When I stop and think about the presence of the divine within man, or for some perhaps the question of it, I think that the chief consideration is to recognize our ability to create. To transform. To create beauty out of chaos. To participate in the molding and sculpting of our world and individual lives. 

God created the Earth and heavens. 

Earth is His creation within the chaos of what surrounds it. And more specifically, man has been created in his image upon it. Our ability to create biological life or offspring is one thing, and certainly a marvel of Life itself, but it is more a marvel of the design and designer. More importantly, we’ve been given the opportunity to be the ultimate creators of our individual lives and world. Our children and families. We create communities through collaborative creative work. We create music, art, and writings which enrich those lives and communities. And in doing so we align ourselves with God. We align our lives with purpose and meaning. For at the heart of all creation is love. 

When we align our lives as God intended for us to, children of God and co-creators of this world, we are at our optimal spiritual health. And with it follows emotional and physical well-being. For ourselves personally as well as for our tribe.

The Greatest Halloween Ever

The greatest Halloween I ever had as a child was at about the age of six years old. We were living in Glastonbury, Connecticut, and my father and I embarked upon a project for the costume. One that involved our collaborative participation in creation. A disembodied floating and frightening giant Jack-O’-Lantern. 

Have you ever heard of Stingy Jack? Jack of the Lantern? Well, the Irish legend that gave birth to the Halloween tradition of Jack-O’-Lanterns was based upon a myth of a deceitful man who after deceiving Satan, was cursed upon his death and denial into heaven to roam the earth for eternity, carrying only a lump of burning coal inside a carved-out turnip to light his way. The Irish and Scottish would carve frightening faces into turnips, beets, or potatoes, and place them on their doorstep to ward off Stingy Jack and other evil spirits. 

When large waves of the Irish and Scottish immigrated to North America, they brought the tradition with them. Pumpkins, which were native to the area, were quickly identified as being far easier to carve and in much greater abundance, and thus replaced the old root vegetables tradition to the one we recognize today. 

Washington Irving’s short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) had the headless horseman who lost his head to a cannonball during the revolutionary war. He rides around at night hurling his severed “head” at Ichabod Crane. The head being depicted in the story is a pumpkin. 

Now, I’m not saying I was aware of all of these particular details at six years. What I can tell you though is that the imagery of a glowing menacing disembodied pumpkin head had me all-in. Let’s do this, Pop. This was going to be my Mona Lisa. My Sistine Chapel. People would remember my name. This is how legends were born. 

So, my father and I one day rolled up our sleeves and headed to the basement, where such complicated acts of creation were obviously performed noted my mother. Step one: blow up the balloon. Bear in mind this is not your typical party balloon. This was like industrial sized. I don’t even think you can find this sort of thing at Party City. This is like special order dark web stuff. I huff and puff. Minutes become hours. Time, of course, being a bit of a bend at this age. Alas, we tie it off, and then, using homemade paper mâché, lay strips of wet sticky newspaper around this mega-balloon. Lots of them. This giant balloon? What’s the word for ‘gianter’? Eventually when this globe had hardened, we painted it a characteristic deep orange with black triangular eyes and teeth. At its base a hole cut out for entry of my head, and smaller holes where the eyes appeared. The rest was easy. A white sheet with a hole cut out for my head, and the fiercely menacing pumpkin head laid atop it. It was epic. 

I need to point out something. At this time, I was a very small child. I had nicknames like Mister Millimeter and Mister Munchkin growing up. And it wasn’t just that I was short or small. There was a proportion issue at play. Probably the best descriptor was the nickname my younger sister gave me. ‘Block Head.’ For many a year it appeared that my body and head had been mismatched. At the very least, part of the morphological program did not appear to be loading. This probably had no small part in my glee at the prospect of transforming into a menacing specter of death for one night. But there was a problem.

My block head inside an even bigger sphere of congealed paper and glue, with a white sheet hiding my near miniscule frame below it? Let’s just say that consistent binocular vision was a challenge with it in place. Walking in itself was a task that would bring most men to their knees. Literally. Did I stumble? Yes, frequently. But I was undeterred. Besides, Dad was there to guide and guard me, and anyway, I could hear all of the reactions of those people who opened their doors or passed us in the streets. This wasn’t some cheap store-bought cartoon mask and costume; this was Art. This was my Art. Neighbor after neighbor had complimentary remarks to provide to me that resonate still in my mind all these years later. There were probably some chuckles too but none I recall. 

That pumpkin head hung around and made several Halloweens sticky. The memories are there. Small clips. Feelings associated with them. Shots of the original process of construction, the evening of its unveiling. It was one of the first true acts of artistic creation that I can remember and for which I took pride in. 

What became of the Pumpkin Head? I do not know. I do recall that four years later a friend of my younger sister borrowed it for the evening and when it was returned it had been damaged. I think upon my visceral reaction I received some choice wisdom on the power of forgiveness, but I was admittedly seized by the more personally immediate “no good deed goes unpunished” lesson. 

Beyond that recollection I can not say. But its memories are cherished. And its message is clear. It feels good to create. And the rewards of creation aren’t necessarily financial. It’s not about the outcome necessarily. The finished product. If I had a picture of that pumpkin head now, well, it turns out that I was no Michelangelo. But it’s about more than that. It’s about the benefits from participation in the creative process itself, and the downstream benefits you don’t anticipate. It’s about the change it brings about in the artist and in those that receive it. And it’s about the love that stands at the center of it all.

The Greatest Christmas Ever

Christmas was always special growing up as a child. And the best of those times were the occasions where we spent the holiday with our extended family. My mother’s parents had an old beautiful farmhouse in Amherst, New Hampshire, that commonly served as the gathering place come holiday time. My mother, was one of three daughters, and our cousins alongside my brother, sister and I would hole up in one room for the night, debating whether we would be able to hear the reindeer on the roof or St. Nick downstairs. 

One year, upon awakening and being permitted to descend to the downstairs area of morning festivities, we raced down the old wooden stairs, around the corner and through the kitchen and into the living room… and straight past the single largest Christmas gift I’ve ever received. We had run right past it. But then, we slowly turned and did a double take… and were stupefied by what we saw. I mean, it’s not every day you find a police squad car in your living room. 

My father had built, by hand, a police squad car out of wood. And it seemed near life-size. Certainly, at my age. It was a convertible by necessity and sat three or four across. It was painted white with blue stripes and had a working red emergency light you could turn on, a siren, and a walkie talkie. “Presents” were forgotten. Coffee cake could wait. We were on duty. Grab your cap gun, brother!

Only years later did I think about the value of this gift. The effort and love that were central to its creation is humbling. This is what it can be like to be on the receiving side of creation. That one gift has more value for me in hindsight than any other Christmas gift received, and it made for the most memorable Christmas holiday of my childhood. My brother, it is worth pointing out, went on to a career in law enforcement and continues as a Captain with the Houston Police Department with over 25 years of experience. I like to think that Christmas morning was his first shift. 

That police car stayed with our family when the holiday was over. It stayed with us through our various homes, surviving the moves, not because it was still in use as the years passed by, but because it was beloved. When I was fourteen and a freshman in High School we donated that creation to our church, in hopes that it could perhaps provide a similar measure of magic and joy to another family. I guess that didn’t work out because I discovered pieces of the “car” behind a stage curtain while rehearsing for our church production of Mary Poppins one day. An icon of love and creation, an icon of my childhood, seemingly discarded and forgotten. The horror. I get it now as an adult. The thing was giant and what made it truly special was that it was in essence a carved toy by a parent for their child. What made it extraordinary also made it unique to those involved. 

Have you ever received a personally designed card for a holiday? They are more meaningful than the store-bought card, no matter how funny or eloquent the wordings of the purchased version. Or a toy or gift that your son or daughter made for you at school? Those mean something, don’t they? They’re treasured relics. And that’s because they’re an artifact of love. Reflected in their creation. And that love affects both the creator and the receiver. 

To Create is Divine

The connection between creativity and the divine has been a recurring theme across human history. You can see it in philosophy, religion and art, amongst other areas. Can our creations be an echo of some higher and transcendent power?

Many creators have described the artistic process as functioning as more of a receiver or transmitters rather than originators. The Greeks called them “daemons,” disembodied spirits that visited mortals to impart wisdom or art. Socrates even claimed that he had a personal “daemon” who spoke truths to him from afar. The Romans evolved this into the “genius,” a magical divine being assisting and shaping the artist’s work. Elizabeth Gilbert has an influential 2009 TED talk, “Your Elusive Creative Genius” where she argues that to create is to partner with an external entity. Her key insight being that we all have a “genius” inside us. External entities? Daemons? Spirits? I call that external entity and genius, God. For Emerson, the “oversoul.” For Carl Jung, the “collective unconscious.” The underlying theme is an association with some transcendent power that imparts wisdom, truth, and creative expression. 

More contemporaneously, Rick Rubin, a renowned music producer and author, wrote a 2023 book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, in which he portrayed artists as conduits for preexisting ideas, not inventors. Michelangelo reported that his sculptures were complete within the marble block and his job was to simply remove the superfluous material. 

What if our brain can function like an antenna? What if energy flows in ways we understand not? How does one explain the countless reports through human history of musicians and other artists who consistently report a sublime component to their artistic process? What more, that the process of creation can actually change the creator? That the reward is found in the process of creation and not necessarily the final product.

Here’s what I know. There are two opposing forces in the world. Classically known as “Good versus Evil.” Light against Dark. Order against Chaos. At the heart of Good lies creation. Love. And at the foot of Evil lies destruction. Darkness.

Our job as children of God is to manifest the light of love that echoes in his creation. To craft meaning and purpose in our lives through our alignment with each of our own inherent “genius,” and to get out there and create. Let your life be such a poetic and beautiful creation, that when the time comes that you place it in lap of God, He will say to you, “My child, well done.”

Go write that book you’ve been thinking of. Cook that meal you’ve been wanting to prepare for your family. Build something. And make it beautiful. Make it true. And you and this world will be better for it. 

-Andrew M. Dale, MD