Enjoying Creativity

My girls and I went to see a modern dance company perform tonight. What a treat! A new-ish friend of ours (the girls swim with her son) is a dancer in this company, and this is the first time we have gone to see her dance. It's the first time I have ever been to a professional dance performance, actually. I was a little nervous whether the 7-year-old would be able to sit still and quiet that long, but she behaved wonderfully. It was a joy to share the experience with my girls, listening to beautifully played Rachmaninov on a grand piano in a small, intimate theater, watching dancers dance modern and ballet pieces.

I have not gone to many stage performance events, but the few that I have gone to have been such moving and satisfying experiences. I struggle so much with watching movies for entertainment - somehow I do not process the sensory stimulation in a movie theater well. Even when taking my girls to see a children's movie, I usually have to spend some time with my eyes closed, practicing deep breathing, to keep from feeling like I am going to explode (blood pressure problems? anxiety? ADD related sensitivity? I don't know...). But watching people on a stage, acting in a play or dancing, engages my brain in a completely different, and safe, way. I can feel the experience deeply, but somehow the emotions that real people on a stage can produce are within what I can process, while the extreme sound and visual stimulus and manipulation of most movies are not. I am glad to be reminded this evening of the deep joy of going to a good stage performance.

After I got home tonight, I read this post by Pat Loughery. In the first paragraph he writes about N.T. Wright: "Wright, in his Creation and New Creation lecture, makes the point that expressing creativity is in fact participating in God’s creation, nearly at the same level as practicing compassion and justice and mercy." Then, at the end of his post, Pat says "There’s something life-giving about creativity, and especially skilled practice of creativity." This so wonderfully summed up for me the joy that I experienced tonight.