Look, I am making everything new! Revelation 21:5 (NLT)
Nothing New Under The Sun – Creativity Series – Part 4
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
In Revelation 21, John is describing a vision he had where he saw a “new heaven and a new earth (V1)… And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!””
Everything. New. Re-created. Resurrected.
This creative God that is behind all of life itself is still creating. The Genesis story was not a one-off. His creativity is perpetual, constant and relentless. From the very beginning, new beginnings have been at the heart of all that he has done.
But it's not a ‘new beginning' that forgets the old, or disregards the past. It’s somehow inclusive. God takes all of our experiences, individual and collective, and draws them into himself (and into us) in a way that doesn’t cancel them out. He creates in such a way that brings newness right in the middle of our very ‘lived in’ lives, right here and now. We don’t have to “begin again” to begin again. We don’t have to be re-created to be made new.
The writer of Ecclesiastes said,
“That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecc 1:9).
Nothing new?
Perhaps God’s creative nature is nothing new. He’s always been that way. It’s not new news that he makes things new. It’s not a recent revelation of human consciousness that he longs to redeem and recreate. It's not new that God, the eternal artist, is always up to something new right in the middle of this beautiful old earth and our wondrous ageing lives.
Creating is not something that the Divine only recently took up. It's not his new hobby.
It’s always been who he is. There’s nothing new under the sun.
But the more my old life is made new (as I continue to age…), I’ve observed that the newness God creates within me is not a physical thing. It’s not like he takes the part of me that is prone to depression out of my body and puts in a new piece that isn’t. We still get sick, horrible things happen, the pain of the past is persistent, and fear for the future can be overwhelming. Our lives are full of meaning, but at the same time, we experience moments where we ask, “what is the point of it all…”
Sometimes I look around my home, community, country and the world, and I think, “I can’t see any sign of a new heaven or a new earth. If God is making something new, he must be doing it somewhere else.”
But this is where his best work is done. Right underneath our noses.
As a creative, and someone who does it for a living, the creative process can be hard for others to understand. I work from home, with my kids, while I’m cooking dinner, getting the washing done, making lunches, in my active wear (I've wanted to use that line for a while) – to the unobservant eye, it can look like I'm not working at all. There’s a myth that artistic life is glamorous and crazy and full of inspiration and moments of genius while tucked away in an overly adorned studio that we take loads of photos of and post them all over social media… (Sorry, I got carried away).
When really, to be creative, every morning I turn on my computer, I sit down with my cup of coffee, and I type. I delete. I make notes. I listen. I read out loud. I read stuff… I do the work. It’s hard work that takes time.
God is at work.
Even when we think he’s just sitting around spectating. Surfing the web. Looking for a bargain on Amazon. Maybe even in his active wear.
He’s actually creating something that will bring forth new life right in the middle of this one.
But of course, he’s only just begun…
OVER TO YOU… leave us a comment below!
Go to Part 5 – Reconciling All Things »
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Hi Lizzy,
As you’ve discussed your creative process the last couple days you helped put words to how I often feel as a filmmaker and a writer. As I start structuring a long form documentary I feel that I will never find the story. It’s nice to know someone else struggles.
For me it’s like a wrestling match where I feel like I’m losing most of the time. My ADD brain goes nuts. But as I work with the interviews and b-roll imagery a story slowly appears. Often, I feel that the story starts to tell me how it should go. I frantically write down the narrative bridges before this voice in my head goes away. Soon a story arch emerges from the chaos. But getting to the place where my film starts to talk back to me can be torture.
Then comes the music…everything comes alive. This 3rd dimension creates emotion that transcends the sum of all the parts. This is where tears flow. Music always puts me in touch with the divine. In fact, I always listen to music while I’m working, especially movie soundtracks. They are encoded with latent visual elements that can release inert creative juices.
Thanks for all the hard work that you do writing your meditations. You have no idea how much they have helped my wife and me. Also, thanks for introducing me to Richard Rohr. He’s created a quantum shift in how I approach the mystery of my spiritual journey. He’s helping me find God again. I went through a rather significant deconstruction of my spiritual life and fortunately Richard has provided me life and love saving tools to help me rebuild in the aftermath of what has taken me to some rather dark places (and so have you and Jesse). I recently read his book Falling Upward. Excellent.
I’m current writing a Memoir about the twists and turns of my life, marriage and spiritual journey. Some things happened last year that made it impossible for me not to write. It’s been one of the most painful yet beautiful experiences yet.
God bless you and Jesse
Dave
Hi Dave,
I have to apologise for the time I’ve taken to respond to your comment! Your message made me cry! Thank you for your kind and kindred words.
I relate to your creative process – SUCH a wrestle haha!! I listen to movie soundtracks while I write, too. Mostly, I listen to a composer named Ólafur Arnalds… goodness, his music is otherworldly. Just beautiful. He’s written a few movie scores, including the score to BBS series, “BroadChurch.”
Hearing stories like that of yours and your wife, make all our work worth it. It’s incredibly humbling to have what we do mean something to someone else. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. haha!! I struggle some of the time believing that our work IS significant. I have many friends who do lots of practical good things – they help people in need, they travel to scary places, they raise money for different needs… and sometimes I think that all we do is just sit at the computer, write stories and post them online. But I know that my contribution helps, just as everyone elses does too. And that together, when we all contribute our gifts and talents and even our brokenness, the world is healed, even if just a little bit. And being a part of that is like being awake and alive and free. So THANKYOU for your encouragement – we’re all in this together.
AND – how great is Richard Rohr!!! He’s helped us find God again, too. We’ve been on a similar journey by the sounds of things – deconstruction and reconstruction. We’re going to start writing about that more… maybe… we’ll see. haha!!
Dig deep with your memoir! We’ll be thinking of you and praying for you while you write it. And we look forward to reading it one day. I love that its impossible for you not to write it. Bring on the beauty AND the pain.
Thanks again Dave. Give our love to your wife. Your encouragement blesses and humbles us no end.
Grace and Peace,
Lizzy (and Jesse).
Hi Lizzy, Thanks for your response. I’m listening to Ólafur Arnalds right now. I love it. Complexity wrapped with disarming simplicity.
I just listed to a Richard Rohr interview on Rob Bell’s podcast. Pretty much blew my mind. Here’s a link. You may want to listen.
I would love it if you shared your deconstruction/reconstruction story.
Peace,
Dave
http://robbell.podbean.com/e/episode-86-richard-rohr-and-the-alternative-orthodoxy/
Hi Lizzy and Jesse,
You both continue to provide nourishing thoughts that bring my wife and me closer to each other and closer to the Divine.
We are in the middle of BroadChurch. Every episode I’ve commented to Kathi how powerful the music score is. I looked up the composer and remembered ‘Olafur is one of your favorites. BroadChurch is a compelling and thoroughly redemptive story. I’m assuming you’ve seen it?
Dave
Oh man, Thanks so much David – your encouragement means heaps to us! So Sorry we’ve been slow to respond of late!! Hope you guys are well!
How great is “BROADCHURCH?!” I binged-watched the first two seasons and I’m impatiently waiting for the third. I got into it because I had heard that Olafur wrote the score… winning combination, hey! So glad you’re enjoying them.
Lizzy (and Jesse).
I love reading what you have to write. I find these devotions encouraging and inspiring. They challenge me spiritually. I love how deep you get and pour your heart into them. I can relate with you as a mom and it looking like we don’t anything and also about struggling with depression.