A Little Help From Mother Goose

A FEW HAVE ASKED, "Where were you trying to go with that Anthropo-whatever-ism post?

Who knows? My mind tends to wander and wonder. Let me quickly add in the wonderful words of J.R.R. Tolkien, "All who wander are not lost."

It all started with just some thinking about that word: anthropomorphism. And that lead to thinking about how it is so apparent and powerful in our everyday lives. Take the timelessness of Mother Goose for example:

THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE

karlee,pops & mother goose

Hey diddle, diddle!
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

I hope you are not plagued with that literal-minded curse that causes people to scoff at a fiddle-playing cat and a dish and spoon growing arms and hands and legs so they can run away together.

I couldn't resist adding a few photos of Karlee and me, under the guise of showing just how engaging the old Mother and her words can be even for a precocious four year-old in the 21st century. Just look at the enchantment. Remember, this is not a tablet we're looking at, it's a book. There are very few pictures, only illustrations, and black and white at that. 

There is just something that is compelling about those melodramatic three little kittens who lost their mittens? 

And anthropomorphism isn't just for kids and kids at heart. Remember how we were first enticed to taste a Twinkie®?

And then when we needed relief, we knew that we could trust our little friend Speedy®.

See, isn't anthropomorphism fun? And I didn't even slide into theology this time. Oh, but the places we could go!

One More Time...

 (a continuation of sorts from the last post)

A couple of posts back I quoted G.K. Chesterton. I'm including here in case you missed it:

"But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic monotony that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Yesterday we spent some wonderful time with family, most of it at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum in Oklahoma City. 

Pardon a bit of brazen bragging. Our first-born, Corey, has an exhibit currently on display there. A while back he embarked on a year-long project to create a poster a day for 366 days. The project is called the "Daily Artifact." You can see it at the Gaylord-Pickens until April 5.

While you are there, take time to tour the Oklahoma Heritage Museum which is a part of the Gaylord-Pickens. One of the cool things there is a "dress-up" room for kids. The kids can choose to be folk musicians, astronauts, ballerinas (or as our two-year old grand-girl calls them "rina-rinas"), a Miss America and more roles that are a part of Oklahoma's culture.

So, as a follow up to the last post on the value of creativity and Chesterton's warning about sinning and growing old: don't forget to play, or make something.

Can You Forget How?

SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE SENT ME THIS LINK and recommendation for an article at www.huffingtonpost.com called: 18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently.

Already I'm skeptical and I haven't even read it. I doubt that the article was written by a creative person, because creative people are unlikely to allow themselves to be constrained by a numbered list.

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Okay, now I've read it. My skepticism holds, although it is an interesting article, worth the time.

I also Googled "characteristics of creative people" and got over 38 million results. Many of the hits were things like: 5 Signs, 9 Traits, 10 Reasons; stuff like that; more lists; more skepticism.

One thing the Huffington Post article acknowledges right away is just how hard it is to nail down Creativity.

Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. As scientists now understand it, creativity is far more complex than the right-left brain distinction would have us think (the theory being that left brain = rational and analytical, right brain = creative and emotional). In fact, creativity is thought to involve a number of cognitive processes, neural pathways and emotions, and we still don't have the full picture of how the imaginative mind works.

"It's actually hard for creative people to know themselves because the creative self is more complex than the non-creative self," Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at New York University who has spent years researching creativity, told The Huffington Post. "The things that stand out the most are the paradoxes of the creative self ... Imaginative people have messier minds."

He's right. At least for me. I don't know whether I'm creative or not. I do know this: I value creativity highly. I love the creative process. I love the outcomes of the process. I love the surprises that come along the way. I also know this: I want to help create environments where creativity can thrive. To borrow Jesus' metaphor of good dirt, I would like to prepare fertile ground for seeds of creativity to be planted.

Karlee-The-Creative. Our oldest Grand-Girl. (Photo by her Daddy because she's too young for selfies, thank God)

I consider one of the highest callings of being "Pops"--to provide the Grand-Girls with opportunities for creative play, to fantasize, to make-believe, to have a place where they can be "outside the box." Certainly I want to honor the wishes of their parents, but I believe it is my prerogative, yea, even responsibility to say, "Sure, you can try to climb that." "Go ahead and poke it and see what happens." "Yes, you can wear that shirt with those pants." "Taste it and see." Shouldn't every kid have a place where the first line is always: "Once upon a time there were two Grand-Girls and a third on the way..."

Back to the Huffington Post article, I won't list all "18" because: one, you should read the article for yourself; and two, I'm so rebellious I believe there are at least 19 and probably more. But I'll list a few because I want to comment on them:

- They daydream. Guilty. I wrote a post on this subject called ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION. 

- They observe everything. I like to think I do. Sometimes it's a curse though. For example, no matter where I go, I can't help straightening people's pictures for them, thinking, "How do they not see how crooked these are?"

- They take time for solitude. I am a certified Introvert. I am energized by solitude. For me the issue is taking time for social-tude. (I made that up.) This quote from Wendell Berry rings very true to me: "I'm a writer more than I am a talker."

- They seek out new experiences. Yep

- They ask the big questions. I sort-of attacked a guy in our own house a few years back because he implied that I had accepted a Christian worldview hook, line & sinker, no questions asked. How dare him. I'm old enough to be a grandfather and I'm still asking the big questions. 

- They people-watch. One of the things I enjoy most.

- They take risks. Not as much as I once did.

- They view all of life as an opportunity for self-expression. Why wouldn't you?

- They follow their true passions. Why live if you don't?!

- They surround themselves with beauty. As long as you define beauty as that which is true, good, whole, just and rehumanizing. AND aesthetically wonderful of course.

- They constantly shake things up. I hope so.

As my friend Mako Fujimura explained: We are created in the image of God, and the first thing we know about God is that He is a creator.

So, everyone has the capacity for creativity and are probably way more creative than they give themselves credit for. You've probably heard the story of the college art professor who was asked by her four-year old daughter, "Mommy what do you do?" The mother, wanting to answer in terms her daughter could grasp, replied, "I teach people how to draw and paint." The clear, honest, apropos reply from her little creative girl, "Did they forget how?"

It has been reported that if you ask a room full of kindergarteners, "How many of your are artists?" the entire room will raise their hands. Ask a classroom full of adults, fewer than 10% will. I know Creativity extends beyond artists, but the question is still:

Have we forgotten how to be creative?