The role of creative arts within faith

This is an article I wrote with regard to the importance of creativity within faith, for the SHIFT Arts and Well-being Festival held at St Laurence Church, Stroud. shiftmovement.art

I gave a talk as part of this about creativity, the soul and my book ‘Is-Being’.  I also spent all week working with the amazing Robin-Watkins-Davies and 100’s of children, sharing trans-formative arts and mindfulness practices; creating movement and stillness within the heart to help create movement and transformation within oneself.  It was a deeply profound experience, with so much calmness and oneness created within the heart and with each other.  A truly incredible and beautiful week…

‘For us to begin to build an experiential relationship with God, or grow a deeper relationship with God, we need to create moments for the still silent voice of the divine to be noticed, and heard, deep within the centre of our being. To do this we need to create a still space of ‘presence’ and ‘being’. This still space of presence and being does not necessarily mean within the silence and stillness of meditation. The presence and being space of connection to the divine can be deeply entered whilst engaging with the creative arts of all disciplines. For it is within the creative ‘flow’ that we enter into the creative flow of, and with, the divine. It is the flowing place of silence, presence and being. When we engage in the creative flow, whether with the body, words, visual arts and music we move into that place of connection and flow of being. Through the movement and flow of the body, the paintbrush, the instrument or the word we move beyond the constrictions of the mind and enter the expansive connecting space of no-thing within the heart. The space where we sense the still, silent voice of God. When we remove the constrictions of mind-based fact we enter the heart-centred flow of knowing, the space beyond information, the place of silent sitting with and within the divine. This space of creation, and of the creative process, flows with possibilities of new understanding, new connection, and new experience, and assists in the dissolving of stagnation within oneself which often blocks or muddies the path to this place of divine connection. The creative process brings a sense of connection and of being ‘alive’ in a way that is so undervalued and misunderstood in a world which is based on the mind and the physical. The creative flow moves the mind to the side to allow creation, through a medium of any sort, to come into being. It is the flow that is important. The flow of creativity and creation is of the moment. It is connecting to the divine presence by ‘being’ through the ‘doing’. It has nothing to do with the end product, the manifested physical object or output, but has everything to do with entering into the divine silent space of the flow of creation, through the creative act, which allows us to connect to God in a deeply profound and moving way. In today’s world, where we focus so much on the acquisition of facts, the filling of the mind and the collecting of materialistic objects that we close down to our divine connection. We need to become more creative in order to pull the things we know into dynamic and new understanding in order to evolve humanity towards love, compassion and togetherness. We need to provide experiences for this creative flow to be engaged with so that dynamic growth and change can take place. We need to provide both adults and children with opportunities to understand and experience the importance of engaging with the dance of the divine, through the creative space of flow. We need to provide opportunities for them to enter an experiential relationship with God. For them to awaken to the potential of themselves, through the love and light of Christ’s presence via the movement of the Holy Spirit through participation in acts of creativity.’