Thursday, March 29, 2012

SEVENTH WONDER


SEVENTH WONDER

My daughter calls her sister, “The Seventh Wonder of the World.” Another daughter calls her, “Magic Person.” Her creative mind is such that it staggers our minds at every turn. Everything she touches transforms as if she has touched it with a magic wand. When she was tiny she earned the title, “gunk collector,” because, wherever we went, she would gather up odd pieces of scrap “anything,” and bring it home to create amazing artistic sculptures……….She wasn’t home from college five minutes before she had gathered up all her little brothers and sisters and marched into our forest grove to create “something.” I went out a short time later to discover they had built an enormous teepee out of branches and sticks. They had also dug a fire pit and placed log chairs around it. All were happily roasting hotdogs and marshmellows. She then proceeded to create a ten-foot-high wicker chair……….One hour before getting on an airplane to come to her brother’s wedding, she found the bride’s maid fabric that had been sent to her weeks earlier and sewed, without a pattern, a prettier and more creative dress than any of the other dresses at the wedding………. My brother was about to sell his Jeep to some buyers who were soon to arrive at his house when he discovered the plastic sunroof had been eaten through by rodents. She found something lying around in their backyard and sewed a new sunroof before they arrived. If it is time to bike to the beach, she has already loaded 8 bikes on the cars, gathered all the helmets and is waiting for you before you tie your shoes. Everything she touches grows into radiant living………

I looked at what she was “doodling” during General Conference addresses on the television and discovered she had painted a picture of the Savior in the clouds………If you mention, “birthday party,” you turn the corner a few minutes later and behold the most fantastical blaze of everything draping and sparkling – the strangest combination of things dangling and criss-crossing everywhere in an unimaginable combination of spectacular. It is everywhere with her…. God touched her precious mind in a way that is beautiful to behold at every turn…she is truly, truly a wonder to behold….when you get to experience someone like Cubbie in your lifetime….you can only praise God for the chance be immersed in that wonder – “The Seventh Wonder.


Tuesday, March 27, 2012

CREATIVE GENIUS



CREATIVE GENIUS

Highly creative minds are gifts from God to this earth. The very special people assigned to house the inspired imagination and creativity of the artistic mind are usually emotionally intense and driven by their need to express what is singing so loudly in their soul. They cannot help but listen to it and then do something about it…W.H. Auden said, “Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.” Einstein clashed with school authorities and failed an entrance exam. He resented school regimen and restrictive teaching methods and wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought are lost in strict rote learning. I watched a child excel beyond possibility in classes that allowed for creative freedom and struggle in classes that allowed for none. Because of what these gifted people end up giving to all of us, as they proceed through their lives, I believe we should patiently and reverently allow for the emotional space and freedom of movement needed, so they can respond to the rhythm, the song and the “beat of a different drum” that plays loudly in their minds and hearts. Because it is so loud, it must be expressed brightly in every art form imaginable…and we get to sit back on a blanket on the grass and listen, with the expanse of God’s creations surrounding us, to Beethoven’s Fifth being played at the Boston Commons, at the free concert on Friday night…in divine duet.