Editor’s note:  This is the text of a devotional address that was given at Southern Virginia University.

The Creative Spirit

To create is to emulate the Almighty.  As children of God, we all were born with the capacity and craving for creativity.  “There is a spirit in man”¹ that endows him with this deeper identity, this divine desire.  The creative spirit moves us toward higher planes; it inspires and drives us beyond our natural state. 

Animals hunt, forage, scavenge, survive.  Humans create.  We study, train, strive to achieve, progress, empower, serve.  We are driven with more than the will to survive, to get along, to hang in there.  We crave to grow, to build, to expand, to create.  We are children of the great Creator.

As His offspring, we possess the innate desire to create in our own image, to leave the mark of our own character upon the world.  The ancient Egyptians, whose creative endeavors have endured the ages, were driven to monumental extremes to immortalize themselves through their creations.  To them, the act of creating was a work of the gods.

Undeniably, this gift is a dimension of divine heritage.  It is a central aspect as His offspring.  We have, in fact, been commanded to “be ye therefore [imitators] of God, as dear children.”²

We must learn to create in His way if we are to realize the purpose and potential of our creativity.  The light of God fuels our creative energy; by His light we are guided with our gift; and by that same light our creations are given a life of their own.  We may give them form but only God can give them life, for it is the Light of Truth which “is in all things, which giveth life to all things.”³ 

As a sort of photosynthesis, the light of God contributes to our creative process, producing works that radiate the Breath of Life.  Our creations then share a portion of the purpose and glory of God’s own creations, which are made “to please the eye and to gladden the heart… to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.”⁴

It must never be forgotten that creating is about giving; it is about serving something beyond your self.

But our works also give back, as it were.  Every creative contest increases our creative capacity.  Moreover, just as in the Parable of the Talents, those who magnify their gifts, also receive other gifts, besides.  Even as the earth’s nutrients, given to the branches in spring and summer, are returned to the soil through the leaves of autumn, so also a creator receives again the energies put forth in a creative season, “for that which ye do send out shall return unto you again, and be restored.”⁵  

Creativity, therefore, nourishes both root and branch.  The more we create, the more alive we become.

In the words of the French writer, Romain Rolland:

Even as fresh blossoms of spring flourish from a deeper, older vital force within the earth, so creativity flows from the inner passages of the soul.  The fresh blood of inventiveness and imagination issues from ancient veins.  No matter how novel, or even how enduring, our blossoms of creativity are but fleeting reflections of an infinite flame.  Older than the ancient pyramids of Egypt, older even than the stars in the heavens, our souls are eternal. 

But as with any masterpiece, the casual eye misses much. We tend to see ourselves no further than the surface.  Life we often measure by years, celebrate with birthdays, check our vital signs by the organs within.  But under the surface lives more than just organs; we have other signs of life than just the heartbeat.  Our creative pulse is one such vital sign of the soul.

We express those inner impulses through many forms: through music, painting, writing, communication and relationships, science and scholarship.  But no matter the form of expression, creativity enlarges the soul and propels it along the path to joy.  

Concepts of Creativity

To create is to generate or bring forth new forms, to invest existing forms with a new character or potential, to reveal or bring forth the essence or purity of unrefined forms.  It is a kind of combining that creates new qualities and constitutions, that renders something more serviceable or significant, that bridges unlike or separate entities into a unified, synergistic whole.  The creation of the earth is the great archetypal act of creativity.  It is a pattern for all who seek to create.

Creativity is not only building, combining, fitting together, but it also entails dividing, cutting away, separating.  Notice how many of the creative periods of this earth involved a sort of division or separation.  Ironically, this dividing and downsizing is often an integral part of growth and development.  For example, pruning is done in the spring, amidst the forces of growth and creativity.  If to create is to empower, often this involves purifying, stripping of that which is unnecessary, uncluttering the essence of the matter. To fulfill potential, one must first unveil it.

Thus, in all of creativity, one must be touched by the Spirit, for to create one must see and have a knowledge “of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be.”⁷ One must “look forward with the eye of faith”⁸ and see beyond in the landscape of what is to the horizon of what ought to be.  Creativity is the propensity, the capacity, to see beyond veils.

The miracle of a new creation comes after the trial of faith.  In the words of one writer, “the venture of faith must be made. We must believe that life is dynamic, creative, that its normal course is a growing and a becoming, that in peoples, in persons, and indeed, in all things, there is a native impulse toward something beyond what is.”⁹

All of civilization constitutes a monument to creativity.  The capability to bridge separate entities and combine is central to all our varied pursuits and facets of life.  This gift we constantly employ, its fruits we constantly enjoy. 

We have been exercising our creative gift since birth. Notice all that involves the exercise of this gift:

The invitation of the restored gospel is creative by nature:

Conversion, of both mind and soul, is at the essence of the whole creative process.  Marriage employs all aspects creativity and is a combination that can create eternally. Listen to these poetic lines by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

The joy of union requires a mediating power; it requires the power of Christ.  The Holy Priesthood of God is the core of creative power.  It is the power to seal — a bonding, combining force that creates in the truest way; the only creative force that can combine eternally, for what it joins on earth is also joined in heaven. ¹²

So whether for temporal or spiritual purposes, our earthly creativity is the groundwork for eternal capacity.  Here in this fallen condition, where opposites come together and compliments can be torn apart, is the training ground to wisely wield the power to seal and the power to loose.  We travel our creative journey, shrouded by veils, but endowed with gifts.  For those good and faithful servants, their talents will open doors to marvelous things.

Creative Intuition

All advances in the arts and sciences have come about by groping into the darkness of the unknown.   Among great creative minds we often see a gift that might be referred to as intuition.  Some seem to possess an instinctive sense for things that lie just around the corner, so to speak.  They seem to stumble upon the extraordinary with nothing to guide them but instinct.

Thus, creative intuition is crucial in all areas of discovery, for the intellect can advance only so far upon what it knows and can prove.  The intuitive gift is what accelerates the innovative work in diverse fields.  Psychological studies of creativity carried out at Berkeley show that over 90% of all creative writers, mathematicians, research scientists, and architects manifest a measure of intuitiveness.¹³

Albert Einstein had early intimations of his later concepts. He once said this:

Answers are often found when our searching is guided by a peculiar hunch, what Einstein calls an “indefinable premonition.” This sort of sixth sense can play a greater role than even our intelligence and abilities. 

The game of chess is won by projecting potential positions and calculating tactical details.  And yet a chess master can have a competitive edge over a powerful computer, because, even though the computer has an immeasurable calculating advantage, the chess master has not only the tool of intellect, but also the genius of instinct.

It is this instinct that navigates the explorer beyond the lighted path; that leads the writer along the web of a developing plotline; that directs a composer through a musical masterpiece; that breathes into the human mind a sense of where something ought to go, even before the details have been worked out.

So, to have the intuitive gift must one be a creative genius?  One must — and yet we all have it!  Granted, in some it springs forth with greater facility.  But this gift is common to all, manifest in the most basic human abilities. 

One of the most obvious and universal ways is through language.  Have you ever considered how complex a thing we do, usually in a fairly spontaneous and casual manner, when we formulate sentences, not to mention when we communicate with another?  Speaking has all the elements of creativity.  Most often when we open our mouths to begin a sentence or make a point in an intelligible manner, we have not thought out thoroughly the end from the beginning.  We rely on an intuitive sense of purpose and direction, “not knowing beforehand” the details along the way.

To illustrate this point I would like to quote from a little book by Poul Martin Moller, called Tale of a Danish Student, in which a young student considers this common endeavor with comical confusion:

Indeed, we all have capacities we cannot explain.  Human reason falls shorts of the depth and breadth of an eternal being, whose smallest and simplest capacities can, “in many instances, confound the wise.”¹⁶

However we may try to harness the power of intuition, some times it is clearly stronger than others.  By intuition a composer might say, “That is the right note;” but it was by revelation that when the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young was able to say, “This is the right place.”

The most explicit type of creative intuition is, then, revelation.  Perhaps you have also heard of Brigham Young’s vision of the Salt Lake Temple when only sagebrush covered its grounds.  The temple cornerstone was laid on April 6, 1853, and on that day he stated:

Rarely does inspiration spell out our work so distinctly.  We must become as sensitive as a well-trained horse guided by the slightest touch of the reins.  Those of you in the sciences, or in fields of research, will confront mountains of data — more than any previous generation of scholars.  Your success in sifting through all this information will depend upon an intuitive sense for the direction you should take, the end beyond the means before you.  You must be guided very literally by the eye of faith, seeing, as it were, “through a glass darkly,”¹⁸ the forms of those discoveries that lie just beyond the horizon.  You must have a sense of potential, a sense of the pattern that leads to that potential.

In your searching, your intuition will develop, and, if you pay the price, you will, on occasion, be given those “strokes of lightning,” as Einstein called them, those flashes of intelligence that will illuminate your path just enough to move forward.

But for the most part, intuition is a subtle thing, a “still, small voice” among the operations of the intellect.  It is a gut feeling, going with what feels right, even when you can’t say why.  It is like the Light of Christ, an unexplainable discernment of what is true and proper, an attraction to something just beyond the veil, something indistinctly seen, yet distinctly sensed; something that will only take form through the process of creation.

The conclusion of this essay shows the cornerstones of creativity, and stumbling blocks that may cause us to fail.  Look for it next week in Meridian.

Notes

1. Job 32:8

2. Ephesians 5:1; see Greek translation

3. Doctrine & Covenants 88:13

4. Doctrine & Covenants 59:18-19

5. Alma 41:15

6. Romain Rolland, Jean Christof, p. 364

7. Jacob 4:13

8. Alma 5:15; see also Alma 32:40

9. P. A. Christensen, “A Land Unpromised and Unearned,” BYU Studies, vol. 16

10. Gordon B. Hinckley, LDS Church News, May 24, 1997

11. Quoted in Best of Lowell L. Bennion: Selected Writings 1928-1988, p. 231

12. Matthew 16:19

13. D.W. MacKinnon, "The Nature and Nurture of Creative Talent," American Psychologist 17 (1962):489

14. Quoted in Deseret News, November 22, 1930

15. (Quoted in Ruth Moore, Niels Bohr: The Man, His Science, and the World They Changed, p. 15)

16. Alma 37:6

17. Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 132

18. John 1:3, 4