It's Christmas Eve 2006. Where did this year go? As I get older, it seems that the days just fly by, which is why I am determined to enjoy every one of them. I don't know how many I have left.
This week I have been meditating on two things. One is the story of the magi, which I wrote about in last week's Memo. This week I want to write about the other theme, which will cause us to focus on the famous Christmas carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing!
All credit for Hark the Herald Angels Sing is usually attributed to Charles Wesley, the brother of Methodism's founder, John Wesley. Charles was a prolific song writer, with almost 9,000 hymns to his credit. Charles only approved of sombre, slow and solemn music for any of his lyrics, however, so this particular carol was sung to a different tune for 100 years after it was first written in 1739.
Then in 1840, a man named Felix Mendelssohn wrote a commemorative cantata to honor Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. What does that have to do with this carol? It would have nothing except that a man named William Cummings heard the cantata and felt that one of the melodies could better serve the magnificent lyrics that Wesley had penned for his carol. Cummings adapted Mendelssohn's melody to Wesley's lyrics and the result was the version of Hark the Herald Angels Sing! that we know and sing today.
What does this have to do with anything, you may ask? It strikes me as a classic example of the simplicity and interconnection of the creative process. Not all creativity has to involve something original. Cummings took two existing things--Mendelssohn's music and Wesley's words--to create something totally new. He improved something that already existed and took something that could be put to better use to create something fresh and new that has impacted the world for more than a century.
As we end 2006, I want to begin a new discussion of the creative process to encourage you to take your own creativity more seriously in 2007. You are a creative person! What you see and the ideas you have can change the world, if you will stop discounting them as meaningless or insignificant. You don't have to invent something totally new to qualify as creative; you just have to act on your ideas and release them to the world. The world, with God as your agent, can then act to endorse the very creativity that you dismiss or take for granted.
Do you have any good ideas, even if they are only to improve something that already exists? If you do, take heart and remember Wesley, Mendelssohn, and Cummings. Those three men who never met collaborated to create something memorable. There is no reason why you can't do the same.
From my house to yours, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a creative New Year!
Feel free to post your comment to this Memo on the site where it is located. You can also go to the same site to read the other Monday Memos from 2006. And don't forget my personal PurposeQuest website, which has loads of material that will help you find your purpose and be productive. Furthermore, you can sign up for my weekly Bible studies where we will begin 2007 with a study of Mark's gospel. Finally, please remember PurposeQuest and the Stankos in your year-end giving.
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This is just to say thank you very much for your tireless effort and timely sending of the monday memos. They have been a word of encouragement,and they usually come at the right time. They have lifted me when I felt low.
Thank you once again. May you and your dear family have a blessed christmas season and a productive as well as creative New Year 2007.
Posted by: helen | December 27, 2006 at 08:17 AM