Creativity Reflection

This reflection was given at the Iona Abbey on June 4, 2025. It was my first time doing the evening service.

God created everything. Think of the imagination it took to create so many diverse and wonderful things; so many complex and exciting things; so many mundane and useful things. God made it all.

I think the Divine Spirit had a lot of fun creating. In fact, I think there was so much joy used in creating our world that God wants us to give it a try. God wants each of us to have a creative life.

To be creative is to have the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, or patterns, to have new ideas, methods, or interpretations, to be original and use imagination. That’s what the dictionary says anyway. I’d like to suggest we are all creative souls.

My creative life is very visual. I draw and write and knit and cook. My expressions of creativity can be seen. I can point to a drawing and show you, this is an expression of my creativity.

You might be thinking, Good for her, but I’m not a creative person. And I say to you, you are confusing art with creativity. There are lots of areas where creativity has given us things that are not hung on a museum wall.

To be clear, my art is not hanging on a museum wall anywhere.

Alan Fry and Spencer Silver are a creative pair. These are the gentlemen who invented the post-it note. The two worked at Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing or 3M. Spencer Silver was developing different kinds of adhesives. And Alan Fry was a tenor in the church choir; who also worked at 3M.

One evening Alan got very frustrated with the bookmarks he was using to keep track of all the hymns during choir rehearsal. And a little spark hit.

What if there was a bookmark that could stick to the page, then be removed, and not tear the page or leave a residue?

Alan remembered Spencer’s work and thought there might be something there to explore. So, he approached Spencer and the two developed Press and Peel (That’s the first name for the product they came up with.)

There was much trial and error and lots of convincing of upper management but eventually the post-it note was born.

You might even have used one today.

Alan Fry and Spencer Silver definitely fit our definition of creativity: transcending traditional ideas, rules and patterns, having new ideas, and using their imaginations.

But once again I suspect you are thinking, I am not an inventor. I will not be changing the world with the next post-it note. But you are creative. Let’s reframe our definition a little.

Creativity can be doing the same old thing in a new and different way.

Every service in the abbey we have to give you the “practical notices”* at the beginning. I chose to shake it up a bit and figure out a creative way to deliver the same information you hear every time.

You can try it too. There are mundane things in life that you can shake up…

Driving home through a neighborhood you never go through to see what’s down the road less traveled.

Reading books outside your preferred genre to see what others are thinking.

Calling someone out of the blue instead of texting them a bunch of emojis.

Eating breakfast for dinner. Skipping instead of walking.

Buying flowers for no other reason than you want to brighten your dinner table.

You can have a creative life that has nothing to do with drawing or inventing. You get to create anytime you want to. Shake it up and next time doing things the same old way seems too boring, be creative.  You never know what will come of it. A delight in the moment or maybe the tradition of a lifetime.

Here are two lovely quotes I found as I was preparing this reflection and I hope they will help you hear the message that creativity is for all of us. We all have creative ways of being.

First

Carl Jung says:

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

And secondly

Mary Oliver urges us to:

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Finally, I hope you will begin to think of yourself as a creative person.

You are God’s creation and he wants you to have fun using your imagination just like the Spirit did when they created the world we inhabit. Take joy in life, follow the tickle of good ideas, the nudge to try new ways of being.

Creativity isn’t for the artist alone; it’s for all us so we can have a life of joy.

* A note. The Practical notes we hear in every service are a little dry. It’s easy to make fun of them if you hear them over and over. So what I did during my creation service was to make signs that represented each notice. Then I walked up and down the aisle and showed them to the congregation as I explained in my own casual way what each sign mean. Same information, more fun to receive.

One more note. I was stopped twice during the week from a visitor who said they liked my reflection. It was lovely to hear. The best came on Friday morning. That is the day we go down to the jetty to wave the guests off at they take the ferry over to Mull, the first lef of their way home. A guest came up to me and wanted to show me on her phone a few sketches she’d made. She was so glad I had reminded her that she loved sketching and she should try it again. Her drawings captured more than just the landscape! I was thrilled for her.