Total investment of creativity »

by Matthew Huish

The hoon dok hwe this morning included passages from the Cheong Seong Gyeong, including this passage:

How did the universe begin? It started with God serving and pouring Himself out for the sake of the other. It started with God expending Himself. Then, what is the purpose in devoting oneself to creating one’s partner? After both have given all they have, what we gain is love. As long as we have love, we are happy, no matter how much we have invested… Giving all one has creates a minus, so why do you think He did it? Because love has the power to more than fill up any void, after expending and investing Himself, God gained love in return… True love grows bigger and bigger the more it is invested. (237-124, 1992.11.13)

I felt everyone on the workshop could connect these words of wisdom to our sports activity this afternoon. In the spirit of the current World Cup in South Africa, we played a game of football:

A couple of brothers aside, most of the workshop participants weren’t terribly keen on football. Nevertheless, everyone committed themselves valiantly in the hot, sunny weather. I witnessed resurrection in all the participants. After giving all they had, non-footballers were reborn as footballers. It was an exciting game, with the lead exchanging several times. With the final phase of the game, a goal was scored to put everything level at 5-5. It had been a genuinely fun game which was competitively contested. Despite feeling exhausted, after having replenished their bodies with fluids and having had a refreshing shower, everyone was bright and alert half an hour later for Uncle William’s lecture. A nice example of the principle in action.

Later in the evening, Markus Thonnett led a session on artistic creativity. He wanted to awaken the creativity latent inside all of us, and this evening the awakening would be expressed through the medium of bamboo sticks. Upon self-reflection, I realised that I don’t invest enough time in my own expression of creativity. I wanted to make (or at least communicate) a panda, but the result was rather disappointing. Perhaps I wasn’t cut to be a bamboo artist, but I am a creative person – God created me to be creative, as Uncle William’s lectures had earlier explained. I need to spend more time developing my creativity in the areas I enjoy, like music and poetry.

As you can see from the pictures and videos, everyone enjoyed this exercise and created some impressive 3-dimensional sculptures. What titles do you think these creations should have? (Click on the thumbnails to see the full images)