I’m staring at one right now before I begin typing the words you are reading…a blank page. Whatever the medium, all artists stare into the shadowy starting point of creation. Self-doubt and the feeling of inadequacy arise as you await the spark. I would love to know what might have gone through God’s imagination while hovering over the deep pondering what was about to happen. In the liberty of eternity, time was not a factor, so God’s hovering and ultimate creativity was infinite.
Ex nihilo is Latin for “out of nothing came something.” Once God finished hovering creation began with the beautiful and mysterious spoken words “let there be,” and as creation came into being, was finished with “…and there was.” This little planet was the original blank page awaiting descriptive language, the first empty canvas awaiting paint, the first music score awaiting notes, the first lump of clay awaiting form and symmetry, the first static dance awaiting fluid motion. All works of art are built on the sublime principal of “let there be…and there was.”
In Scripture it states that we are God’s “workmanship.” The original Greek is poiema, from which we derive the word “poem.” While I may be a “work of art” created in the image of God, so I, like God, desire to create something unique and original, but unlike God, I am a jumble of insecurities and full of self-doubt. My soul is like the opaque, boisterous waters of pre-creation. I want to create something sublimely original, but my conflicting emotions and thoughts often fizzle the creative spark. I am sabotaged by my ego. It is why I wish to imagine, without sacrilege, God hovering over me as I begin a creative work. That image brings calm to my heart and a creative flow is possible.
Perhaps then every act of creation is just creating on top of the original “let there be…and there was.” Perhaps there is no such thing as a blank page, an empty canvass, a vacant score. Ever since God’s hovering turned into acts of creation a whole repertoire of creative expression has flourished that informs my blank page before I write the first word, yea verily, before I have my first creative impulse to tell a story. While every creative act emerges in its own right bearing the image of its creator, no matter how flawed the creator or the creation, we artists build on what was created before us heightening the mystery of all acts of creativity.
