Kevin Stilley

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June 10, 2012 by kevinstilley

Creativity – select quotes

Creativity is a God-given ability to take something ordinary and make it into something special. It is an openness to doing old things in new ways…. The creative spirit is part of our heritage as children of the One wo created all things. And nurturing our creativity is part of our responsibility as stewards of God’s good gifts.
~ Emilie Barnes, in The Spirit of Loveliness

There are educationists (as jargon has it) who think that creativity itself can be taught, and who write learned, and frequently dull, treatises on methods of teaching it.  It is rather as though they were trying to eat air, with the usual result.  The creative impulse, like love, can be killed, but it cannot be taught.  What a teacher or librarian or parent can do, in working with children, is to give the flame enough oxygen so that it can burn.  As far as I’m concerned, this providing of oxygen is one of the noblest of all vocations.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, in  A Circle of Quiet (NY: Harper, 1972), pages 45-46

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
~ George Lois

When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone . . . say, traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come I know not nor can I force them.
~ Mozart

Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at television. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.
~ Carl Sandburg

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: creativity, imagination, pedagogy, teaching

June 12, 2011 by kevinstilley

Curiosity – select quotes

Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour of his great adventure down to the day when he shall no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies without a question in his heart, what excuse is there for his continuance.
~ Frank Moore Colby

A faith without curiosity is like a seed that does not grow. Indifference is farther from faith than doubt or rebellion.
~ Peter Kreeft

Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
~ Eugene S. Wilson

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: creativity, Curiosity, Education, imagination, investigation

October 8, 2009 by kevinstilley

Thomas Edison – Select Quotes

When a man dies, if he can pass enthusiasm along to his children, he has left them an estate of incalculable value.

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Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: creativity, Invention, Quotes, Thomas Edison

April 19, 2009 by kevinstilley

Mental Health Certificate

creativity-mental-health

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The following comes from Madeleine L’Engle, in  A Circle of Quiet (NY: Harper, 1972), page 54:

That night during a wakeful period I thought about all the people in history, literature, art, whom I most admire:  Mozart, Shakespeare, Homer, El Greco, St. John, Chekhov, Gregory of Nyssa, Dostoevsky, Emily Bronte:  not one of them would qualify for a mental-health certificate.  It’s been a small game with me this summer to ask, “Do you know anybody you really admire, who has really been important to the world in a creative way, who would qualify for a mental-health certificate?”  So far nobody has come up with one.

I took L’Engle’s challenge.  And, my list is pretty short…

Other than Jesus, me and you, I don’t know who else would qualify to appear on the list.  And, I ‘m not that sure about you.

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July 14, 2008 by kevinstilley

New Denomination – Church of the Legos

In the beginning was the Legos. The Reverend Stuart Dornfeld built a lego model of his Emanuel Lutheran church out of Legos. More than 12,000 of the plastic blocks and 72 hours of work went into the mini-version of the Brandon, Wisconsin, house of worship.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Blog, Church History, creativity, hobbies, legos, Lutheran

May 21, 2008 by kevinstilley

When Did You Become a Writer?

Gabriel the writer

Click on image

Over the last few weeks I have had several conversations with people about becoming a writer. Well, not so much about becoming a writer as thinking of oneself as a writer. Many of you are writers, so I ask you, “When did you begin to think of yourself as a writer? When did writer become part of your self-description?”

For me the transition to thinking of myself as a writer took place in by early teen years. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: author, Blog, Books, Cardin, church, creativity, encouragement, identity, Picher, Reading, Stories, teachers, Tom Huff, writer, Writing

March 18, 2008 by kevinstilley

Another Use For Duct Tape

Astronauts used duct tape, a towel and a wash cloth to make repairs to a component under floor panels on the space shuttle where moisture was accumulating.

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