A Calling to Create

Posted by Shelly Habecker

One of the things I love about living in Washington is meeting and being friends with people here who are doing all kinds of amazing things to change the world. Many people come to this city to improve policies, shape legislation, and create programs to help people both domestically and internationally to have a better quality of life. Along these lines, last Sunday at church, I was encouraged and inspired to learn more about what so many in our own community are doing in their jobs as international development workers. The projects they are working on tangibly seek to enable God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

As I listened, though, I found myself asking where I fit in God’s kingdom work. Actually, I have been asking this question for a long time. When I first came to Washington, I, too, sought out employment that focused on projects designed to help people to get better jobs, better housing, and better opportunities. Later I found myself drawn back to research and writing in an academic context, and ever since, I have been searching for language to help me make sense of this vocation.

Then this week I stumbled upon Madeleine L’Engle’s book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, and I find myself encouraged and inspired by what she has to say about a calling to create.

All of us who have given birth to a baby, to a story, know that it is ultimately mystery, closely knit to God’s own creative activities which did not stop at the beginning of the universe. God is constantly creating, in us, through us, with us, and to co-create with God is our human calling. It is the calling for all of us, his creatures, but it is perhaps more conscious with the artist – or should I say the Christian artist? (p 81).

The work I spend my days doing is not art in the traditional sense of the word. I don’t paint or sculpt or write poetry or play an instrument. I am a social scientist, an anthropologist – I listen to people’s stories and try to make sense of the particulars of their lives in order to understand broader truths, the larger story, of how cultures and communities change and what that means about who we are and who we are becoming. This is my art. And I love what Madeleine L’Engle has to say about this:

To serve any discipline of art … is to affirm meaning, despite all the ambiguities and tragedies and misunderstanding which surround us (p 27).
Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact icons. It’s no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jesus of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos (p 46).

I love this notion of serving the discipline of art – that somehow by getting up every day and working on my research and writing that I am serving the work of art, telling the stories, God has given me to Name.

I know that there are other artists (however defined) in our community, and I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this calling to create. In addition, I would love to hear about other types of callings. I am delighted by the diversity of the body of Christ and want to know more about what the different parts are doing as we pray “your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Highly Recommended

Hi all,
Wanted to share a couple of things that I've enjoyed this week. IF anyone's in NYC in the next 10 days or so, head up to Columbus Circle to the Museum of Biblical Art and see the exhibit there on the prodigal son. Really powerful. Works from medieval tapestries to modern sculpture and an incredible collage of the prodigal son story set in Texas. Worth a trip.

Also, the book Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity, by Barna Group president David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons is really enlightening (or at least the first 2/3, which I have read, is). I think all Christians would benefit from reading this and reflecting on the authors' exhortation to repent of ways we each contribute to denigrating or muddying Jesus' core message of love. Thought-provoking. Ultimately encouraging.

Posted by Cary