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“Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. Most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the result of creativity.” —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Tomorrow our 2nd Creative, Derek Smith, will share with us his meditation titled, “19 Beginnings for a Blog About Beginnings.” You still have time to comment on Elizabeth Myhr’s post “Hello” and if you leave a comment you enter yourself into a chance to win her book the vanishings & other poems. I’ll announce the winner of the book tomorrow.

As a part of the Bereshit Bara Creativity Series I’ll be sharing posts and links from our writing community. Creatives are asking themselves difficult questions about what it means to be writers, painters, musicians, artists, photographers, etc. If you’d like to join the conversation go here to read about our series and email me a link to your post (rossgale4 at gmail dot com) where you wrestle with these questions about finding the courage to create. These questions are leading us to even deeper insight and further questions about the act of creation and how we’re creating the culture around us.

Please visit these courageous Creatives to read more of their hearts and minds.

• K.D. Byers “The Courage to Create”

My secret is that I write because I am selfish. I can’t can’t help myself; I have to create. When my cross country season was over it dislocated me. My muscles jerked and twitched. I looked toward windows with the thought of when I could get a run in. Writing is like that, but bigger. I may be doing things, but I’d rather be writing. It is a guttural thing.

In Hebrew, the word for God’s creative energy is bara, but for human endeavors the verb asah, to make, is used. Only God can bara. Our creativity is always in the image of the Creator, whether we acknowledge it or not. I believe all of us are compelled to make, whether it be art or families or technology, so because we too were created. The act has sunk down into our marrow and seeps out, like vestiges from God’s bara. We can’t not create. It is in us.

• Lloyd’s of Rochester “Accepting the Creative Challenge”

Am I a truly a Creative? I wonder… I write because I am a writer, a “teacher,” a sharer of insights, ideas and information – I am a Wordsmith. It takes no courage for me to write in the same way it takes no courage for a bird to fly – it is the outpouring of who I am, with no tinge of arrogance or indifference. So if I do not wrestle in this way, do I even qualify?