So what is J. S. Bach writing these days?

I have long lamented the lack of time for all the things I would like to do. I once took Betty Edward's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain onto the hills of Mpumulunga and spent enough time to know that I didn't have the patience. But photography! If I had another lifetime... If I could take pictures like the ones in National Geographic...

I was somewhat disappointed when our daughter did not go into architectural conservation and restoration since it is a field that has long fascinated me. I will be refinishing an antique dresser in the next couple weeks (if it ever stops raining), and a friend has assured me that reupholstering is "easy." There are quilts and calligraphy, wood carving and cabinetry, all skills I would love to pursue, not to mention all the books I haven't read and story ideas I would like to develop. Don't get me started on what I would do on the ice if I had the time and money to skate every day and take multiple lessons per week. If only reincarnation were true, I might have the time to develop a different skill in each lifetime.

A couple years ago it hit me like a speeding semi that God is Creator. Duh. What I mean is that it is part of his basic character. He created me in his image. Why do I assume that all that will end in eternity? God can't change who he is. Surely creativity will go on.

Last night I finished reading Andy Crouch's Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling. This evening I plan to start again at the beginning. There is too much meat for one reading. This book belongs on my shelf next to the writing books and Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water. It is about culture defining the limits of what is, and is not, possible, and about changing culture through circles of influence that start as small as two or three creative people thinking and acting together. Even the founders of MySpace couldn't guarantee the impact it would have on society. But as they created and their friends caught their enthusiasm and told their friends, the world has changed. As Christians, we want to change the world, but changes always start small with people in community thinking beyond their horizons of possibility. Culture Making maintains that creativity is a ministry as divine as preaching. Crouch tells us to examine whatever we are doing and ask, is this good enough for the New Jerusalem?

Long ago I asked the Lord to make my room in heaven a two-story paneled library with a fireplace, a teapot, and French windows opening onto a garden terrace. One of these days in eternity, I'm going to ask him to freeze over that Crystal Sea in front of his throne and let us do an ice show for his glory to the live music of Michael W. Smith and the heavenly choirs. Maybe my resurrected body will even be able to do a triple Axel. Who needs reincarnation when you have all of eternity to plumb the depths of his gift of creativity?