An important aspect to the feminine character is our need to create. All people have the impulse to participate in God's creative work, but women desire not just to make something new but to make something beautiful. Throughout the ages, women have put their talents to good use in making clothes, accessories, and objects for the home. Now, however, we see a crisis in which shopping rather than crafting is the default expression of our urge for loveliness. There are entire stores built on this principle alone: it would never occur to men to shop here!
Nevertheless, along with men, we do want the satisfaction of making something with our own hands, of producing out of a lesser form something greater and more perfect. And it's not simply our desire but our duty that we carry this out. This doesn't mean that anything we make must be solely ornamental, nor does it mean that all women are called to be exceptional seamstresses, knitters, painters, upholsterers, sculpters, embroiderers, beaders, spinners, crocheters, quilters, pastry chefs, decoupagers, paper mache artists, typographers, and jewelry-makers. That list is as exhausting as it is exhaustive. It does mean, however, that as women we should fulfill our desire for realizing beauty by exploring a creative outlet: we all have the ability to do this, and the only thing that prevents us is a lack of proper motivation.
For instance, as of this moment, I can type, I can organize, I can put on jewelry--and that's about it. I see my friends envisioning, designing, and executing the most lovely and important work for themselves and each other, and I have no place in it. I want to recapture that ability to see and to make, to give something I myself made; and, recognizing this want, I will proceed in that direction.
3 comments:
And that is so hard to do once one is in the working world! I was thinking that maybe a good compromise, since so few of us have time to explore our creative outlets anymore, is to remember that we can make our own creative outlets by changing our perspective. Beauty can be found everywhere, especially in a job well done, or in a harmonious social gathering.
Off-topic, but perhaps an appropriate question for this blog is why do many girls and women have a strange connection with horses? Any thoughts?
That's a great attitude (about beauty) to cultivate. Yet, I think there's something a bit different about an actual, physical creation. Especially in this virtual world of ours, we do need to create something "real." You're right that it can be simpler than a wedding dress, though: even a well-prepared, well-presented meal is a work of art if made in that spirit. Nevertheless, true art takes time. Now, granted the truest realities are spiritual realities, but we are also material creatures and as such have to allow ourselves to expand in that direction as well, to impart some of the order in our souls to the stuff around us.
As for your horse question, I leave that to one more qualified than myself to discuss. :-)
Great point about creating vs. shopping. I wander through stores like the Paper Source, and although the pretty things I see there do charm and delight me, I can't bring myself to buy them. "I could make that," is all I can think, and then I just can't justify spending money on it. (Of course, I never DO make it... time is always lacking, or motivation in the random periods of quiet.)
Is this just one more way in which we've sold our collective soul to capitalism?
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