7 Things Creativity Taught Me About God

I remember the girl at the market one Saturday. A teenager, she could not stop staring. Her face only inches from the photo. Early morning breath smudging fog against the frame glass. It was my photo of a spiderweb that had halted her.

I remember the morning I had taken the shot. Had woken early to chase the rise of the sun as obsessed photographers do. Came upon the grey-green fields finding their colour in the early morning rays. Parked the car by the side of the road, leapt the fence and opened my eyes to see if I could see her… Beauty.

And there she was. The hunt is never a long one with this prey for those who have the eyes to see. Amongst the dripping wet fields from the heavy night of dew, where the sun-kissed the morning ground, I could see her beckoning. Calling. All seductress and eros are beauty. I walked slowly. Eyes wide. Looking. Searching. Knowing how fleeting she can be and how I did not want to miss the gift she had for me on this day.

I looked down to my right and saw it. The spiderweb. Laced with early morning dew. A pearl necklace. The sun had made the droplets into pure orbs of light. It sparkled. I bent down low. The hunter about to strike. Find the best composition. Lift the camera to my eye, an extension of that by which I view the world. It allows me to show others what I see. I slow down. Breath flows out. Slow and steady. I hold it till that point just at the end of its giving when the earth has joined me in an eternal silent moment. I press my finger down. The familiar snap of the shutter, and I hope to God that I managed to arrest that which I was seeing.

So as she stood there, weeks later, staring at the photo that morning at the market, I knew that indeed I had somehow grasped in the photo what I was hoping to. I walked over and asked her, “What do you see?” She blinked, startled from the world the image had taken her to.

“Did you take this?” she asked me. I nod. She looked back again, “I see... I see that what entangles me can also be filled with light and magic.” I like her answer.

You see, creativity seems to do this – it takes form and moulds it into something sacred. Creativity evokes from the form something that is beyond the form itself. A beauty that is larger, deeper than the simple materials used. So much greater than the sum of its parts. The artist is an alchemist. Fashioning life out of clay and ink. The one in pursuit of the deeper truth of a substance. Of what lies beneath it. The naming of a beauty that has always been there latent and waiting. Behind the spiderweb. Behind the water droplets. Behind the morning sunlight. There she lies. Waiting.

MINDFUL PROMPT: If God is anything, God is Beauty. And Beauty? she is waiting for you to find her… where can you see her, I wonder?

Written by Joel McKerrow
Instagram: @joelmckerrowpoet
Web: joelmckerrow.com

This is Part 1 from the upcoming series by Joel McKerrow, "7 Things Creativity Taught Me About God" this week, with a subscription, in the App.