Co-creation

I went for a long walk (after a shorter than usual run) tonight: one of those walks where it just feels good to be outdoors, crunching leaves underfoot, breathing in wood smoke and leaf mold and the last lawn clipping scent of summer, and just enjoying being alive.  Walking for me is generally a great way to get into a thinking sort of mood - to, as Emily of New Moon would say, bring on "the flash"(if you're not familiar, look up L.M. Montgomery).  Anyway, I found myself really pondering the idea of co-creation, and how it relates to our eventual (hopeful) destination of heaven, as well as our current vocations in the here and now.  Thought I'd share a bit of the rambling road my thoughts went down, not that they were somehow highly insightful, but rather hoping that they might inspire further thought and/or spark discussion, leading us "further up and further in" (as C.S. Lewis would say).

1)  I would love to be able to really paint, to do justice to and call attention to the beauty of God's creation around us.  But I would need another whole lifetime to cultivate that particular skill.

2)  Lewis and Tolkien both suggest heavily that a particular element of heaven will be our continued participation in further fleshing out/leafing out/decorating God's creation - that the particular way in which we are made in God's image, is that we, like him, create.

3) Therefore, perhaps in heaven, I'll have the chance to perfect my painting skills.

4)  Perhaps the great multitude around the throne singing "Holy, Holy, Holy," aren't necessarily literally singing the whole time, but are rather glorifying God with the various talents God has bestowed upon them (and ever discovering new talents He has bestowed on each).

5)  In the meantime, here in this time and space, He has given me a very particular set of roles and gifts.

6)  One of these gifts is writing, however the time hasn't necessarily come for that to be my primary focus (when or if such a time ever comes is in His control rather than mine).

7)  He has, very definitely, given me one very concrete way to participate with Him in the most glorious type of co-creation possible: that of begetting and raising new little souls to be loved and learn to love Him.  Being "just a mom," even if I never did anything else, would be, if lived rightly, all the purpose, title, and crown I could ever need.

8)  Still, I do hope to be able to find time, (in time, or in eternity), to develop the other passions He's planted in me: not for my own glory, not to point towards or share of myself, but to share more of Him.

As Tolkien says, in his poem "Mythopeia" (this is only an excerpt; the whole poem can be found in the book Tree and Leaf),

"Though now long estranged,

man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,

...

man, sub-creator, the refracted light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build

gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we're made."

Anyway.  If any of this resonates with any of you in even the smallest part, I suggest reading Leaf by Niggle, by J.R.R. Tolkien.  It is (especially if you have any knowledge of Tolkien himself, and his long work on The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion) a beautiful metaphorical glimpse into what heaven might be.  And also The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.  My apologies if this all is a bit disjointed - I find myself torn between perfecting my posts (and never or rarely posting anything, due to the previously lamented extreme lack of time in which to write), or posting items even in an unanalyzed, barely proofread state just to continue communicating with the world at large :)