Creation and Creativity - Part 1

Love Expressed

Jeanne:  In our book we are planning to add something seldom found in autobiographies.  We are introducing a dialogue, much like the one presented here, following each of the major parts. We’re doing it for two reasons: One is so that I may act as a representative for readers, anticipating some questions that you might like to ask. The second is that dialogues can provide a place for expansion of topics—background and commentary that might otherwise distract from the narrative. 

You’ll note that I begin the dialogue below by referring to Dr. Norman Wirzba, who teaches theology and ecology at Duke Divinity and whose books focus on such topics as environmental ethics, food and faith, and sustainable agriculture. As I read Wirzba’s book, This Sacred Life:  Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World, I was struck by its resonance with some of Noel’s songs.  In the following conversation Noel and I explore his song, “For the Love of It All” (also the working title of our book), which   encompasses two major themes in his songwriting: “reverence for all that’s living” (creation) and creativity. 

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JTF: In The Sacred Life Norma Wirzba portrays the world as God’s creation, we humans as creaturely beings, and our human vocation as creativity that contributes to a flourishing world. To begin our discussion of creation and creativity, let’s first clarify what you mean by “Love with a capital L.” When we initially spoke about theology you said, “Let’s not use the God word. Let’s use the Love word just like in the song “For the Love of It All.” Why did you want to make that substitution?

NPS: After my conversion experience, which was well-publicized as the reason the trio stopped touring in the early ‘70s, I gradually began to be identified with the Jesus movement and with the beginnings of what would become known as Contemporary Christian music. Organizations like Campus Crusade invited me to sing in concerts and music festivals, and following a solo appearance in England I was on the stage packing up my guitar when a couple approached me and said, “We have a word of the Lord for you.” They said they didn’t know what it meant but it was simply “Don’t use my name.”  

JTF: Quite a puzzling comment. What sense did you make of it? 

NPS: "In my last year of touring with Peter and Mary before our seven-year sabbatical, I had been testifying to God’s presence in my life in ways that made the two of them uncomfortable. In the beginning of my faith walk I had only a lexicon of evangelical Christian terms at my disposal. In fact, in one concert I used my solo time to talk extensively about Jesus to an audience that was predominantly Jewish. But after the encounter with this English couple, I recognized the value of speaking more in metaphor about the Divine and to avoid as much as possible traditional “God talk.” Later, in appearances at Christian music festivals with the Bodyworks Band, I began to realize that my music was not so much for worship but rather for reflection—reaching out to the people who would now be called the “nones.”

JTF: The song “For the Love of It All'' represents your spiritual search as I know it. What questions were you asking from the beginning of that search?

NPS:  The overall question was this: “Is there a way in which one’s spiritual desires can be satisfied regardless of the culture from which they come? Is there a unity?  Is there a center? Is there a word for God that is multicultural? Ultimately, this questioning process led me to say, "Yes, it's Love. What there is is Love. And what if Love has an energy unto its own?”

JTF:  That energy feels palpable from the start of “For the Love of It All.”

In the beginning, as life became form,
The oceans heaved, the mountains were cleaved,
The firmament stormed.
At the center of being, immensely small,
Was the master of now, don't ask me how,
The Love of it all.
And the seasons were many, creation was new,
And there on a tree (deceptively free)
Forbidden fruit.
Upon leaving the garden, after the fall,
One thing was clear, we chose not to hear
The Love of it all

JTF: In the theology you’ve expressed in this lyric, God didn’t create the universe and abandon it, but is still creating through us and all living beings.

NPS: I totally agree. There are allusions to the creation stories in Genesis, the creative power of Love at the beginning of time, and the relationship of the spiritual to the physical. I’m suggesting that Love has a power that manifests itself in the material world as energy. Love created everything in its explosive nature, and the physical world is a hard-copy representation of Love's presence, which continues to evolve in puzzling, almost immeasurable ways in a continually expanding universe.

JTF: When you say, “for the Love of it all,” how much do you include in “it all”?

NPS: All of creation. Plants, animals, human beings—all material evidence of Love’s expression. I would even understand that a rock would be a remnant of love's expression. That’s not to say that I see God indwelling in a rock, but I see it as a result of the creative process. And if all of creation is God expressed, then we are in the presence as often as we recognize it. I do feel that we've been endowed with “free choice”— the ability to ignore the presence. But sometimes we are categorically reawakened, very much like gravity would remind us as we fall off the side of a cliff, that there are immutable laws of physics we ignore at our own peril. 

JTF:  And when you say the expansion of creation is still happening, you’re suggesting that creation is not simply a word for the origin of the universe. Creation constantly unfolding. Right?

NPS: Yes, because creation is of such magnitude, power, and energy that it is still in process.

JTF: “For the Love of It All”  alludes to the second creation story (Genesis 2:4-25) which Wirzba  regards as addressing the moral relationship of human beings to creation—in other words, the human vocation, which is to tend the garden. How do you interpret the forbidden fruit and leaving the garden?

NPS: I’m suggesting that the “deceptively free” fruit did have a cost, and that's ongoing— a reminder of the many times humankind has chosen not to listen to Love.  And, to what extent does this knowledge of good and evil affect our present lives?  In many contemporary instances it seems we have chosen to make decisions that are better left to the Divine. 

JTF: Wirzba says that we fail to see ourselves as creatures: “Rather than aiming to possess and master the earth and its life, a creaturely way of being assumes that life is a gift to be gratefully received, humbly respected, and responsibly engaged.” In our time humanity has set itself —apart from the rest of creation, seeing the earth and its living creatures as a commodity to be exploited, rather than seeing all of life as sacred.

NPS: We choose not to hear the Love of it all. And it is that same blindness that we carry with us now. We have lost the respect for Love's presence and don’t recognize what is offered to us on a day-to-day basis, whether it's in another human being or creation itself.

JTF: I know that you respect Love’s presence in creation and the responsibility we have as creatures, one to another, evidenced in your political work for the women’s movement, visits to El Salvador and attendance at the March on Washington.  Did your involvement in environmental issues and your reverence for the earth prompt you to move to Maine?

Still the world is in labor,
She groans in travail.
She cries with the eagle, the dolphin,
She sighs in the song of the whale.

NPS: I’d been influenced by reading Scott and Helen Nearing’s book, Living the Good Life, which brought many people into the back-to-the-land movement of the 70s. The Nearings advocated self-sufficiency through growing your own organic food and living simply to avoid supporting those who exploit the land.  

JTF: Moving to the country meant leaving the urban life that was familiar to you.  

NPS: Well … that “urban life” was essentially spent going from one airport to a concert hall to another airport to another concert hall. 

JTF: The bridge from your song suggests . . .

But for the Love of it all
I would go anywhere.
To the ends of the earth,
What is it worth if Love would be there?
Walking the thin line between fear and the call
One learns to bend and finally depend
On the Love of it all

NPS: Yes, I’m commenting on obedience to an ideal or a value that lies outside of everyday experience, and that can be scary. There are parameters, like gravity, that are dependable, but there are still unknowns. You may wander. You may walk into a forest that you've never been in before, but you know that if you get lost, you just follow the sun. So there are some knowns in the unknown, but for that area of our lives where we're taking a chance, you can make a decision to depend on the Love of it all.

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Connections

Listen to an interview with Norman Wirzba about This Sacred Life. Interviewer is Steve Bell, a Canadian singer / songwriter. You can find more academically focussed interviews with Norman about his book than this one, but I chose this interview because Steve is a theologically informed musician  and both Norman, also Canadian, and Steve are guitarists.  JTF

Photo by Noel Paul Stookey

Vibrations

“For the Love of It All”  from At Home: The Maine Tour

Resonance

For reflection:

• What is the value of replacing traditional "God talk" with metaphorical language?  What is the risk?

• What practical difference does it make to regard life as—in Wirzba's words—"a gift to be gratefully received, humbly respected, and responsibly engaged"?