Imagine: How Creativity Works

 Art, Book Review, Parents, Reflection, Volunteers  No Responses »
May 152012
 

I just finished a fascinating book called Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. I found it on the New York Times Bestseller list a week ago and couldn’t put it down. I was drawn by the interesting stories about artists, writers, musicians and inventors as well as the idea of how the brain works to produce creative “aha” moments.

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A lot of what we do in Crossing Kids is creative in nature. We create our own lessons for kids to learn about Jesus. For instance, we are writing all our own curriculum from ages one to 4th grade. We also work together as a team to create family events and our very own Kids Club from scratch. As I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but think of how so much of what he is saying is what we do every week as a staff team. Not only our staff but also a lot of our volunteers “create”. We have many who write, act, teach and develop ideas into powerful moments for kids and families to learn about Jesus.

So although this book is not about God in any way, I couldn’t stop thinking about God and how he created our brains to work. I was struck by the unique way God has designed our minds to work and/or not work when we are faced with a problem that we need to solve or with a lesson that we need to write. These are verses that came to my mind as I was reading:

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Psalm 139:13

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Isaiah 40:26

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.

Ephesians 2:10

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Colossians 1:16

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

Revelation 4:11

 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things,
and by your will they were created and have their being.”

If you are looking for an interesting read for the summer, I would highly recommend this book.  Our Crossing Kids staff team will be reading and discussing it, so we invite you as parents and volunteers to join us. I think there are a lot of ways this book would apply to our parenting as well as our time with kids in the classroom.  You may even find some insight that will help you with your daily work/career.

Here is a short video that introduces the book as well as a short quote from the book sleeve.

Imagine video clip

“Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single gift possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively.

Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, daydreaming productively, and adopting an outsider’s perspective (travel helps). He unveils the optimal mix of old and new partners in any creative collaboration and explains why criticism is essential to the process. Then he zooms out to show how we can make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective.”

 

Save Me From Becoming Culturally Obsolete! (or Music Parents Should Be Listening To)

 Art, Music, Parents  No Responses »
Apr 292012
 

Why should parents, like you and me, keep up with current music?  Why should we care what is on the radio or what our kids are listening to? With all the talk recently of the power of music, as Dave Cover wrote about on ESI, I thought it apropos to share the post I wrote few months ago on my blog. Thank you to the Crossing staff and members who helped me collect these recommendations!

I distinctly remember in 6th grade blaring my pink jam box with the likes of New Kids on the Block, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson (“Miss Jackson if you’re nasty”), and Tiffany. I could never understand why my parents didn’t know or like my music or listen to much music at all. To my requests to listen to the radio (loudly) in the car, I remember them saying they “just needed quiet”. Keep in mind they had four kids, of which I was the oldest.

Now, I get it. I get why parents of little kids lose touch with pop culture and trends as we get older. I get why we “just need quiet”. Blaring music on top of crying, whiny, screaming or just chatty little kids turns the amp “up to 11″ (in the words of Nigel from This is Spinal Tap.) On top of that, I find it hard to listen to my music with the kids around. I don’t know about you, but I’m not really comfortable with my 5-year-old hearing or singing the profanity in the chorus of my favorite Mumford and Sons song. At the appropriate stage, we’ll have conversations about lyrics like that but not just yet (hmm…maybe Kindergarten next year will change that).

That being said, I don’t want to lose touch with truly excellent music or with the music that is influencing our world. Here’s why:

1 – We’re made in the image of God–the Creator, who the Bible says enjoys his creation and calls it “good”. Therefore, part of what it means to be human is to create and enjoy creative expression (in this instance we’re talking about music). I find it fascinating that there is no culture that does not sing. It’s part of who we are.

2 – To make an impact in the world and my kids’ lives, I’ve got to understand and be able to engage with our culture.

So in my desperation, I recently sent an email to some of my trusted music-loving and far-cooler-than-me friends. “Save me from becoming culturally obsolete!” I pleaded. “What music or musical artists from the last two years should I be listening to?” Here are the varied recommendations I received and will be checking out. Continue reading »

Valentine for Ernest Mann

 Art, Parents, Reflection  No Responses »
Feb 022012
 

It may not feel like it as you walk out the door, but welcome to February: a month devoted to celebrating ground hogs, deceased Presidents, and Hallmark Cards (or that four letter word all of us long for, depending on how you look at it.)  As a former teacher, I often felt like Valentines Day and the accompanying party felt more like playing Willy Wonka and herding cats than anything else.  Truth be told, sugar, excitement, and pre-adolescent angst often left me a bit on edge and more than a little exhausted by the day’s end.  For me, the most redemptive part of our day came when I shared one of my favorite poems from Naomi Shihab Nye.

Valentine for Ernest Mann 

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he reinvented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of the skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we reinvent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

Part of what I loved about sharing this poem with children was the variety of ways they reacted throughout.  The word valentine in the title often led to initial groans that later subsided into a laugh here or there at the the prospect of comparing poetry to Taco Bell. Most importantly, this was all followed by a discussion about where poetry hides for us as well as what makes something beautiful.

So what does any of this have to do with leaving a lasting spiritual legacy in the life of your child?

As Tony Reinke writes in his book Lit!,

“God has given us this higher use of imagination to enable us to create art, make scientific discoveries, further technological progress, and write poetry…We imagine because God imagines.  In fact, before the world began everything merely existed in God’s imagination.  Entire chapters could be devoted to God’s imaginative genius on display in creation…But God’s imaginative genius is also displayed in the gospel…We imagine because our Creator imagines.  And with our imagination we can now “see” eternal reality (2 Cor. 4:18).  This divine imagination, this ability to see the unseen, is a skill God has given us for our spiritual profit” (p. 82-83).  

Children are experts when it comes to viewing their world with a sense of wonder and awe.  They so often naturally reinvent what they see in the world around them from “skunk eyes and odd socks” to so much more.  They imagine because our Creator imagines.  In many ways, children understand what John Calvin embraced about finding beauty even in the most unlikely of places.

“Calvin understood that God created human beings to hunt and gather truth, and that, as a matter of fact, the capacity for doing so amounts to one feature of the image of God in them (Col. 3:10).  So Calvin fed on knowledge as gladly as a deer on sweet corn…And why not?  The Holy Spirit authors all truth, as Calvin wrote, and we should therefore embrace it no matter where it shows up”  (Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging in God’s World).

Take some time together as a family to do a little hunting and gathering for truth.  Look for places poetry hides and celebrate what it means to be made in the image of a creative God.

The White Couch

 Art, Elementary, Family, Parents, Preschool, Volunteers  1 Response »
Jan 062012
 

When I was a child, my parents had a white couch in our living room. White! I have no idea how they acquired this couch, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the best furniture choice for a family of with two active little girls. All I remember is that my sister and I (along with our pets) left our imprint on that couch over the years. Grape juice, dirt, finger paint, dog hair, spaghetti hands, chocolate milk, puke, glitter, you name it…we got it on that couch. When I was in fifth or sixth grade, we finally got rid of that white couch and I remember being a little sad to see it go. So many stains left from so many years of growing up. In some ways, that white couch was the tangible canvas of my sister’s and my childhood. If that couch could talk, it would tell stories of family movie nights, sleepovers, sick days, cushion wars, family meetings, and Saturday morning cartoons.

The memories of the white couch came flooding back when I came across pictures from the This is Colossal blog of an art exhibit by Yayoi Kusama at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. In this collaborative project, the artist staged a room for a canvas with white chairs, tables, lamps, and walls. Over the course of two weeks, she invited thousands of children to come and leave their mark on the room with colorful stickers. The once white room slowly transformed over time into a vibrant burst of color and movement. Here are some photos of the project from the Queensland Art Gallery.

Amazing, isn’t it? What strikes me most about this project is each sticker represents a moment in time for a child. Over time, this white room came to life because life happened in it. The canvas speaks because of the movement and life of little hands, thoughtfully and creatively leaving their marks on the white. Children cannot enter a white room and just leave it white. They are compelled to be a part of it, to collaborate in making it more lovely, and to add a piece of their thinking to it.

To me, this piece of art is a reminder that children leave their mark on the world. Every child you know will contribute something to this world of ours. They are created by God to do so. The question is: what will they contribute? And as their parents and teachers, do we have influence in their contribution?

God teaches us in Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not turn from it.”

When we teach children about the gospel of Christ, live it out in our homes and at church, model it for them, and help their eyes see Christ’s beauty, we can be a part of God changing their hearts for His kingdom. When children live for Christ, they will impact our world for the Kingdom of God.

Imagine the white room is our fallen empty world and each colored sticker is the light of Christ being spread through the words and actions of children who growing up believing the Gospel. The stickers speak of hours of conversations, prayers, reading God’s word, and worshipping our King. The stickers speak of families talking about God over dinner, singing about Him in their cars and bringing their concerns to Him through prayer. They also speak of Crossing Kids teachers helping open children’s eyes to God’s love through endless hours of play, singing, conversations, and activities. The stickers are the impact children leave on this world. But as the primary adults in their lives, we help influence the color and hue of what those stickers say. Imagine if we could help each child want to shine the light of Christ in the world and live their lives in devotion to proclaiming His glory!  It takes time and effort and creativity and thoughtfulness and patience and even more time, but in the end, we will see the beauty of Christ, reveled through God our Creator, more clearly as His light and color explodes in our empty vast darkness.

Now, that’s a project I want to be a part of.