Finding Peace Through Creativity

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe and Adam continue their series on cultivating peace by exploring an unexpected path: creativity. What if creativity isn’t about being “good” at art, but about reconnecting with ourselves, one another, and God?

From knitting and cooking to gardening, writing, music, and even unexpected creative outlets born from grief, this conversation explores how creating can help us process anxiety, tell ourselves the truth, and find peace in difficult seasons.

Together they reflect on creativity as part of our identity as people made in the image of a Creator God, and how creating for the sake of creating can become an act of healing, prayer, and connection.

In this episode:

• Finding peace through creativity and expression
• Why creativity isn’t just for artists
• Creativity, grief, and reconnecting with ourselves
• What it means to be co-creators with God
• Cultivating peace within so we can offer it to the world

How do you create? And how might creativity become a path toward peace in your own life?

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, some of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

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Bishop DeDe (00:02.555)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast. We're gonna speak of faith. We're gonna talk about the things that matter most to us, especially in this time when so much matters. My name is Dee Dee Duncan Probee. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York, Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica to Elmira, and all the spaces and people in between. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger and today's conversation, we've been talking a bit about cultivating peace.

We talked about, we've had a couple of podcasts now about this. Today's conversation, I want to shift just a bit. want to pick up kind of where we left off last time and move forward with how in our own lives we can cultivate peace by speaking of faith. Kind of a thing that sometimes seems like you can't do it because often speaking of faith creates tension. And so how do we do this as people of faith when integrity and leading towards peacefulness?

one of the things that in the last podcast I want to make clear is for us to know peace, have to tell ourselves the truth. we cannot have peace if we try to fake it till we make it really, or that's a kind of temporary piece. We, we're not talking about a peacefulness that's just numbing or ignoring or forgetting or looking past or obfuscating. We're talking about peace that is, is, is genuine, authentic peacefulness.

in the face of complexity, challenge or brokenness. And so when we think of peacefulness, I always think of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, especially really the time when they're out on the lake and the storm and Jesus is asleep in the boat and the peacefulness of being in the midst of a storm and yet still finding rest and recovery.

And so wherever you are in your journey, whatever your faith may be, you're welcome to this podcast as we speak about our faith and especially most particularly talk about cultivating peace within us. So to think about starting with truthfulness and, know, and acknowledging that things are, are, challenging for us or that we are not feeling peaceful. As we talked about last time, doing the things that draw, draw us more closely to peace, whether it's praying.

Bishop DeDe (02:24.057)
or reading scripture, listening to music. But for today, I want to talk about how we might cultivate peace through creativity. We don't often think of this as a place to go. We kind of think that when we're peaceful, then we'll be creative. And yet we know historically that a lot of our most prolific creators of art have been people who were not peaceful or struggling or.

challenged or and using the art as an outlet for those struggles and as a way of connecting to the deeper truths and meanings of our lives. Those things that are expansive or move us beyond our temporal being. And so I wonder for you, when you think about utilizing creativity to draw you more closely to peacefulness, what might that look like for you?

If you're someone who's a knitter or someone who does hand crafts, it may be engaging in those. And I have a number of friends who knit and often when they're stressed, their favorite thing to do is to sit and knit because it gives their hands something to do. it's a way of, and it sort of is a focused way of sort of getting all that anxiety out. But then as they knit, it slows them down, helps them focus on one thing at a time and draws them more closely into creating.

rather than the divisions in our midst. And so I wonder for you when you're creating something, how that outlet might help you connect with your deeper feelings, but also create a space in which you can kind of work out some of your anxiety by painting about it or making a, throwing a pot or writing a poem or gardening or, you know, creating a dinner for a family in need.

with so much division and especially food instability around us. The cooks in our midst, you may not think of cooking right off as an artistic endeavor, and yet it is. You can really taste in food when someone has created something out of love and out of willingness of generosity. This coming weekend, we're having an event in the diocese and with our partner diocese.

Bishop DeDe (04:44.325)
Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran, Diocese of Albany and Rochester and others, we're coming together to hear Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer talk about planting and about the climate and justice and food justice and living in harmony with nature. Whenever we find ourselves connecting with something greater than ourselves, that can help us find peacefulness because it takes us out of ourselves.

All of us know that churning that can happen where we've gotten really worried about the test or the job or the relationship or the status of the world. And we get kind of spun up and we can feel so isolated. And so in this time, it is not surprising that there is so much acrimony because that, anxiety can lead to isolation. And with creativity, we're reconnecting ourselves.

We're reconnecting ourselves to our innermost being, to the depth of our soul. We're creating to, we're connecting to the creator of all that is. Part of our being created in God's image is that we are co-creators with God. We are built, we are genetically modified to create things. And when idle hands are the devil's workshop, as my grandmother would say, is true.

I mean, when we're left to our own devices, we'll just create disharmony because it's easier. But to stop ourselves and to utilize our skills and pray to read scripture, to connect, to meditate, and then to create, to actually produce something instead of keeping all of those emotions inside to allow them a place to go that is productive and helpful.

not only to ourselves, but to others. I know people who regularly every week will bake a cake or a loaf of bread and take it to someone as an offering or as a way of encouraging a person, or people who knit scarves and pass them out, or our parishes that have prayer shawls or prayer blankets that they knit and then take to people in need so that the person can put it around them and...

Bishop DeDe (07:08.707)
and feel the prayers of the community and also pray with God. And so when we feel helpless, when we feel disconnected from our souls, we feel a lack of peace. And when we feel reconnected and then especially connected with others, even though it won't change or may not change the situation, it changes how we feel about the situation.

Because instead of being tossed to and fro as scripture would tell us, we have that sure foundation of being connected with our creator in creating. And so to think about how you might be a creator, what does creativity mean in your life? How might you utilize your ability to create, to produce, to contribute, to be part of something bigger, to not only bring peacefulness to you and your inner life,

but to have it be an offering to the world around us. And so I invite you Adam into this conversation. I want to broaden our understanding of creativity because often we think of it as drawing, painting, art, writing songs, poetry, which it certainly is. And those are really important, valuable ways of creating, especially maybe if we're not, we don't really think we're very good at it or it's not really our go-to.

but to allow ourselves to just create for the purpose of engaging with our creative natures. So I welcome you to the conversation and what's sparking for you in this.

Adam Eichelberger (08:48.334)
Absolutely. It's interesting that we talk about this. Recently, my family and I have gone through a really hard time experiencing a loss with somebody that I was in particular, very close to. And I felt so out of out of sorts with all this, you know, like I was finding zero peace in all this. I'm like, I wasn't doing well taking care of myself. And I was obviously upset and mourning and grieving and

Bishop DeDe (09:04.09)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (09:14.858)
you brought up this idea of using this as a way to find peace, using creativity. And the reason I brought this up is on my phone, this person was somebody I talked to all the time. You we called all the time, FaceTime, and we texted a bunch. And one of the things that happened is I realized in that text message thread with him, all of a sudden, for us, we're iPhone users, you know, there's blue bubbles.

And all of a sudden the conversation got to just blue bubbles as he started to, as his health started to get worse and worse and he was able to communicate with me less. And it was really hard for me to see that. And we got back home and we started settling into life and trying to be normal again. Normal I use in air quotes. And I realized like I missed being able to text him, but his spouse, I didn't want her to have to worry about

Bishop DeDe (09:41.035)
huh.

Adam Eichelberger (10:09.836)
me texting his phone. So I have a background in tech and in coding. And so I built an app that was just for me that is a place that looks, it mimics what an iMessage would look like, but it doesn't store any of the things that I say. There's no AI generated responses because I feel like that would be wildly unethical for me to create an AI that's talking as my friend. And it serves as a journal. So there's this little

Bishop DeDe (10:32.731)
Ha

Adam Eichelberger (10:39.662)
prompt that I get during the day or whenever I feel like it, and I can go in and I could say something to him or I could share with him something that happened during the day or how I'm feeling or just saying I miss you and like not being cruel and texting his phone and having his wife see those messages. And for me, that was my creative outlet in this time of grieving. And the only reason I bring this up is I had the thought as many people

who may be a little neurodivergent like me do, like, maybe I can make this for other people. And it started shifting from a creative outlet into almost like work, not work like we do, but a work, like something I'm doing. And my question for you is how do we avoid, especially when we're using creativity as a non-traditional way to find peace? How do we avoid?

making this something that looks and feels like work because I think for a lot of people our work we lean into our work as a strength of ours. How do we separate these things especially for those people who may be creative for a living like musicians or writers or photographers. So how do we avoid mixing these two because I feel like you're talking about something very specific when it comes to utilizing creativity or art for seeking peace.

Bishop DeDe (12:03.143)
I'm so glad you asked that question because I am trying to look at this in a different way than we might normally. We might say something like, I'm going to write a poem or I'm going to write a letter to my friend and then that's it. And those are good things. Those are, that's totally fine. But what I'm trying to sort of open the door for all of us to consider is how we might allow ourselves to be creative.

in ways that don't necessarily have an end goal in mind, that it is about the journey and not the destination to be quite literal, that we're painting or creating as an outlet to give ourselves the opportunity to speak with a different voice through a different medium. We can speak through our voices, we can speak through our writing, we can speak through our painting, we can speak through our gardening, we can speak through our walking or our hiking or doing things in a new way.

and to allow ourselves a wider way of expressing creativity with the intent to be creative, not creating a thing necessarily. Now it may come out of what we're doing that suddenly, I've known people who started writing prayers every day, just out of their, what was on their mind, they wrote a prayer. And then the next day they'd write another prayer. And then at the end of the year, they look back and say, you know, maybe,

these prayers have meaning for me, maybe they have meanings for other people, but I'm not writing the prayer for other people, I'm writing the prayer to express what my heart needs to express, so I can have a creative outlet to hear myself. A friend of mine was an art therapist with children, and she would always look at artwork and say,

What is the message here, which we do with our artwork, but in a more personal way than I had seen before. And it started my family on a journey where we do this to this day at the end of the year around New Year's day, we'll all sit down together around a table and we'll draw a picture of the year that was. We'll draw a picture that has elements of the year, just things that happened or things that were memorable, how we want to mark the year that was.

Bishop DeDe (14:27.065)
And then we'll talk about those pictures together. And often we'll do this where we take a break and have lunch and then we'll talk about it. So then we draw a picture of our hope for the year to come. And every time we've done this, I've been fascinated by this because when you look at the picture and you start looking at the relationships between what we've drawn and what our hopes are and what it starts revealing a different story than you thought you were drawing, it starts revealing fears or

or hopes or anxieties. suddenly in looking at the picture, you become aware of what may be happening below the surface. We are masters of subjugation, whether it's subjugating other people, sadly, and tragically with real oppression or racism, which is not positive at all, or subjugating how we really feel. We pretend, well, I don't wanna say that. I'm not gonna say that. Or I'm not gonna say that.

And for some people, they rarely ever speak a word unguarded. They rarely ever just let something be expressed. so through our creativity at times, we may need to express something that we haven't really been willing to see or hear. And it may be the thing that's keeping us from the peacefulness within us. We're not willing to say how angry we are about this relationship or how

sad we are about that relationship or how absolutely ticked we are by the person at work who makes us furious. And so we try to stuff it down and press it down and press it down. And it's going to come out in some way, either snapping at the person at the store or with a loved one where we're not our best selves with them or doing things, drinking too much or not, or self harm in some way that we think is socially fine, but

It is not really so utilizing our creativity to be honest with ourselves, to tell the story to ourselves and then to utilize our creativity to reconnect ourselves with what is good and holy and right about our lives is a wonderful way to work through our need for peacefulness. And so I am opening it up in a way that probably is is new to some.

Bishop DeDe (16:52.881)
to some is something that we're very aware of. But yeah, does that answer your question?

Adam Eichelberger (16:57.775)
Yeah, it totally does. And you bring up this great point about creativity for the sake of creativity. You know, that we are that in in unifying with God in the role of creation, we are mimicking how God creates. You know, we pay attention to the story in Genesis, the first account of creation. It's not like God had

Bishop DeDe (17:05.721)
Yes.

Bishop DeDe (17:19.195)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (17:26.703)
outlined a plan to be like, this is exactly what I'm doing, right? There's no business plan. There's no meeting about it. And I know that this is probably going to brand me a heretic by certain flavors of Christians about saying like God was doing something that he wasn't planning. But at the same time, God makes things he creates. And then that's it. That's the thing that was created. There was no objective or goal in mind.

Bishop DeDe (17:28.652)
Yeah, prospectus. Right.

Adam Eichelberger (17:56.752)
So even like when I go back to what I said, I had a goal in mind of I have this thing that's gonna help me be this outlet, which has been helpful for me, but I wasn't really creating in the way that God maybe intends and like you're talking about when it comes to creation, when it comes to creating things, we're doing it for the sake of doing it. And like you mentioned, there may be an end product that could be really cool. That could be great, but that's not why we're doing it. My question as like kind of shifting from this, like going from this is,

How do people, I'm not necessarily the most creative person. I have a lot of art on me at all times because my tattoos, but I'm not an artist. Like I can't sit down and draw. My kid, he can sit down and he can draw and just get out what's in his head. And it just turns out looking awesome. And every time he does it, he gets a little bit better. I don't have that. I don't know where he got it. Not from me, clearly from God, but.

So for those who maybe struggle with the thought of being creative in the first place, and also being creative for the sake of creating without an end goal in mind, how do we, one, lean into that and really start to embrace it, especially because there's a possibility of failure or not liking what we're creating? And two, as equally importantly, how do we bring God into that process?

with us into that creative process.

Bishop DeDe (19:25.819)
Well, those are great, great questions. And again, I want to, this is that point in the podcast where we always reiterate, this is not a, I'm not here to tell you to do something. We're here to talk about this. So you're listener, you're welcome. There's a conversation we're having. but you know, I'm going to probably start with the second one. first I happen to believe that with creativity, whenever we're allowing ourselves in humility and hope, just desperation to create.

Adam Eichelberger (19:37.293)
yeah, this isn't Dear Abby. Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (19:55.729)
that it by nature is going to connect us with God as creator. That it is something that's coming, it's coming out of us because we are people with agency and with, you know, musculature and brains. So when we're creating something, that it by nature is coming out of that part of us that is wired to create. And so it is gonna connect us automatically, theologically, I would say that is part of being.

a person of faith. But I think what in your first question now, I'm starting to answer a question. Tell me again, the first question, because I think I'm answering a different question.

Adam Eichelberger (20:34.735)
Well, yeah, so you answered that second one that like it is intrinsically in and of itself related to God related to the divine because of God's creative nature, but this the first part of the question is how do we as people who may be apprehensive to be creative because we don't consider ourselves to be creative. How do we lean into that process a little bit more because it's I think the difficulty becomes like, well, I just can't throw down a piece of paper and draw because we're going to draw a stick figure and be like, well, this is garbage.

Bishop DeDe (20:48.833)
right.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Adam Eichelberger (21:02.511)
But I think that part of it is abandoning that but go ahead. I think I'm putting I think I'm jumping ahead

Bishop DeDe (21:03.205)
Well, this is, this is no, no, this is great. And, just, just so to note for the listener, I asked for the question again, part of speaking of our faith is to clarify, you know, asking it now, what, tell me again, what are we talking about? What are we on about? I think we have to bring up the word judgment here. we are not used to creating without assessing. We judge it.

Adam Eichelberger (21:26.031)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (21:32.005)
to be good or not good. We get into our sinful hubris of humans thinking that we are arbiters of all that we behold. There are times when we create something and we may not think it's great and somebody else loves it. And any artist, and especially any great artist is gonna talk about that there are times they create something and they're not crazy about it, but then other people love it. And then they're like, well, okay.

I didn't think it was wonderful, but they appreciate it. So all creativity is creative. so to allow there to be some, you know, openness to it may not be, you know, what you're like success necessarily. And that the, point of this creativity is not, is not mastery is not success. It's not any of the things that we usually attribute. This is.

why I think creativity can help us lead to peacefulness. Because what makes us, if you read any books and listener, know, sending questions or people we should read or we should share with people, if you read anything at all about what destabilizes us or makes us anxious or all, often you're gonna talk about things that have to do with pressure or measuring up or...

being judged harshly or judging ourselves harshly or not or feeling like we're good enough. All of those things are about evaluative deficits where somehow we are not enough. But when we allow ourselves to create as children with just joy and a lack of judgment and an openness to just being and being creative, not assessing whether it's good enough, but assessing whether it's true.

It engages a different part of us that is not consumed by performance anxiety. And so when I talked about drawing pictures at the end of the year and for the next year, let me assure you, I am not a drawer. I am not at all. My figures are often stick figures for those things. There are times when I labeled the stick figures so that we know what it is. I am not good at that, but there are other ways that I'm very creative, but they aren't with

Bishop DeDe (23:56.547)
necessarily that artwork. am a, I do, I am someone who cooks and I love creating in that way. Writing music or poetry, reading poetry, appreciating poetry. I love the creative side of things. But there are, we all have gifts and deficits. So it is about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to do something we may not be great at.

And that may have a greater value even than what it is we produce. When's the last time we said, you know what, I'm going to do this and I'm really terrible at it, but I'm doing it so that I can just experience what it is to not be great at something. We just don't usually do that as humans. Um, I know one person I can think of that is always doing a hobby or a skill or learning a language. And what she says is I do this because I'm not good at this and it helps me reconnect with myself.

because it engages us as a child. Imagine when you were a child, you spoke as a child and now you've become an adult. But not to quote Paul on this, but when you're a child, you do things and you don't really know a whole lot. You don't know all the things, but you're doing it because you're being and your being is larger than your doing mind. So being creative brings us peacefulness because it moves us into a different relationship with ourselves.

where it's not about mastery. It's not about, you know, whether it's good or bad in terms of, you know, our artistic ability. It's about we're allowing ourselves to just not judge ourselves for a minute and to do something that creates a space in our life for newness. And then if it is good, then we can share it with other people. And if it isn't, then we can just say, well, it was the journey, not the destination.

And I want to be clear, because this could be taken in some really negative ways. I'm not talking about creating things that harm people or creating things that express derogatory things about other people or creating art that is tearing down. I'm talking about creation that's building up. you know, allowing ourselves to be part of creativity that is an offering of growth, of building up.

Bishop DeDe (26:23.747)
Of connection. So planting a garden or cooking dinner for someone or writing poetry that it comes from a place of truth and goodness. Those things will bring us peace. Those things will even when we quote unquote fail at them because they don't meet a standard just in the sharing of it is the joy, especially like we'll say with cooking, inviting someone to cook with you.

and letting it be about just enjoying talking while you're measuring flour and all the things. That is something we often overlook because we're so purpose driven. We need time to be creative and being driven.

Adam Eichelberger (27:13.05)
Well, it's interesting that you point that out, like that art should be something that builds up, that doesn't tear down. I think that that also speaks to how, or not necessarily art, but being creative, I should say. I think that that speaks to the nature of who God is. God builds up, God doesn't tear down. You know, not to get too much into really big high-minded things, but I think that when we look at not necessarily criticism of creativity,

creativity because I think that anybody who leans into being a creative or being artistic is willing to accept critique. You know, this thing I made, like if they are making something with an end goal in mind, like how can I do better? But I think that especially self-criticism tears down art that is negative or hurtful or derogatory.

Bishop DeDe (27:49.552)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (27:59.238)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (28:04.112)
tears down and I think that maybe those things would be things that we attribute to forces that are not God. I don't know if we want to lean into using words like the devil, but maybe we can make those connections between those kinds of expressions. I don't even want to call them creative expressions because that's not really creativity. That's essentially hate.

Bishop DeDe (28:12.262)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (28:19.463)
Well, know, this is, and this we've getting close to the end of the podcast. So I happily will be saved by the bell in this, because it is difficult, you know, what is tearing down and what is building up? mean, sometimes, you know, people will take offense at something and yet it actually is expressing a truth. And so is it true? Is it right? Is it good? Dwell on these things.

There are times where art can tell a very horrible truth of torture or malevolence. And those are true things. That isn't something that needs to be suppressed. I guess the caution I had was when we want to validate that things that may harm a child or things that may harm another being or that are racist or dehumanizing to others. Those things...

are not gonna bring us peace. But the things where we tell ourselves the truth, and even the pictures we may draw that show a terrible truth, allow us to move into our humanity with a hope of building up. so I, this, you know, we can get ourselves kind of wrapped around an axle here and I wanna kind of stay in a lane, but because where evil comes from and how we're influenced,

Often the evil that's in our lives is our isolation and dehumanization from others where we want to tear down and destroy rather than to honor and build up. And so with our creativity to engage in building up and honoring truth and honoring the journey of this life may free us, the truth sets us free to live more fully into our faith.

And so when we're speaking of faith and this is, you there's this game where you, you go around and I say a word and then you build on the word. then we go around a circle of people and everybody, you know, adds onto the story and we create a story together. Some of those activities are really life-giving and can be funny and fun, but it can shift a conversation into creating something together.

Bishop DeDe (30:42.225)
That isn't meant to be the story of the century or anything. It's meant to unite us in expressing ourselves together in a positive, hopeful way. And it's creative and it's fun and it's engaging, but it also brings us together and helps us restore our connectedness with ourselves and one another. So dear friends, thank you for being part of this podcast. I encourage you, I turn the conversation over to you now to encourage you to have a conversation.

with someone you love or trust to talk about how you might engage creativity in this time to express what's your deepest feelings and to help you build up and connect more fully with yourself and one another. That in this time we find creative ways to offer compassion and mercy to the world around us and that we become part of peace builders, that we cultivate peace in our own hearts.

We cultivate peace in our homes and our lives and then offer that peace to a world that is struggling. And so be a blessing. Maybe you be blessed. look forward to speaking with you soon and let's keep the conversation going. Take good care.