The exchange of love, by its very nature, draws forth creativity. Initially, this idea may lend itself to notions such as young lovers devising ways to delight in one another, for example. More tangibly, we might picture a married couple holding their newborn baby. Or perhaps we envision ourselves brainstorming ideas to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Whatever comes to mind, we can all recognize that when circumstances afford us the opportunity to witness genuine love, we often discover a kind of creativity unique to that particular relationship. This creativity occurs not by happenstance. It is, rather, the very nature of the Logos, the Word of God. In His Nature, we find our nature, as well as an invitation to participate in the creative life of the Holy Trinity.
“In the beginning,” God, through an act of sheer love, created the world and its creatures by speaking them into being through His Word. We have come to know that His Word, the Logos that is revealed in John’s Gospel, is the Second Person of the Trinity.
And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. (Jn. 1:14)
Furthermore, this exchange of love between the Father and the Son is so intense that the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, “proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration” (CCC 246).
Returning now to the story of creation, we understand that it is by the Holy Spirit that God “breathes life” into His creatures (Gen. 2:7, CCC 362). Thus, with this panoramic view, we are given a glimpse into the Love of our Triune God as the catalyst for creation. This Communion of Persons, which is Love itself, desires to share itself.
With this foundation, we begin to perceive the emergence of a pattern of Love that is akin to magma beneath the surface of a volcano. This molten lava of love has nowhere to go but out, naturally exuding itself, and ever searching for solid ground on which to create new forms of beauty. This figurative beauty is in the form of all that we see in the world that is good, true, and of course, beautiful. This is the ongoing fullness of the creativity of the Love of God, who, at the risk of belaboring the point, is a Communion of Persons. Love finds a way.
We tend to desire imitating this exchange-of-love-followed-by-creativity throughout our lives and in our relationships (CCC 257). The sacrament of marriage and the building of family life provide the most obvious and tangible examples of this. And we know, either by our own oscillation of foibles and merits, or by observing the culture in which we live, that the closer we are willing to imitate the self-giving love of the Trinity, the more we are able to enjoy and participate in the creative life of the Trinity. Pope St. John Paul II touches on this concept in one of his Theology of the Body audiences.
Man became the “image and likeness” of God not only through his humanity but also through the communion of persons that man and woman form right from the beginning. The function of the image is to reflect the one who is modeled to reproduce its own prototype. Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. He is, in fact, right “from the beginning” not only an image in which there is reflected the solitude of a Person who rules the world but also, and essentially, an image of an inscrutable divine communion of Persons. (John Paul II, General Audience, Wednesday 14 November 1979)
It is precisely this communion of persons and exchange of love that provide depth and fullness to our “creativity.” Yet when we search far and wide, we realize that wherever we experience an exchange of love, there is often a desire to uncover still further ways to manifest that love, making John Paul’s statement true (although, perhaps, to a lesser degree) even outside of the family. We work, we build, we design, we lose sleep, we exercise, we engage, we fight, we pray, we sacrifice. The exchange of love with another is a force pushing us to do great things (cue the volcano). We strive to “create,” as it were, a beautiful life with those whom we love. This holds true first within our families, then among our friends, and continuing in concentric circles like a ripple effect, outward from there.
Some of us (myself included) may have also seen what that “force” can do when it is turned inward. When we cease to imitate the Divine Love, which always explodes outward, we often make ourselves the object of a kind of false love, pointed inward. A “love” of this nature is fueled by pride, honor, ambition, vanity, selfishness, avarice, and other nefarious vices and sins. This false love does not create but destroys. It seeks to use others, rather than serve them.
Since false love does not come from God, it has a shelf life, if you will. Initial efforts made in false love may appear as good as, or oftentimes even better than, genuine efforts of real love. We may build booming businesses, have hundreds of friends, live in fancy neighborhoods with gorgeous homes, throw popular parties, host extravagant events, discover innovative solutions to common problems, write a bestseller, make guest appearances on podcasts and elsewhere. But when the moment of truth arrives, the structures implode on themselves, for they were actually hollow all along. The image of the Tower of Babel comes to mind here.
This inadvertently answers the question, then, of how to imitate Divine Love. It is impossible on our own. We must “remain” in God’s Love. He must be the endless “magma” welling up inside of us. As the Psalmist says, “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build” (Ps. 127:1).
Thus, if we finally crest the peak of our own creativity of the self, gazing out into mere oblivion on the other side, we must return to the Word of God, the Logos, referenced again in John’s Gospel. “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love” (Jn. 15:9). God alone is the Creator of all that is good. Therefore, creating lives overflowing with love, and enjoying communities abounding in goodness, truth, and beauty, is as simple as clinging to the Word of God, and all that it entails. He wants nothing more than for us to empty ourselves, allow Him to fill us with His Love, and thereby make us participants in the creative life of the Holy Trinity.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
