Baptist Spirituality

Advent is my favorite season of the year.  The cold weather rolls in and the leaves on the trees start turning colors.   Advent, meaning “coming,” also anticipates Christmas season and the birth of the Christ child.  It is a time of change, of expectant wonder.

And the changes–especially the color of the leaves–remind me that God is one who creates such beauty with an abundant pallet of colors.

We praise a Creator God who inspires us to ever-create and dream new futures in which peace trumps war, God’s grace overwhelms violence, and charity abolishes division.

Creation is a major part of God’s divine plan.  The very first thing God does in the Bible is to create.  Recalling God’s act of bringing the universe into being, liturgist Thom Shuman wrote:

Long ago, so long ago
only you can remember, Imaginative God,
you brought creation into being,
subjecting chaos to your will.
It was fitting for you to do this,
for your Word shaped glory
into mountains, fields and streams;
your Spirit breathed hope
into all that has life in you.

God is certainly an imaginative, Word-speaking, and glorious Creator God who is a source of all life, hope, and love.  He is, as the hymn proclaims, the “Creator God, creating still.”

And we are made in God’s image: We are his children, God’s creation, and we have the power to create as well.   In his book, “The Rise of the Creative Class,” Richard Florida notes that creativity is on the rise.  Our whole economy thrives on creative people–from engineers to problem-solving factory workers.

Florida states that this rise of the “creative class” engages in activity that “create new meaningful forms.”   The pivotal word in this definition is “meaningful.”   We have the power to create something beautiful and useful, but we also have the ability to destroy and to tear down.

How will you use your creativity this Advent season?