Adelaster: We Are Creators

    I grew up hearing that God was Father. I think this nice little metaphor was supposed to make me feel close to Him, but frankly? It doesn't.
    Not because my real Dad is a bad father or anything; FAR from it, in fact. I'm very close to my dad. But for some reason, the image of God as "Father" doesn't do anything for me.
    Neither does "Mother." God draws you like mother hen? That's cool, a great analogy that I'm sure soothes many people. Does nothing in my heart, for whatever reason.
    But when you say "Creator," well, then excitement floods in. And hope, and of course, imagination.
    I'm all like hee-hee-hee, Creation! Stories! Intricacy! Beauty! Because creation speaks to stories and art and science (I am convinced that there is a science to art and an art to science).

Who doesn't want to enter into a good story?!

    Once I read in a child's devotional (Christian stories written with the purpose of deepening your fellowship with God, if you didn't know) that I can never call myself a Creator, because I am a creation. Only God is Creator.
    Hogwash.
    I'm a writer. I dream and daydream nearly constantly, creating worlds and people and animals and places, and sometimes fruits, dress codes, societal structures, creatures, you've never known. And then I plot out the story and write it down. And like one of my favorite novels, Frankenstein, my creations sometimes take on a life of their own (with decidedly less morbid results).
    I'm not a god, obviously, but I know how it feels to love your creation, to set your world and its people free on their own, to tremble with hope for a story, to wail when a character makes poor decisions, to dance when the story takes a powerful turn. Ahhhh!!! I wish I could convey how much I love creating.
    So when people tell me God is the Creator, I see it. I don't see why all this horrible, crazy stuff happens and while reading the news I often don't see why He doesn't intervene. But somehow, the word Creator registers both in my mind and in my heart.
    Creation, to me, is fundamental to everything meaningful. (In fact, it may be part of the reason I do believe in God).

Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes I like to think of us all as books in a magical library.

Yes, I know I'm twenty-one. But I like the idea.

After all, how does a person become redeemed from whatever they've fallen into? We become "new creations."
    How do you change corrupt systems? How do you challenge the status quo? You imagine something different and beautiful, and find the courage to create that beauty.
    Hey, even in science, we need the creativity to imagine new possibilities, and to implement those. Albert Einstein once said "Imagination is more important than knowledge," in what might be my favorite quote on the marriage between arts and science.
    So let's all of us look at the people we meet and see them as people, as fascinating creations with intricate stories to be shared. Like this:


Life kinda seems like a pathway of stories.


Here's my current moment in life. With grad school, I feel like I'm currently choosing between the vast sky and the sweet earth.

Or sailing into the unknown. That too.

Let's all of us give imagination to all of our passions in life and start creating.
Because, perhaps, in a sense, all creations make a new world.