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| author |
Sherry Blackman
| | title |
The Transformative Power of Creativity
| | abstract |
A priest once counseled Poet Anne Sexton that she would find God in her typewriter. What is the relationship between creativity and spirituality?
How might we who were created to create, individually and corporately, experience spiritual transformation and transcendence through the holy work
of creative expression? How might creativity as theological work inform and transform our communal life? Creativity has been an under researched
topic in the scientific community, and the spirituality of creativity has been scant investigated among theologians. The qualitative methodology
for this project included biblical exposition, artists interviews and questionnaires, documentary analysis of scientific research, literature,
and letters, and a lifelong personal inquiry into the mystical life of the creative. My research challenges the church's traditional definition
of sin and suggests that sin is the disgrace or the abuse of our innate fertility in every aspect of our lives; it is abandoning the holy seeds
planted within each one of us that holds within them the embryo of our particular purpose, the substance of our passion, and the Source of love,
holy communion, service, and evangelism. The church has feared what it cannot control, and viewed the imagination as suspect, thus quenching the
work of the Holy Spirit. We cannot know our Maker unless we make. The creative's pilgrimage is a one of mystery and mysticism, a discovery of
God who is hidden, forever and in the world. The creative names what is unseen in form and shape and movement. The arts are a voice calling in
the wilderness, crying for justice and liberation as well as a healing balm among the disenfranchised, the traumatized, and the marginalized.
Living into a theology of creativity, creating as spiritual practice, is to live a life of deepest faith and sanctification; it is a way we
practice resurrection, live out our redemption, and live generatively and love generously as we encounter the One who is making us and all
things new as individuals and as faith communities.
| | school |
The Theological School, Drew University
| | degree |
D.Min. (2024)
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| advisor |
Angela Yarber
Heather Elkins
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| full text | SBlackman.pdf - requires Drew uLogin |
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