We are made for meaning. 

And the God-given meaning of our lives is realized — according to psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl — in three fundamental ways.

Creatively, through what we do or make — what we put into the world. 

Experientially, through nature, beauty, truth, and being loved — what we receive.

And attitudinally, through our thinking — how we view the world, especially our painful circumstances. 

Meaning and purpose can’t be given or prescribed. Each person must search for it, excavate it. For meaning to be liberating instead of oppressive it must be found, not imposed. 

The Nazi regime Frankl lived under told people what their lives meant and stripped them of dignity. 

The Kingdom Jesus proclaimed is a Kingdom of seeking and knocking; it clothes us with dignity by recognizing the image of God in us — the ability to choose and initiate. 

Consider how Jesus invited but never forced people to follow him. Consider his speeches and his stories, his questions like Do you want to be well?. Consider how he allowed others both to anoint him with perfume and to spit in his face. He made room for people to choose. He was the freest person who ever lived and extended that freedom at the highest cost to the people he made.

You wouldn’t know it yet, but this is an essay on art and creativity. I started with meaning and freewill because sometimes those who feel non-creative can tune out pieces like these. And even creative types may see artistic expression as superfluous or inferior to other spiritual practices. 

But I’m with artist Stephen Roach who says creativity is not ornamental but essential to the human experience. It’s essential because it’s how we find meaning — both universal-to-all and unique-to-us meaning — in our life with God. 

All three of Frankl’s ways of realizing meaning relate to creative action. The first two directly — what we make creatively and receive experientially — and the third indirectly, our attitude and outlook.

According to Scott Erickson, an artist on the Life with God Podcast this week, creative practice is a missing component of spiritual formation. Essentially he says we’ve relied too much on passively taking in Christian products and services, when it’s the working out of our faith that makes room for God working in us (Phil 2). 

Creative practice can be a literal ​“artsy” practice like drawing, collaging, sculpting. (Personally I shudder when a retreat leader asks me to do this stuff, even though it does me well!)

It can be writing prose or crafting prayers. (Renovaré’s recently released free resource, Unearthing the Heart, may help on that front.)

Or it can be something less obvious, like an all-senses-engaged nature walk or a meal prepared with great intention. 

We can practice some of these things in solitude — never alone, really, in the Presence — but the meaning of creative action blossoms as our making and receiving is shared with other image-bearers.

So as we share this newsletter with you — fellow image-bearer and choice-chooser — may these words and links and art be more than an invitation to consumption… may they spark some creative action that helps you uncover more of who God is and who God made you to be.