Contemplating Creativity

By Paul Roberts

The grackle's voice is less than mellow,

His heart is black, his eye is yellow,

He bullies more attractive birds

With hoodlum deeds and vulgar words,

And should a human interfere,

Attacks that human in the rear.

I cannot help but deem the grackle

An ornithological debacle.

• Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

I’ve been in a contemplative mood this past week. Let’s call that a good thing for now. I can remember when, in my youth, contemplation was given a bad name in the conservative Christian circles I ran in. The word conjured up images of someone sitting on the floor, cross-legged, hands held just so, eyes closed, uttering the same monosyllable over and over again, and, as I was derisively informed by the speaker behind the pulpit, “contemplating his navel.” I may have missed the point of the example, so I’ll take the responsibility for not valuing the act of contemplation as perhaps I should have throughout most of my life.

 Contemplative: 

     adjective - expressing or involving prolonged thought

     noun - a person whose life is devoted primarily to prayer, especially in a monastery or convent

     Example: “The contemplative poet knew grackles well.” 

The definition is from Merriam-Webster. The example is my own. It’s meant to make me smile. Because the part of the definition that I believe is missing is that, ultimately, contemplation should lead to joy.

Our pastor at Mountain View Congregational Church spoke on “the value of contemplation” this past Sunday. No mention of navels, just a straightforward conversation about the human need to take time to quietly examine our world if we want to truly see and hear, to experience all that is truly around us. My contemplative time in the pew on Sunday morning brought to mind the humble hero that you find in every Louis L’Amour western novel (Yes, I confess, I was thinking about Louis L’Amour during the sermon). L’Amour’s successful frontiersmen always manage life’s challenges with a lifestyle chock full of observing the minute details of the people and the world that they inhabit. Why, they can track a varmint, be it human or animal, across miles of prairie, forest, or desert in any kind of weather. 

Poems about grackles? Western novels?

Are these worthy of contemplation?

 Certainly. Because both are examples of contemplation leading to creativity. And both clearly brought some joy to the writers. Enough joy that they then decided it was worth sharing their creativity with the larger community around them. I’ve been contemplating the idea that when we share with our readers and subscribers something like the Five Ways to Cultivate the Creative Life, we want to make sure none of those five ways are perceived as drudgery, as just work, or as “contemplating your navel.”

 My contemplation this week led me to some ancient history for a rarely used word, and a job description that might have been cool had I been alive during the days of ancient Rome. I’m attentive to the grackles in my neighborhood, drawn by their noisy calls as they flock from tree to tree. I whistle right back to the “cheeseburger” chickadees in the bushes. I love to hear winter woodpeckers thwacking away. Rascally ravens show some awfully acrobatic flight.

  I could have been an augur.

 An augur was a priest and official in the ancient Roman world. An augur practices augury: Interpreting the will of the gods by contemplating the flight of birds  – whether they were flying in groups or alone, what noises they made as they flew, direction of flight, and what kind of birds they were. This was known as "taking the auspices". Nowadays, we use augur to mean “foretell”, often with an adverb like “well.”

In the beginning, the Creator created and said (with joy, I believe) “It is good.” It augurs well for us when we are able to experience joy in our contemplative creativity. May it be so.

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Can you share about a time that your creativity brought joy to you, and maybe to others as well?

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