Rev. Kevin Huber
WHERE DIVINITY AND HUMANITY MEET: THE SPIRITUALITY OF CREATIVITY BY REV. KEVIN HUBER, D. MIN. As a Catholic priest in a middle income, Midwest town, I have a weekly responsibility to be creative. Each Sunday, as I enter the pulpit, I am charged with the task of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, to a diverse group of people who vary in age, ethnic origin and socio-economic status. Capturing their attention, identifying tensions in their life and connecting them to God requires more than assembling thoughts and communicating a cogent message. Preaching begins with a process of reading, praying and reflecting, and concludes when listeners see where their life and God’s presence intersect. Creativity is what happens in the middle of the process. Many people understand creativity as an impulse of the human imagination. However, I maintain that creativity is not a gift, an urge or an impulse, but rather evidence of an unbreakable spiritual bond that connects human beings with their Creator. Creativity reveals the depth of relationship between humanity and divinity, commonly known as spirituality. When people tap into their relationship with the Creator, beauty, life, love and hope are born. The intimate connection between divinity and humanity is captured in Sacred Scripture. As we read in the first book of the Bible, God created in the formless void that was the universe (Genesis 1:2). Rather than being creative in and of ourselves, human beings were created by God. When we exercise our capacity for creativity, we participate in God’s creative character. As history has shown, we can employ our creativity for life or we can use our creativity for destruction. In the end, though, the biblical narrative reveals that our creative capacity is, above all else, oriented toward life. Following this train of thought, then, creativity is supernatural, opening a portal to the mind of God. Whether displayed in word, mathematics, biology, architecture, paint, clay, stone, relationships, dance, service, leadership, or any other medium, authentic creativity reveals the intersection of humanity with divinity. In other words, human creativity possesses the power to express God’s vision for the universe, which captures our attention. In the process of preparing a homily, I often think about a question raised by Thomas Troeger in his book, “Imagining a Sermon,” (1990). He asks, “Preacher, what do you see?” In other words, a man or woman preparing to preach needs to be able to name the human experience. At the same time, a preacher needs to be able to name God’s action in the human experience. This, in my estimation, is the key to good preaching, healthy living and authentic loving. Even more, in my estimation, when humanity and divinity intersect, hope is created and creativity finds substance. Fr. Kevin Huber is pastor of two Catholic parishes in Michigan City, Indiana, and holds a Doctor of Ministry Degree in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri and, even after nearly 30 years of preaching, looks for creative ways to communicate the connection between humanity and divinity. This article is part of a series, “Reflections on Creativity,” sponsored by the Center for Creative Solutions, celebrating April’s World Creativity and Innovation Week.
- Start: 15 April 2020
- End: 15 April 2020
- Attendance:
- Location: N/A , , United States
