Red Pens & Broken Castles

I watched Sara lay a piece of white copier paper down on the smooth, stained and polished concrete floor beside our church’s copy machine. Her 18 month old daughter stood by her legs, looking up with expectation.

When Sara produced a red ball point pen, the little girl gladly reached up to receive it. She effortlessly squatted down, examined the pen and righted it, tip down. Then, half falling forward, she supplemented her new and tentative balance with her free hand. In this limber 3-point position, the pen came down and made a short, single mark on the paper. A red line, at the edge nearest her.

What happened next startled me. A flash of surprise came over her and she quickly stood up—and laughed. Not in the way I you or I laugh, and not just a chuckle of amusement, but an impossibly pure laugh, composed entirely of delight.

She did this a few times more. I watched her cycle through surprise and delight, enraptured with every simple mark on the page. It was new to her. It was a wonder-filled experience. The world had just expanded in joy and possibility, like she’d discovered that magic was real and she could wield it.

Seeing it through her eyes, I felt convicted. Not a guilty conviction, more like a realization of loss. Like discovering I’d left something cherished behind during a long trip.

Or, perhaps, this felt less like an object lost to carelessness and more like a capacity diminished over time. Like the sight of an octogenarian whose world has gradually and imperceptibly grown dim. I approach very little today with such clear-eyed wonder. My ability to see with delight has gradually developed some kind of cataracts.

Why? And can I regain my sight?

—

As I’ve grown older, (a reality which has become less imperceptible) I’ve noticed that things are not so durable as I once assumed. Many songs and movies that were successful in my teen years are mostly forgotten now. Those cultural touchpoint that were common among my circles of friends are almost unknown to the most recent generation.

Relationships I believed would last a lifetime have wained. Mostly from moves and life changes, but now a few by the death of friends. Material things wear out and break. I myself am feeling more wear and tear.

Part of my loss of wonder may be tied to a growing awareness that nothing I make or do will endure. Despite my best efforts, all my contributions and life’s work will subside. This world is passing away, as John the disciple writes late in his life.

Knowing that this is true intellectually is a helpful framework for my expectations. But in truth, the experience of wear-away loss can leave me deeply sad on my cloudier days. I want things to endure, especially the ones I have a part in.

This could diminish my creative joy. It could quench my motivation to create. It may even lead me to an abject depression. Why bother making at all if it won’t last?

However, in observing Sara’s young daughter, I see something that could un-cloud my vision and restore lost joyfulness.

I can make a subtle but grave error in determining the source for joy—particularly related to my creativity and generative acts. What thrilled Sara’s little girl? Was her source of delight in the lines she’d made and the paper which held them? I think not. I think her delight was rooted in making lines.

That distinction in a critical one, though difficult to parse. The pen and paper are just objects. They are wondrous inventions but they do nothing alone. Sara’s daughter was surprised and delighted not in those objects. Her reaction was to what she could do with them. She had agency to create.

As we become more adept creators, we naturally take pride in our creations. But I think it’s a mistake to turn the things I have made into the basis for my joy and satisfaction. They fail me. What I make never matches my vision, but even when I am pleased, it just won’t last. Objects wane and die.

Sara’s daughter was delighted not by the marks she'd made, but in discovering her capacities. The possibility of making was the source of her delight, not the thing she’d made. She was imbued with creativity and the realization of that unfurled a new world of possibility.

When I anchor joy in my capacity to create rather than the stuff I create, there are two happy results.

First: Joy and meaning are wedded to something that is living, dynamic, and durable. When I relish in creativity rather than the things I create, I find joy in my being, not just my doing. The making of delightful objects happens, but quality varies and they do not endure. The ability to make is a deep gift intrinsic to my humanity, and as we are eternal beings (not just physical objects) that characteristic will go on and on.

In that is the second happy reality: I am creative because the I AM is creative. Made in His image, human beings are gifted the ability to imagine new things and to bring them forth in time and space.

Finding joy in our ability to create should lead us to gratitude toward the giver of that gift. Furthermore - the use of that gift is a reminder of its source. We are Maker-made for making. In our creative acts, we leave a trail back to the source of creativity. It's good for us to follow that trail. Delighting in how God made us is richer and better than delighting only in what we make. It’s a durable source of joy.

—

When I go the beach, it’s inevitable that I make a sand castle. My kids usually join in, even now in their teenage years. There have been a few times when I continued the practice though solely in the company of adults.

The pragmatists among them may observe my efforts, with no children in the mix, and ask “why are you wasting your time—you know the tide will destroy it?”

I do.

The point of building a sandcastle at the beach is not to produce something that will last. Nor is it to practically impact any tangible needs. The tide will claim it, if a small child doesn’t enjoy the broken thrill of knocking it over first. It is decidedly temporary.

I make sand castles because I can. The wave-washed border between land and sea is a formless void, scoured endlessly. It will remain a flat, empty expanse until someone with creative agency hovers over the wet, sandy earth to form it, imbue it with purpose, and give that created thing a name.

I don’t make it because I need it—I make a sand castle because creativity is itself a wonder and joy. I enjoy exercising my ability to turn imagination into physical form. (Especially when done in relationship) Making is a kind of gratitude, and a reminder that we too have a maker.

The waves may claim that tiny creation of mine, but they can never overwhelm my capacity to create because I am made for eternity. Creativity is a gift that will always be mine.

Truly amazing gifts are a joy and using them reminds me of the one who gave it. Imagination and the agency to create is divinely granted and are mine to use.

In that realization I can make my marks on this world, fleeting as it may be, then step back and laugh—clear-eyed and amazed.