CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS
In an effort to stimulate creativity, I’m collected a list of creative expressions that are common to our life experience. As you read the list, you may think, “Wait a minute! This list includes many of life’s activities.” If you had that thought, I would agree with you. And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make: Your life is filled with creative expressions. You may think, “I’m not very creative,” but if think like that, you are incorrect. A creative God created you to be creative and you will be creative whether you think about it or not.
This understanding came to me recently as I adjusted my purpose statement to read “to create order out of chaos.” Previously, I had presented my statement as “to bring order out of chaos.” There is a big difference, however, between bringing and creating. This simple change has revolutionized how I view myself. Instead of seeing creativity as someplace I only “visited” on occasion, I now see myself as “living” there. I studied my life and saw that I am creative in what I do, not sometimes, but most of the time. Consider these personal expressions of my creativity:
- Starting my businesses (3)
- Writing The Monday Memo
- Writing my weekly Bible studies
- Writing for my blog site
- Consulting
- Executive and leadership coaching
- Developing and teaching seminars
- My sense of humor
- Writing books
- Responding to emails
- Event planning (I am a Certified Meeting Professional)
- Time management and organization
- Travel arrangements and planning
- Public speaking
- Appearances on radio and television shows to be interviewed
- Developing my website
- My travel
As you review the creative expressions listed above and below, I don’t want you to be content with studying someone else’s lists. I want you to develop your own list of your personal creative expressions. If there are any that aren’t on this list, please send them to me at johnstanko@gmail.com and I will add them. Most importantly, use this list to stimulate your own creativity to recognize your creativity. You are creative!
So, without further ado, let’s list the possible creative expressions that are common to the human experience:
- Raising children
- Handwriting
- Wardrobe planning
- Making repairs
- Gardening and farming
- Time management
- Problem-solving
- Cooking and baking
- Decorating
- Prayer
- Gift-giving
- Hospitality
- Teaching
- Song-writing
- Editing
- Organizing parties
- Investing
- Conducting war
- Organization and structure
- Building
- Architectural design
- Research
- Arts and crafts
- Sewing
- Dance
- Singing
- Playing an instrument
- Home-making
- Drama and acting
- Inventions
- Poetry
- Writing
- Song arranging
- Driving a vehicle
- Choreography
- Consulting
- Movie making
- Movie directing and producing
- Humor
- Playing and coaching sports
- Photography
- Painting and drawing
- Sculpture
- Leadership
- Running a business
- Daydreaming
- Inventions and innovations
- Advertising and public relations
- Graphic design
- Secretarial work
- Hobbies, such as scrap book-ing, stamp collecting, etc.
- Thinking and daydreaming
- Cosmetology and makeup
- Menu planning
- Thinking and daydreaming
- Interior design
- Landscape design
- Computer programming
- Website design
- Goal-setting
- Brainstorming
- Team building
- Linguistics
- Product and package design
- Surgery
- Sales
- Mentoring others
- Meditating
- Making excuses
- Sin
- Being the person you were never meant to be.
Plus one reader sent me these thoughtful considerations:
- We create harmony and peace or discord and disruption through our chosen attitudes and responses to daily life.
- When we choose to walk in the Spirit and be led by Him we have a hand in the creation of the Fruits of the Spirit in our lives.
- By stepping out in faith we create a spiritual space / right atmosphere for God to work in.
- We also create pleasure when we step out in faith - God's pleasure (without faith it is impossible to please Him).
- When we exhort and encourage one another we help create in each other the strength and courage to persevere.
Another reader from Zimbabwe sent me the following excerpt:
"[Caroline] was not imaginative. She loved beauty and she was creative, but her creativeness found its joy in the shaping of everyday life to a form of comeliness, so that it became not just something that one put up with, but something that was enjoyable and lovely in itself. [Her brother] would have roared with derisive laughter if she had told him that making beds and baking cakes were activities that had for her beautiful shapes like flowers, but he snored in a well-made bed and devoured a well-made cake with equal pleasure and enthusiasm." - Elizabeth Goudge, "The Heart of the Family" (Hodder and Stoughton, Great Britain: 1953) p 134
So many people who make life beautiful and happy for others each day don't seem to see themselves as creative. Nor do most other people. To me this is sad, because we need these people even more than the great artists and musicians. They shape the whole world experience for the children and adults for whom they care and love. Selfless love is perhaps the most creative gift of all because it enables souls to blossom, and gives them the courage and confidence to reach out for their own creativity and place in the sun.
