Explanation: the act or process of making something clear or easy to understand.
—Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary
Here’s my explanation. I woke up one morning thinking about a presentation I did a few years ago that dealt with imagination, inspiration and creation. It was about God’s creative process and involving God in our creative process. It was sort of a twisted alliteration. Rather than all the words beginning with the same letter, they all end with the same five letters A-T-I-O-N. All of the sudden a flood of words came into my mind, all ending with those same letters. In one way or another, all these words could easily be associated with God, faith and the creative process. Before long I was writing them all down and contemplating whether they could form the basis for a new book. What if I could find 52 of these “ation” words and use them as sort of a creative devotional to help creative people of faith to consider more deeply their creative calling. There would be one word a week, complete with a definition, a meditation, related texts for further study and creative project ideas to take the concept further. It is my hope that this project will bring people to clearly see the connection between their creativity, their Creator and their calling.
Even as I begin this project, interesting thing are happening. Every time I type the suffix “ation”, auto-correct keeps changing that to “action” and that is probably not coincidental, because the suffix is defined as “an action or process.” Each of these words calls upon us to act in some way. Now of course some will touch you more than others and some will bring greater motivation than others, but I believe all of them have something to offer. So let’s start off looking at “explanation.”
True I used this word to introduce this project, but explanation is a huge part of our calling as Christian creatives. Consider 1 Corinthians 14:9 So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. 10 Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. 11 If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker is a foreigner to me. 12 So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church.
Now one could argue this is about speaking in tongues, and for the record it is, but I believe there are other applications at play here. Consider the new believer in your church. Do you think they understand everything that is being said? As someone who became a believer at 22, I can tell you, they don’t and we Christians tend to forget that and because of that, we tend to “talk over people’s heads.” We may not be “speaking in the tongues of angels” but we might as well be, because we are not being understood. Our message is too important for that. We need to be understood, and as such we need people who have a gift of explanation…
AMOKArts 