Creativity: Search for the Sacred/Search for the Self

We now enter into a more practical discussion. Drawing upon the work of artists, musicians, and scientists, in this section I suggest that creativity is both a search for the sacred and a search for an authentic self. In what follows I identify core theological themes in creative expression, and I examine them in light of theological aesthetics and psychologist Margaret Mahler's work on individuation-separation. Experiences of self and experiences of transcendence, I suggest, become reasons for hope for those suffering from mental illnesses.

Psychologist Kenneth Pargament (2007) defines spirituality as the "search for the sacred." He states: "For many people, the sacred is equivalent to higher powers or divine beings. Others think of the sacred in a broader sense, one that encompasses any variety of objects, from mountains, music, and marriage to vegetarianism, virtues, and visions" (p. 33). The sacred can also be seen in the self: e.g., virtues, a divine, spark, a soul. Creativity, it seems, is found in the self as well, manifested in art, music, science, etc.

Aesthetics, a word meaning "perception of the senses" (Baumgarten; cited in Viladesau, 1999) has at least three interconnected centers of interest: 1) the study of sensation and imagination and/or of "feeling," 2) the study of beauty and/or of "taste," and 3) the study of art in general and/or in the fine arts in particular. David Tracy (1989) explains that in many ways art is the closest analog to religion. It has been suggested that religion and art were united in their origins (Van der Leeuw, 1963). In the subsequent differentiation of consciousness, a large proportion of religious consciousness remained embodied in nonconceptual symbolic form (Tracy, 1989). For theologian Karl Rahner (1992), although we can attempt to "translate" from one symbolic thought-form to another, the non-literary arts can be considered autonomous ways of human self-expression.

Richard Viladesau, in Theological Aesthetics: God in Imagination, Beauty and Art (1999) posits that the aesthetic realm serves as a source for theological reflection as an expression of human "spiritual seeing" that implicitly embodies

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transcendence. In this spiritual function, I believe, the aesthetic realm can be a source of hope and healing. Theological aesthetics, for Viladesau, demonstrates three interconnected divisions: 1) discerning the attempt to know God through a mind intrinsically tied to sensibility, 2) discerning receiving a historical revelation from God in personal and symbolic form, and 3) discerning the use of a language (including verbal, pictorial, musical, and gestural symbols and images) to embody, formulate, interpret, and communicate knowledge of God and of historical revelation. He argues that the realm of aesthetic experience can serve as a source for theology in at least two ways: 1) as a locus of explicitly religious and theological experience, expression, and discourse, and 2) as a locus of general ("secular") religious experience that is either implicitly religious or associated with the sacred.

Using examples from the lives of artists, musicians, and scientists, in the following sections I explore creativity as a form of "spiritual seeing" as posited by Viladesau. Aesthetic experience, it seems, is a means of striving towards something beyond the moment, of expressing deep emotion, and of exploring spiritual questions such as the meaning of suffering. I begin with American artists, followed by examples from other cultures and time periods. In this light, I also investigate a healing role for creativity. In particular, I examine how artists' understanding of self is negotiated through music, painting, science, and dance. Before proceeding, however, it is helpful to gain some understanding of identity construction and its relationship to self concept. For this task I turn to the work of psychologist Margaret Mahler.