"Creativity and Spirituality"

It's a delight to have this essay published in the September-October 2025 in Spirit & Life, the bimonthly magazine of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, MO.

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As an artist, writer and Benedictine Oblate, I give thanks to God for the gifts of creativity and spirituality.  It is my deepest desire to use these gifts in my work and as I strive to live out the Rule, in obedience to the two great commandments.  And it is my deepest joy to share with others my understanding of the universal meaning of these gifts.

I believe that creativity and spirituality are intimately joined together as essential and God-given elements of life.  I believe that creativity and spirituality permeate every aspect of our existence ... all that any of us do, in any part of our lives, for ourselves and each other and God.  After all: 

* We are created in God’s image and likeness, thereby making us God’s co-creators.  (Didn’t God bless us at the time of our creation?)

* God let us loose upon the Earth, which is also God’s creation, to enjoy it and to actively continue the work of creation.  (Weren’t Adam’s first “jobs” to till the Earth and name the animals?) 

* God wants to be with us, to know us and to be known by us.  (Didn’t God like to walk with Adam and Eve in the Garden, in the cool of the day?)

Creativity and spirituality are universal qualities -- all of us possess them -- yet the ways in which they can be seen and experienced are as individual as each of us is.  Many people think that creativity is limited to certain “artistic types”. Many people think that spirituality is limited to specific religious identities or practices.  I take a much broader view.  Briefly put:

* Creativity has to do with the how of living -- ideally, choosing to act with curiosity and humility, openness and gratitude, integrity and generosity, joy and compassion and love ... in everything we do. 

* Spirituality has to do with the why of living -- ultimately, choosing to seek, find and love God ... in everything we do.

You’ll note the repetition of that word “choosing”.  Yes, creativity and spirituality lie at our fingertips, within our grasp, as we exercise our God-given free will.  And guess what: they can also be repressed and ignored … free will being what it is.

You’ll also note the repetition of the word “everything”.  In an authentic life, each element supports the other.  Each is essential.  Each is a jewel that, polished by the answers we give to the questions of “how” and “why”, becomes part of the beautiful mosaic of co-creation.

Here are three eloquent Benedictine viewpoints about the intertwined gifts of creativity and spirituality.

The first is from a blog post on www.theruleofbenedict.com about Chapter 57 of the Rule (“The Artisans of the Monastery”):

Any creative act, at its best, is an unambiguous part of the ongoing act of creation flowing from the love-life of God. ...  In this, we become conscious participants of life and in life, created co-creators, creating in and with God. ...  A card of thanks to a friend, a small deed done for a stranger, a meal cooked, the bathroom cleaned, a nappy changed, a lover’s caress, a picture painted, a book written, a symphony composed -- all these things and much more, indeed every human action, when serving the movement of life, manifests the divine creatively.

The second is a reflection by Michael Pearson OSB of St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota, in the daily prayerbook Give Us This Day:

To be fashioned in the image of God is to be life-giving, generative, imaginative, full of fecundity.  All of us are gifted with this potential.  We’re not merely consumers, we’re creators!  To the point -- create more than you consume.  Create peace and justice.  Create connections between diverse peoples.  Create art and music.  Plant, grow, cultivate life.  Create love and support for family, friends, and community.

And the third is from Boundless Compassion by Joyce Rupp OSB:

The indwelling lure of God within each human life is not only an inner impulse to creatively adapt to new situations; it is also an impulse to seek the good, to be open to what is true and to celebrate what is beautiful.

May I point out that goodness, truth and beauty are known as the “Three Transcendentals”?  Throughout the ages, they have been regarded as attributes of the Divine.

Coming as they do from God, creativity and spirituality are very powerful concepts.  Indeed, more than concepts, they are realities.  At the same time, they are also delicate treasures.  They can be squelched and diverted and smothered -- sometimes by the give-and-take of conversation, even in a monastery; we know that Benedict warns about excessive and idle talking.  And outside the monastery walls, there is the pervasive noise and daily bombardment of life.  

Mystery is often the hallmark of creativity and spirituality, reflecting the nature of their Divine giver.  Here are some lines taken from Mary Oliver's poem, “Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?”  See what meaning you find:

There are things you can’t reach.  But

            you can reach out to them, and all day long.

            The wind, the bird flying away.  The idea of God. ...

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

            Looking, I mean; not just standing around, but standing around

                        as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come ...

            And now I tell you the truth.

            Everything in the world

            comes.                                                

Looking, thinking, reaching out, the poet says -- but actually reaching? ... to “the idea of God”?That’s mystery, for sure.

Even if we don’t write poetry, we can learn from Mary Oliver about how to lead lives of creativity and spirituality.  She relied on a disciplined structure, a daily work practice.  She went out every day (in her case, usually into natural settings) and looked at the world -- looked with complete openness and receptivity.  She knew how to be silent, how to wait, how to listen.  Turned out that God, or at least “the idea of God”, was everywhere.  So, she wrote poems to tell us what she saw, in her uniquely creative and spiritual way. 

In our poet’s devotion to process, to her daily work, I find an echo of St. Ignatius of Loyola.  His great work of spiritual creativity, the Spiritual Exercises, remains in use worldwide almost five centuries after his lifetime.  Ignatius believed in the power of “practice”, which can be described as:

... a regular endeavor through which we come to build our lives on the love of God, to order our lives according to God’s plan for us.  (Tim Muldoon, An Ignatian Book of Days)                            

And of course, there is the powerful practice, “the regular endeavor”, of following the Rule.  Joan Chittister, OSB, in her book The Monastic Heart, speaks to the necessity of paying attention, a charism that the Rule instills:

The truth is that this deeper part of everyone does not simply develop in us like wild grass.  It needs to be cultivated, to be cherished, to be sustained.

Sister Joan then goes on to offer a bit of a challenge.  After the six days of God’s work and the seventh day of God’s rest, what was next?  It was time for the co-creators to step up:

Though God created the world, God did not finish it.  That part of creation was left to you and me to do.

It’s up to us?  Remember how I said earlier that we can choose?  Well, it’s even more elevated than that.  As Marilyn McIntyre writes in Word by Word (emphasis added):

            We are given the privilege of participating in the divine dance of creativity. 

“We” says Marilyn McIntyre.  “You and me”, says Joan Chittister.  Privileged to be people gathered in communities and as well as acting as individuals.  Privileged to dance our way along unique paths through the world and towards God. 

So many excellent paths are already set before us, thanks be to God.  We are free to make decisions about them and to learn from them all.  And untold numbers of other paths exist, or might be dreamed into reality.  Again, we are free to search for them, find them, carve out our own way and pursue ... whatever is calling to us, creatively and spiritually.  Daunting, yes?  Inspiring, for sure.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.