Collaborating With The Collaborators

For years I have been fascinated with how the imaginations, thoughts, dreams, hopes and fears that rolled around in the minds of Tolkien, Williams and Lewis.  A great pleasure of mine of late is to sit quietly, with eyes closed after reading a portion of Lewis, C.S. Lewis:  A Biography  and  imagine myself sitting there with them as they gathered every Thursday around nine in the evening with pipes and teacups.  Yes, even puffing on a pipe even though my religious training announced it to be a sin.  At any one of our given meetings there was likely to be at least one historian, a philosopher, a physician, several poets, and a number of professors.  In my imagination, I think I would have found most enjoyable the Inklings, as they called themselves, who I being a part of as a literary enthusiasts who praised the value of good narrative and we had gathered to encourage, challenge, and better one another in our various attempts at creating it.  Out of these spirited meetings, in which it is said that "praise for good work was unstinted, but censure for bad work, or even not-so-good work, was often brutally frank," there arose the final drafts of The Lord of the Rings, Out of the Silent Planet, All Hallows' Eve, and The Great Divorce.

I can’t believe that many critics who insist these men had little influence on one another (the Inklings' themselves said of Tolkien that it was easier to influence a "bandersnatch" than the creator of Middle Earth), Diana Pavlac Gyler avers they would not have been the same writers had they not written within the community of the Inklings.  "Each author's work is embedded in the work of others," writes Gyler in The Company They Keep , "and each author's life is intertwined with the lives of others." Influence, after all, is far from imitation.  While it is true that these authors came to their meetings with determined ideas, their reflective and challenging interactions sharpened thoughts, minds, and lives.  J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, as well as C.S. Lewis, would likely have imagined far different worlds had they not participated in the regular reading and criticism of works in progress.

This idea of communal creativity is one I wish I could resonant with more.  I’m discovering it is something that I have missed.  On the other hand almost all my own experience of thinking, journaling and attempts at writing, are born from looking around the rooms of faith, culture, and history and learning to articulate things of my five senses. Even my most original thoughts or imaginative creations are indelibly shaped by a lifetime of encounters with artists, theologians, family, and community and naked creation.  I realize I am not interpreting the world alone nor am I living without influencing someone profoundly.  In this sense, I might say that creativity in all its forms—even in the simplest acts of living and acting—is inherently an interactive process.  What Tolkien notes on the lips of Frodo in The Lord of The Rings can indeed be said of my own interacting stories.  Peering at the large red book in which Bilbo began to tell the story and Frodo then continued, Sam looks down in wonder.  "Why, you have nearly finished it, Mr. Frodo!" he exclaims.  "I have quite finished, Sam," answers Frodo.  "The last pages are for you."

When the New Testament writers began to speak of creation through the light of all they saw in Jesus Christ, they affirmed the Old Testament understanding of total dependence upon the maker of heaven earth, but they spoke also of Christ's presence as the Word at the beginning.  All of creation declares the glory of God, the work of the loving interaction between Father, Son, and Spirit.

I believe more and more that this ultimate image of creative collaboration is one that orients me as a creature and co-creator alike.  The outpouring of Trinitarian abundance into the creation of all things is one that wants me to ask:  How is it that I am joining God in creation as one in a community?  What kind of kingdom am I illumining by my life with others and influence upon the world?  What kind of stories am I telling and retelling, and how am I inviting those around me to join in the great Story I have been given?  The creative collaboration of the Trinity throughout time and creation invites the notion that God has made me for community and relationship, that my stories intertwine as if a great tapestry, and that the grace of a good creator is working to make that tapestry inherently beautiful.

Father, as you have invited me to participate in your good and marvelous work of creation, so Christ has called me to join Him in furthering the kingdom among my family, friends, neighbors, professional, pastoral community of the kingdom of which I live. Further, I pray, constantly remind me that, THE LAST PAGES ARE FOR ME!