The Paradox of Austerity and Creativity

 Today is actually day one of the previously mentioned fast.  The biblical truth of fasting is paradoxical.  At the end of Jesus' 40-day fast he told Satan that "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." 
  A paradox is an experience where we encounter two truths teach seemingly opposite things.  The temptation you and I face is to make the mistake of choosing one truth over the other.  When we do that we lose both.  The bible is rife with paradox.  In Jesus' teachings alone, we are given numerous opportunities to embrace the power of paradox:  To live is to die; to die is to live; the first shall be last and the last shall be first;  hang on to your life and you'll lose it; lose your life and you'll find it, etc..  The idea of paradox is to resolve them but to embrace them by holding them in tension.  And the power of paradox is this:  out of the embrace comes a sustaining, truth-ful power for the next step in your journey.
  Fasting is one such paradox.  Jesus cryptically referred to this after he'd encountered the woman at the well.  When his disciples found him, late in the day, they surmised that he'd been at the well for some time and that he was no doubt hungry, since there was no food around to be eaten.  When they asked Him about his hunger he said, "I have food you don't know about."  What he was saying that there was something spiritually nourishing and satisfying, and that eating physical food could not satiate.  Later in the passage he said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me."  Maybe we are reading what amounts to a practical application of what Jesus was talking about when he said to Satan, "Man shall not live by bread alone. . . ."
  In the grace of fasting food temporarily set aside one of the legitimate appetites God gave humanity, and we experience a type of austerity: we really physically hunger.  Paradoxically, though, we experience an increasing desire and appetite for God.  It's roughly analogous to what happens when people lose their sight or their hearing.  Somehow their bodies often compensate by increasing another of the senses still intact.
  The Cappadocian Fathers lived in the mid-300's AD in what we now understand to be Turkey.  Two of the 'Fathers' were actually brothers; Basil(the Great) and Gregory of Nyssa had a friend who rounded out the trio, Gregory of Nazianzus.  These three mighty scholars are credited with bringing significant advances to Christian theology, particularly in the area of understanding the Trinity.  Their writing and thinking can be detected in the document we know today as the Nicene Creed.
  While I would love to offer a few juicy quotes to tantalize your Trinitarian imagination, I would digress and miss the point of this brief meditation.  The significance of their mention has to do with  where they did their studies and writings.  And it speaks to the paradox between austerity and creativity. 
  When contemplating the notion of creativity, writers and thinkers might be tempted to surround themselves with beautiful scenery and splendor, and assume thereby that the beauty of the their surroundings will invariably stimulate their inner creativity.  As a writer I might think the BEST place for me to get my creative juices flowing would be at a house in Malibu, sitting in the sun room that has a direct view of the Pacific Ocean.  Or, maybe if I lived in Colorado, I'd imagine my creative mojo getting stirred up in a mountain cabin that overlooks the valley floor or a magnificent mountain meadow.
  When scholars consider the brilliance of the writings of the 3 Cappadocian fathers, they postulate that the geographical austerity-the lack of beauty in the landscape, was what contributed to their creativity.  Look up some pictures on Google of the area of Cappadocia, and you'll see images of landscapes that remind one of the American Badlands in Montana and South Dakota - bleak, barren, and unattractive.  In other words, they had nothing visually to stimulate their creativity.  Scholars believe that it was precisely the austerity of the place that enhanced their creativity and prodigiousness.  Just like going without  physical food increases your hunger for spiritual food, and just like the human body that compensates for the lack of a certain sense by increasing sensitivity in other areas, geographical austerity directly contributed to the Cappadocian Fathers' creativity. 
 There is a definite paradoxical relationship of austerity to creativity.