Created to Create

You know that feeling you get when you have just completed a project? That moment when you stand back and behold your handiwork?

Cathy and I are preparing Hootenholler - our home in the North Georgia Mountains - to receive workshop attendees and guests of all sorts. The primary workshop area will be the lower level of our home, so we want to make the back door feel more like a front door.

In order to make my vision of having a stone walkway from the street to the back door a reality, I had 3,000 pounds of rocks dumped in our back yard. As the pallet of stone was crashing down from the bed of the dump truck and down the embankment (fun!), I immediately felt that the stone was too light in color for my taste.

No matter, I thought, I will simply use this stone to make a walkway from our front driveway along the side of our house where it will be less visible. The side walkway was not a priority project but one I had slated for an undetermined time in the future.

I began hauling the 3,000 pounds of stones from their dumping spot to the area along the north side of our house.

Think about all the fun I was having: I made the equivalent of thirty trips uphill hauling 100 pounds of rocks on each trip! Not bad for an old fat cardiac patient!

Filling two large buckets for each trip, I would slog up the hill and place each stone in its newly assigned home and resting place. I mean, the poor little guys had been through quite an ordeal – dynamited out of a hill in Tennessee where they had been minding their own business for millions of years, scooped up by some kind of heavy machinery, gathered and bound by wire on a pallet and hauled off and left in a fenced lot in Jasper, Georgia.

For me, this wasn’t just a home improvement project.

It was a rescue mission.

At first, I thought I was not going to have enough rock to go all the way from the back of my house to the front. Then, when I was about two-thirds through, I thought I was going to finish with rocks to spare.

Would you believe it? When the job was completed I had NO ROCKS left over at all. Just one example of the joys and surprises that come our way when we set off on a creative adventure.

And I stood back and reveled in what I had done

Poobly Path.  This hallowed walkway is named in honor Professor Algernon Poobly, one of the key founders of the Artist's Colony at Hootenholler.

​A photo and more (but exhaustive by no means) information on the illustrious Professor Poobly is included in the Afterword of this blog chapter.

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Few things bring me more pleasure that standing still for a while and soaking in the results of a project completed and thinking, “Wow! Look what I did!”

Can you relate?

It’s sort of a little private and much-deserved party you throw yourself. Our days can and should be decorated with many such celebrations.
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Would you like to hear something even more exciting and inviting?

The source of that pleasure is rooted in who we really are, deep down in the secret place of our souls.

The ancient text of Genesis pulls back the veil on this aspect of our authentic selves and shouts the amazing concept that as human beings we are created in the image of God.

So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

​Think of it, in this world we are bearers of the image of an invisible God.

The image has nothing to do with how we look and everything to do with what we do - how we act in and upon this world and towards those who live in it with us.

Of course, if we get to know God more intimately, we find that this image is most fully realized as we declare an existential “YES” to God’s invitation to shower this world with unconditional, action-oriented love in which we can immerse and lose ourselves and dissolve into an eternal state of bliss.

If, however, we take only the context first three chapters of Genesis, the bulk of what we know about God is that God is Creator.

And so, as God’s image bearers we are created to create!

We are most like God and we have the greatest opportunity to tangibly experience God when we are in the act of creating.

As I stood in wonder at our new walkway, I was aware that God was in the middle of every step of the project. God was all around me and moving in and through me.

And, in my imagination, I believe God was enjoying the work as much as I was and God was having just as much, if not more, fun.

(We’ll learn more about this and how this perspective can deeply impact our art and whatever else we are seeking to bring into the world. Hold on! It is going to be a fun ride!)
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I’ll say it again because I do not want us to miss the point:
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​We are most like God
and we have the greatest opportunity
to tangibly experience God
when we are in the act
of creating.

This does not only apply to our artistic endeavors.

Every area of our lives stands ever in need of the exertion of our innate, God-imbued creative power.

Over the next few chapters of this blog, I invite you to come along with me as we explore how grasping and applying this fundamental and primeval principal can radically impact our lives and transform our world.

If you haven't already become a Colonist, fill in the contact form below so you will not miss a single chapter.

The Artist’s Colony at Hootenholler is an emerging, loving, face-to-face and internet community established to encourage us all along our unique creative path.

We are not a religious organization at all but we encourage an openness to the deeper, mystical, spiritual dimension of the human experience and we believe that such exploration can only enhance one's creative journey.

The Colony embraces people of all faiths and philosophies! We celebrate the spectacular mosaic of humanity and believe that every one has something wonderful to bring to our table and we wholeheartedly invite them to come just as they are. 

When you become a member, you will get notices about each blog chapter and be kept abreast of all of the workshops, gatherings and webcasts coming out of the Colony.
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Join us today and let’s enjoy the journey together!
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AFTERWORD

You can learn even more about Professor Algernon Poobly
in my book entitled "New and Startling Information."
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​You can order it on Amazon today by clicking the button below.

Click here to order books