In her superb book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron says, “I have come to the place where I believe that creativity is our true nature.” I can resonate with that. My guess is that most people, even if they believe this is true, do not trust it. They have never understood what it would take to develop their creativity, and how much happiness and fulfillment it would bring into their lives. Yet it is true— every last one of us has, inside, a vast reservoir of creativity.

When you were born, you were a bundle of energy. It was unbelievable how much energy you had. As you grew bigger, that energy began to express itself through curiosity. You were looking all around, touching, feeling, experiencing. You were filled with wonder and awe at this great big wonderful world.  

You were not afraid to fail. You would start working on something, and if it didn’t work you would try again. Each time it didn’t work, you would try again. Perhaps you would go on to something else, but you would eventually return and try and try until you got it. When you started to walk, you took a step and fell down. You got up, took a couple more steps, fell down, got up, over and over. 

You had an enormous amount of enthusiasm and excitement. You had a great happiness inside of you. And your imagination—it was wonderful. It could run wild and take in the whole world. The world was a place of gigantic possibility—how many more wonders would there be as you grew up?

But then something happened. Perhaps it was parents. Even the best parents, what do they say? “No, don’t do it, stop it, you can’t, you can’t, you mustn’t, no…” They begin to put limits on you.

I am amazed at how many parents never pay attention to the creative energy at the core of their child. Each of us has within something wonderfully unique, something special that expresses why we were born in the first place. Often parents never even think about that, but seek to mold their children into whatever shape they think is right for their child, without nurturing and encouraging the creative core of that little human being.

Even when we are most conscientious, there can be doubt and confusion about nurturing what is creative in the children. I know I tried to be aware of the creative needs of my two sons. From the time he was a toddler, my younger son wanted to be a ferry boat captain. There was a particular boat moored in Casco Bay, the harbor at Portland, Maine, that he loved passionately. He would draw pictures of it, pictures which over the years became more and more sophisticated; they were more like designs. When he was fourteen he heard that the boat was going to be taken out of the water into dry-dock for repairs. “Dad,” he asked me, “would you drive me to Maine so I can see the Abenaki in dry-dock?”

So one October day we drove up there, arriving after dark. I remember so well how the car’s headlights illuminated the boat through the shipyard fence, and how excited my son was. Years later he would sometimes talk about how much our trip to Maine to see the Abenaki had meant to him.

I thought I was trying to nurture the creative part of him, that passion within, but in later years Chuck would often criticize me for having been too demanding. I was trying to support him, but I was also saying, “You must get an education; you must go to college,” and all he heard was me saying, “You’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that…” as if I didn’t care about his passions at all. Being a parent can be very challenging.

Even when parents support us, there are outside pressures. Sometimes our schoolmates make fun of our dreams, or don’t take them seriously. At school even those teachers who are really conscious of their roles in helping us discover our potential have a big job dealing with such large classes. Over time our passions, our creative impulses, can get buried and lost.

Then we go out into the wider world and discover what our culture values. So often it is not creativity, but money, status, prestige, the latest fashion. We try to achieve our culture’s goals in order to be a success, and we forget that creative sense.

Where are you in this picture? Are you living out the life you are meant to be living? Scripture has something to say to us; there is a wonderful teaching in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, his young protégé. Paul loved him, was mentoring and nurturing him. In the second letter he refers to Timothy’s grandmother and mother, women of faith, and how that faith had been passed along to Timothy.

But Paul must have been sensing some holding back in Timothy, because he used these words—which apply to all of us: “Stir up, rekindle, the gift that is in you. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice or timidity. But God gave us a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.”

Cowardice and timidity come out of fear. Fearfully we hold back our deepest desires and creative imagination.  Today I want to explore how we might emancipate the creative energies that are in each one of us, to free what was part of us when we were children, to revive it, rekindle it, stir it up.

There are two tiny words that pack an enormous amount of power. They are really big words. Those two words are do it. Do it despite all the excuses that come to mind:  “I can’t…” “But it’s too late…” “The conditions aren’t right…” Just do it. Get started.

Julia Cameron, talks about “if only,” referring to the reasons we come up with for holding back. There are six of them.

Stop telling yourself, “It’s too late.”

Stop waiting until you make enough money to do something you’d really love.

Stop telling yourself, “It’s just my ego” whenever you yearn for a more creative life.

Stop telling yourself that dreams don’t matter, that they are only dreams and that you should be more sensible.

Stop fearing that your family and friends would think you crazy.

Stop telling yourself that creativity is a luxury and that you should be grateful for what you’ve got.

I have a friend, a widow, who at the age of fifty-nine opened an art gallery in SoHo—which is the center of art in New York City, if not in America—something  she had dreamed about doing for many, many years. She owned a building there and started imagining how she could create a gallery in it. But when she told her friends what she was thinking about, they were astonished, and tried to dissuade her. “What are you doing this for? You’re fifty-nine years old. It is time to take it easy.” But she did it – she opened the gallery. Her new career is competitive, expensive, challenging, it is not an easy life; she probably has never been as busy.

 “Arthur,” she told me, “if I had not opened this gallery, if I had not fulfilled my dream, things in me would never have been born that were supposed to be born.” What a wonderful way of saying it!  Her going about the business of bringing her dreams to life had stirred up her creative juices. She is as happy now as she has ever been in her entire life.

There is a man in this congregation, in his early forties, who for a dozen years worked for a strong and stable company where he was doing very well, making the usual advancements, getting the usual, safe pay increases. He could have stayed there for all of his working life and done quite well. But there was something deep inside: “There is something inside telling me I have more ability than I am able to show here. I need to find out what it is.”

So he joined a small entrepreneurial start-up company, although it turned out to be the worst time he could have chosen to do it. The economy went bad and the company closed after a few months. He went with another entrepreneurial group, and it too went belly-up. Finally he found a small company that seemed to be better-funded, and he is still there.

He’s working three times harder than he has ever worked. He is giving so much more of himself than he has ever given. Yet I have never known him to be so fulfilled. “I have discovered abilities in myself that I did not know were there,” he told me. “I know this company too might fail, or they might decide they don’t need me any more, but I am so well prepared for the next job that I am not worried.”

Can it be risky, to get in touch with the creative energies inside and try something completely new? Yes, of course it is. But you will not know what it is like until you do it.

You may know Bob Marty. He is the director for the television broadcast of our worship services and concerts. For a number of years he ran a very successful television production company, making, among other projects, dozens of PBS specials. He was doing well financially, but he wasn’t happy. As a young man he had gone to Pratt Institute to learn to be an artist and he knew he had to get back to it. So finally he sold the company, bought a farm in the Catskill Mountains with a great big barn, and there he paints and paints and paints. He and his wife, also an artist, are doing exactly what they want to do.

When I asked Bob this morning if I could tell his story, he said, “You know, Arthur, I had a house on Block Island, I had a Porsche, I had everything that gives you status, but I didn’t feel fulfilled.” That these things are important is a lie our society tells us. If you are not living out your creativity, it can be difficult to enjoy them even if you can afford them. Take the risk!  Stir up, rekindle the creative juices that are in you, and do what you need to do.

Jesus told a parable about the use of our inner gifts, called the Parable of the Talents. You know the story, about a man who calls three of his employees together. “I am going to be away for a long period of time. I am entrusting you with some money while I am away.”

To put it in today’s terms, to one servant he gave five thousand dollars, to another one two thousand dollars, and to a third he gave a thousand dollars. Then he went away for some time. The one with the five thousand dollars found ways of creating more money with it, and he doubled the five thousand. The second man also found creative ways to use his money, and he also doubled his money. But the servant who had been given one thousand dollars was afraid. The master could be harsh and demanding, so rather than take a chance he dug a hole in the ground and buried it to keep it safe.

After a time, the master returned home. “What did you do with what I gave you?” The one with the five thousand said, “I did very well. I was able to double it!” And the master said, “Great!  Congratulations. I have given you responsibility over a little and now I’m going to give you responsibility over much. Join in the joy of the master.” The scene was repeated with the second servant, and he too was given responsibility over much because he had shown he could do well with responsibility over a little.

Then the master went to the third servant. “I know you to be a harsh man,” the servant told him. “You are harsh and demanding. I was afraid I would lose everything, so I hid the money. I am returning it to you.” The master became very angry. He accused the servant of being wicked and lazy, and gave his thousand to the first servant. Then he cast the unworthy servant into the outer darkness.

Those are harsh terms. I think Jesus was saying that when we bury our talents instead of using them something in us dies, and we suffer from inner darkness—a lack of fulfillment. We waste ourselves, we waste our lives. Rekindle, stir up the gift of God that is in you, and do something with it.

The English poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote often and movingly about the creative force. Here is one of his images of the creative force.

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?

Let us pray.

Thank you, Lord, for the creativity You give us at birth, which still lingers and looks for expression. Give us the courage to stir it up, to rekindle it, and to release it into our lives. And, Lord, grant that one night we might dream, and wake up with that flower, that creative achievement. AMEN.