the same way.  It is holy because no one else in the world could make it happen just exactly the same way that you can.  It is holy because whatever you are creating is about that particular moment in time.  It is holy because the creative moment somehow takes out of ourselves, our egos are left in the dust and we join God’s very being.

I think it is no accident that our scriptures begin with God as an artist.  The way the story in Genesis is laid out makes it seem so perfect and so free of the mess we have come to associate with art, but we know that this is because the biblical authors wanted us to be sure that God is in the business of bringing order out of chaos.  But I bet that the story of creation is something more akin to the process of choreographing a dance or bringing a poem to life or making colors into an image that simply cannot be described in words.  In each moment, God was aiming for the most beautiful, most alive, most vibrant possibilities to emerge and it was very good.

When I started to learn of God, I heard that God was a judge.  I heard that God was a Father.  I heard that God was Almighty.  But I never heard that God was an artist, and yet I think that is exactly what God is.  In each moment, there are myriad possibilities that could emerge and the energy that is God pushes and pulls, dances and sings the most beautiful ones into existence.  This is true when God created and breathed the work of art that is our world to life.  And it is also true for us.  If God is the artist of our lives, the crafter with us, of our moments, then the goal is something different that what many of us were told as children.  If God is the artist, instead of the judge or the distant ruler who is disinterested and disconnected, then our job it seems is to be the art.  If God is the artist, hear again these words from Martha Graham, “It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”  May we each seek to be open to what God is trying to create with in and through us.  Amen.

From The Life and Work of Martha Graham by Agnes de Mille (1991). Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham. NYC: Random House. pp.264. ISBN 0-394-55643-7.