It’s so easy to steal a line from Shakespeare and mangle it!
Yes, Shakespeare famously wrote the line “To be or not to be, that is the question” uttered in the famous play Hamlet by the title character. At the time Hamlet was considering life and death issues.
And ever since that fateful play came across our collective cultural conscience, we have taken that line and used it, adapted it, poked at it, and all but placed it in a blender.
With that said, the line is a great line, and sets one up to ponder a lot of things. To be or not to be? To eat or not to eat? To chat or not to chat? Or in the case of this blog post–to create or not to create?
When asked if I’m the creative sort, my go-to response is something like, “Oh, my husband… my mother-in-law…are creative types,” because they are artistic and make pretty things and stuff.
Seriously you should check out Lisa’s and Erik’s site!
Funny Thing Happened While Taking A Survey…
The other day I was filling out a survey for work, and the first question asked, “What do you do in your job?”
That’s an easy answer.
I’m a pastor.
If you want to get fancy about it, you can say I’m a pastor of Christian Formation.
But then I reread the question…it actually asked,
What do you REALLY do for your job?
Hmmm…that deserves a more thought out response.
To my surprise, I began writing the response, “I create things. I create new things if not on a daily basis, then on a weekly basis.”
I have never thought of myself as a creative type, but upon reflection, I am constantly writing, editing, coming up with new ideas all the time.
Are these creations always good?
No.
But does everything that we create always have to be labeled “good?”
I cannot count the times I’ve talked myself out of creating something because I don’t think that it will “be good enough.”
And yet to create in some ways is to be.
Creating IS-
imagining
sensory-using
meaning-making
memory-placing
heart-dwelling
moments that become markers in time.
Sometimes these creations are pin-drops and sometimes they become anchors that whenever we seem them bring us back to a place, a time, a feeling, a reality of what has been or what could be.
So Shakespeare, you ol’ bard… I guess you were on to something there.
To be or not to be… and while we’re busy being someone, what are some of the ways we are creating?
