CREATIVITY AND PROCESS

by Charles Bowie

God works with the world as it is in order to bring it where it can be. – Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer, 18.

This month I want to reflect on the above excerpt from Marjorie Suchocki’s Theological Reflections on Prayer. This text was a part of my Graduate School education and I have read it several times over the years. The passage evokes ideas such as Creation/Creativity, Time Consciousness, relatedness, and Possibility. Today I will focus on Creation/Creativity.

Although many people believe that God created/creates out of nothing, Dr. Suchocki insists that God creates with matter through time. In sum, her view is that time (past, present, and ultimately future) and the material stuff of time are the ingredients the Divine uses to bring the world where it can be. This means that there is no erasure of the past, rather the past is always residue that is brought along in the process of divine creativity which brings the world where it can be.

Of course, human beings can, and often do reject, balk/hesitate at the possibility of where the world can be. The possibility of where the world can be calls for new ways of thinking, acting, and searching for new ways to benefit human life (and one might say all life). In other words, the way the world can be calls human beings to be co-creators with the universe and with each other.

I agree with this sentiment. In my view, we are at our best when we are co-creators with the Universe and with each other. For instance, when I work with clients who desire to transform their bodies and better their nutrition, my task is never to dictate a program to them, rather, I take inventory; get their input on what type of exercise they like and what they would like to eat. The basic premise here is that both I and the client are creative and contribute to the creative process of their transformation. In addition, the inter-human encounter takes place, through which relationship is formed contributing to the way the world can be.

The excerpt from Dr. Suchocki’s text is extremely helpful because it sheds light on the fabric of the universe itself, a fabric that is also deeply embedded in human veins, namely creativity. Human life is always lived in the face of and constituted by creativity. Creativity binds us to each other and is the driving force of motivation and lifting each other up. It is the fabric of what “democracy” is intended to be. In sum, creativity grounds what it means to live in faith; faith in the universe, faith in oneself, and faith in fellow human beings. It is living with a sense of possibility, being open to, ‘more’.