The Art of Believing

This Sunday, April 24, I will begin a series of lessons entitled, “Life as Art.” I was inspired, in part, by a video I discovered on The Work of the People website. It is an interview with author, entrepreneur and thought leader, Erwin Raphael McManus. After viewing the video, I downloaded one of his books, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life Into A Work Of Art, and have been perusing it since. Even though the book is written from a traditional Christian perspective, I highly recommend it.

In his book, McManus asserts that each of us is born with what he calls an “artisan soul.” His belief is, that because we are created in the image and likeness of the Creator, that each of us is here to create. He says,

“To create is to be human. To create is to fulfill our divine intention. To create is to reflect the image of God. To create is an act of worship. So, who is an artist? Anyone who has a soul. What the qualifications for being an artist? You guessed it – having a soul.”

“The soul is that part of us that longs for and connects with the transcendent. Our soul is the space that contains the universe within us. The soul is the creative space from which humans create the future. The soul is the essence of being human.”

McManus further states that “we will never create anything more powerful or significant than our own lives.”

As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.”

Your soul is God’s work of art. What you do with it is your work of art. Through your expression of your artisan soul you are God’s gift to the world.

This does not mean that we will all create paintings that will hang in museums or sculptures that will be displayed in gardens. Those are certainly expressions of artisan souls, yet each of us, as unique and wondrous creations of the master Creator, is here to express in our own way. Your gift to the world may be through sharing acts of compassion and kindness, caring for the environment, facilitating learning, or giving in a multitude of other ways that God, the Creative Life Force, may express as you.

In order to create our life as a work of art, we must begin by practicing “The Art of Believing,” which is the title of my lesson this Sunday.  Dictionary.com defines ‘believe’ as “to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.” We must begin by having confidence in the Truth of the existence of our artisan soul even though we do not have empirical evidence of it. This is also a definition of ‘faith.’ Without belief or faith in ourselves as creative beings created in the image and likeness of our Creator, we limit ourselves from the get-go. Additionally, we must believe that we enjoy eternal unity in God, our Source, and that what we share from our artisan soul is God’s gift to the world through us.  The master teacher Jesus said, “All things are possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23). When we believe on God and in ourselves as God’s masterpiece, we can create our life as a work of art that reflects the Creative Life Force that is God expressing as each of us.

Practicing the “Art of Believing” also requires us to have confidence in our innate abilities, also known as our 12 Powers¹.  As we develop and use these powers we have the tools to make our life a work of art. Believing in and employing our God-endowed abilities are means of bringing the invisible nature of our artisan soul into visibility.

I am excited about the way in which this series is revealing itself to me, and I look forward to sharing it with you. Over the course of the next six weeks, we will explore what it means for us to create our lives as works of art through topics beginning with “The Art of Believing,” and continuing with “The Art of Imagining,” “The Art of Allowing,” “The Art of Aligning,” “The Art of Remembering,” and “The Art of Becoming.”

I hope you will join us for this journey into the power of creating “Life as Art.” I trust that we can support each other in awakening to and expressing our divine artisan souls.

¹ The Twelve Powers of Man