Creativity often takes place alongside the presence of turbulence. Genesis 1:1 reads, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This statement is followed by verse 2: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” In the very next sentence, light was spoken into existence by its Creator. Creation, even in the case of the origin of earth, is often preceded by turbulence.
Throughout the second half of 2019, two close friends and I began meeting for prayer once a month. As we quieted ourselves before God and embraced one another in community, a theme emerged: “For such a time as this.” The closer the calendar brought us to 2020, the more we realized that there was something profound the Spirit was breathing over the earth. As friends from different walks of life experiences (and brave truth-tellers, who navigate rupture and repair to get to the joy on the other side) we have learned to lean into the prophetic. We’ve learned to lean into the Holy Spirit for that which we can’t yet see.
As the calendar approached 2020, we could feel in our bones that God was going to do something new across the face of the earth. “20” symbolizes a cycle of completeness, a connection to a perfect period of waiting, labor or suffering (such as a trial that is rewarded). We sensed that there was a profound redemption work the Spirit was (and is) yearning to bring about across the face of the earth.
We had no idea what that would look like, but we were expectant. 2019 marked 400 years of the oppression of African Americans in the West. It was after 400 years that Yahweh led the Israelites out of their enslavement to the Egyptians. We hoped the year would bring redemption and reparation for the generations of descendants of enslaved Africans sold and chained, raped and discriminated against. We thought this year would lead to a resetting of priorities for a world that has wandered far from true justice and instead fallen into worship of lives we cultivate and imagine for ourselves, without true action or regard for one another.
The first quarter of 2020 has looked far different from what any of us anticipated it would look like. Isaiah 55:10 comes to mind: “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord.” Perhaps the Spirit is moving, breathing and active before us though it may appear as though the opposite is true. Perhaps God, who speaks all things into being through the Word, is evoking powerful movement away from capitalism and narcissism, to reset our priorities from a path of self-obsession, celebrity worship and narcissism, back into alignment of what is good.
The word for the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament canon is Ruach, meaning “wind, breath, mind, spirit.” Ruach is ferocious, unstoppable, creative, and feminine. That tenacious breath of wind you feel blowing across the earth right now is the same evocative force which was hovering over the waters before anything we know in the world began. The Spirit of God, which calls us ever closer to the Father and the Son, is breathing Creativity over us now. Even as many are struggling to catch their breath, the Spirit of God is inhaling and exhaling over the world She spoke into being with a Word. We wait with bated breath in the face of a virus no one in the world has yet to find a cure for. Still, there is something being called out in us.
Fear and anxiety are pervasive amidst the reality of a disease we don’t understand sweeping across our land, but what is also present amidst of all the tension is the current of Creativity. There is an invitation to begin to truly love our neighbor as well as we love ourselves, by staying home. There is an invitation for us to engage those we live with, as we allow the achy spaces to come to the surface, and look them in the eye, for real this time. There is an invitation for new books to be written, new businesses created, new ideas sparked of how to bring about true social justice in our world, which speaks to the hope people need right now.
This is a time of creative action, evoked by the Spirit, but such force will not be brought forth without resistance. Steven Pressfield writes in The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles: “Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.” Alongside the currents of fear and anxiety, there is an invitation in the world right now, flowing across the globe, and it is to Creativity. The invitation has been extended, but it is up to us to accept the call into the wild unknown.
In their New York Times bestseller, Boundaries, Cloud and Townsend write: “Evil is an active force and passivity can become an ally of evil by not pushing against it. Passivity never pays off. God will match our effort, but He will never do our work for us. That would be an invasion of our boundaries.”
A life of Creativity is not one in which we simply pray for what we want and are granted our perfect lives. Far from it. I would argue that the modern day prophet—and let’s not get it twisted, those who create space for those who are marginalized; those who dare to give of themselves to their communities when it is costly to them; those who press back against forces of evil through art and beauty are the prophet--- faces more resistance the rest. For it is the prophet, the artist, the evocator of change, who leans actively against the forces of evil, and fights for the good.
This year has unfolded far differently than we thought it would. There is pain and suffering present in our communities, our homes, and our nations. And yet, what better time to lean into the call to Creativity, to evoke new ideas and corporations and scientific discoveries? It takes bravery to lean into Creativity. It takes vulnerability to show up and be seen. And it takes a bit of a fight to bring about that which is good in this world. We must be brave to become who we are called to be.
We were created by the Spirit of Creativity, Ruach, whose breath is daily in our lungs. We are the prophet, the artist, the business starter, the warrior. It’s in our DNA. When the world was void, the Spirit hovered over the darkness, and spoke the Words, “Let there be light.” Creation is in our DNA. We have been gifted life and breath and heartbeats, so though our breath may be bated, let us stand on the Word which created all things and follow in Their likeness. Let us dare to understand the stock from which we come and do as our Father, the Spirit, and the Son do: actively move against the resistance that opposes and create the change the world needs for such a time as this.