A question on what’s precious…

April 8, 2007

During our Creativity & Spirituality sessions I attempted to creatively take people through the overarching narrative of the Scriptures.

One simple and interesting exercise (inspired in a different context by Phyllis of Sketch) was this…

Take a moment and jot down the three most important and treasured things, ideas, or people in your life today.

My class had crayons and paper to write or draw this out, but that doesn’t mean you should just gloss over the question.

…

I’ll give you another moment.

…

It’s okay if you can only think of two. (so sad).

…

Done?

…

Now I want you to imagine that these things or people no longer exist…

…

They’ve been taken from you.

You’ve lost it.

It’s been ripped away from your soul.

…

Now, describe in a word or two how you feel…

(I’ll debrief on this a bit afterwards)

If you liked that post, check out...

Being Superman… by Lon on June 21st, 2006

High school all over again… by Lon on March 15th, 2007

The Ordinary Radicals by Lon on September 7th, 2008

Life… by Lon on May 3rd, 2006

Posted in Hope, creativity, life

Comments to “A question on what’s precious…”

deana said:

April 8th, 2007 at 11:22 am

I jotted it down in my head…did you want us to share here? I think about losing them every day…so I’m interested to see where you’re going with this.

Lon said:

April 8th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

oh no, you don’t have to share the three most important things… I just wanted people to reflect on the feelings they’d have if they lost all of those precious things in a word or two…

Lon said:

April 9th, 2007 at 8:21 am

Well, this exercise doesn’t seem to be working as effectively online.

Anyhow, the response from class after reflecting on not having all that was most valued to them ranged from feeling… empty. desolate. purposeless. angry. hopeless.

the point of the exercise was to in some way emotionally experience what it was like for adam and eve to be banished from the garden of Eden and the immediate presence of God.

as an extension of that, it also connects to an emotional reality today.

When we are disconnected from the Creator we can never fully live out the lives we were intended for. I think these feelings of hopelessness are always there no matter how much we attempt to repress them or fill our lives with other things.

there’s more that can be drawn out of the exercise, but i’ll try to keep it at that for now.

Sandra said:

April 9th, 2007 at 8:09 pm

Love that exercise! Too bad I missed the crayons and paper though.

joelpno81 said:

April 10th, 2007 at 1:09 am

i like the exercise, and the idea of reconstructing it to the people participating in such a way that causes them to see the type of ‘built-in’ despair faced by the world today…

it sounds cliche, and perhaps arrogant, for us as christ-followers to say that those without relationship with God are empty and hollow and don’t even know it. but it’s true, nonetheless, and if we really believed it was true–AND, if we truly bore God’s heart of empathy and compassion for them–we would live lives so full of purpose that we would never be able to be the same again.

i think that’s really what it’s all about, anyway. thanks for the exercise…

Lon said:

April 11th, 2007 at 12:25 am

good point joel. i hope it didn’t sound like it was just geared to a certain segment of the population… i think Christ-followers are just as guilty of being disconnected from God. sadly…