Chicago's Fiery Southside Priest

A caucasian man walks into an African-American church. It sounds like the beginning of a bad, potentially insensitive joke. Yet, this man is a welcome presence every Sunday morning. He is Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Parish, the largest African-American Catholic Church in Chicago. This charismatic, Southside priest has drawn national attention and controversy for his strong social activism including campaigns against drug-sale, gang activity, and gun violence in St. Sabina’s Auburn Gersham neighborhood.

Michael Pfleger graduated from Loyola University Chicago, completed his seminary studies at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, and received postgraduate degrees from Mundelein College and the Catholic Theological Union. He was ordained in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1975. And, in 1981, when Fr. Pfleger was just 31, Fr. Pfleger became the youngest pastor of St. Sabina’s parish. Since then, Fr. Pfleger has remained a powerhouse in the African-American community, delivering fiery hour-long sermons in the style of black preaching that many Roman Catholics would find uncommon, leading peace marches across Chicago, and most recently taking to twitter to protest President Trump’s inaccurate statements about Chicago’s violence. A figure beloved by more than just his own community, Pfleger has won many awards including the ‘Distinguished Service Award’ from the Nation of Islam, the ‘Rosa Parks Award’ from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the ‘Thurgood Marshall Award’ from the National Black Prosecutors Association. He has ongoing (albeit controversial) relationships with President Barack Obama and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

As this blog is dedicated to creatives and their creative products, we have to look at Fr. Pfleger’s creative “product.” Unlike an artist or inventor, Fr. Pfleger’s achievements are not tied to specific, tangible products. Instead, his creativity is found in the community of St. Sabina’s parish. As mentioned, Fr. Pfleger has adapted his style of preaching from a typical four to eight minute homily to fifty to ninety minute sermons every Sunday in order to appeal to his community. Liturgies at the parish also move away from common Roman Catholic Eucharistic celebrations to include a large band, a full gospel choir, and a stronger emphasis on praise and worship. Moreover, as pastor of St. Sabina, he adapted the interior of the large church to fit to the African American community, with a large altar in the shape of an African drum, black depictions of Mary and Joseph, and a large portrait of Jesus as a black man in the sanctuary. Apart from these innovations to the liturgy and architecture of St. Sabina’s, Fr. Pfleger has also mobilized the parish to become a safe cultural hub in the city. He founded the parish’s Employment Resource Center, the Ark Youth Center, Saint Sabina Social Service Center, and the Samaritan House for the Homeless. He has also put the parish in the national spotlight, with figures such as Chance the Rapper, Common, and other African-American celebrities drawn to the church’s explicit support of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Fr. Pfleger embodies the principle of Satyagraha, a movement started by Gandhi during his activism in India. Gardner describes this principle as active, nonviolent resistance to unjust laws. It loosely translates to “insistence on justice.” As a controversial social activist, Fr. Pfleger has been arrested and threatened multiple occasions for his nonviolent protest of injustice in his community. He has also withstood official suspension from the Archdiocese and controversy for his support of Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Campaign. Despite these obstacles, Fr. Pfleger remains committed to justice just as Gandhi was. He promotes peaceful, active resistance to tyranny and violence and has mobilized his community to reach out to prostitutes, report gang violence, inspect local stores for poor conditions, and advocate for stronger gun control. Fr. Pfleger embodies the same kind of creativity that inspired Gandhi to lead his country out of oppression.

Watch Fr. Pfleger talking about Chicago's gun violence recently on CNN:

Watch a short video explaining more about Fr. Pfleger and the Faith Community of Saint Sabina:

Sources:

http://saintsabina.org/about-us/our-pastors/senior-pastor-rev-michael-pfleger/rev-pfleger-s-biography.html

http://saintsabina.org/about-us/history.html

https://books.google.com/books?id=H4IdUGr9CdYC&lpg=PP1&dq=radical%20disciple%20the%20story%20of%20father%20pfleger%20ebook&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false

nayyirah waheed: A new kind of poet

Nayyirah Waheed represents a new kind of poet-a poet who can break the rules, and succeed in her rebellion because she broke them. Waheed remarked that "I was attacked. publicly. and privately. the style of the work was mimicked and rejected. the work was shunned in the traditional literary world." Waheed abandons traditional punctuation, publishing companies, and even book format in order to shape the writing she thought was needed. Without any mainstream support, her debut book of poems Salt has become a worldwide bestseller read on six continents, and taught in schools around the world alongside peers far older than her. How? Let's take a look at her work.

Immigrant, if you've noticed, is a very brief poem. It is one of dozens in her book. Yet, it communicates volumes-the vivid imagery and emotion here is more visceral and subtle than a hundred pages in a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul. The poem plays on the feeling of marginalization, summing up years of emotions in three short lines.

Travyon Martin unambiguously addressees the murder of Travyon Martin, but Waheed provides no context for her poem. Waheed explores a sentiment of pain, fear, and oppression without even a question mark. She doesn't answer her own question, or even pose it as a question with the proper punctuation mark of a "?".

In Gardner's novel Creating Minds, Howard Gardner explores the past of T.S. Eliot as the seminal poet of his time, remarking on his art as an extension of "a feeling of marginality and the capacity to exploit the marginality in the service of one's life mission." Nearly a hundred years later, Nayyirah Waheed echoes this sentiment in her statement regarding the publication of her seminal work Salt: "I wrote centrally to. and. for people of color." In an interview, Nayyirah replied to the question "What do you think of writers like Maya Angelou; constantly have “black” attached to them. Instead of just referring to them as a poet or writer, they’re called “black writer” or “black poet," with "For me, I think that’s a beautiful thing. It may not be why people say it, but it’s beautiful to me. I want black to be attached to me in everything I do. It may be being used as a weapon, an insult, a stabbing divisive instrument, but I receive it in a way that strengthens, affirms, and nurtures me…that feeds me." Nayyirah, like Eliot, draws strength from her marginalized background, and pours it into her writing.

In Andreasan's work Secrets of the Creative Brain, Andreasan states that a reoccurring theme with talented creatives is

"Creative people tend to be very persistent, even when confronted with skepticism or rejection. Asked what it takes to be a successful scientist, one replied: 'Perseverance … In order to have that freedom to find things out, you have to have perseverance … The grant doesn’t get funded, and the next day you get up, and you put the next foot in front, and you keep putting your foot in front … I still take things personally. I don’t get a grant, and … I’m upset for days. And then I sit down and I write the grant again.'"


Nayyirah Waheed represents the kind of artist who writes as she pleases and refuses to sacrifice the integrity of her work to be accepted by the mainstream literary world. Waheed's success relies on her loyalty to herself as an artist, and to her audience. Waheed celebrated when a high school student informed her on Twitter that Waheed's books Nejma and Salt were being taught in high school English class alongside Tony Morrison, Junot Diaz, and others.

Waheed is only getting started as a creative, but she's already taking the literary world by storm.

https://ezibota.com/nayyirah-waheed/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtNqOfWVYAIwGM3.jpg:large
Andreasen - Secrets of the Creative Brain - The Atlantic.pdf
Creating Minds-An Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi by Gardner.

The Magical Creativity of J.K. Rowling

After reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as a child, I was hooked. I knew I would always be a massive fan of J.K. Rowling and the magical world she created. I have reread the whole series countless times over the years, and every time I read the series, I am left with one question. How did J.K. Rowling come up with such an incredible story? Her story and creativity never cease to amaze me.

            As a child, J.K. Rowling always wanted to be a writer. She attended Exeter University and studied languages to please her parents who thought studying English was useless. However, she eventually switched to studying classics. In 1990, she came up with the idea for the book series while on a train from Manchester to London, for four hours without a pen to write anything down. Prior to publishing the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling was a single mother in Scotland living on welfare. She spent her days caring for her daughter and writing her first book. After being rejected by 12 publishers, Bloomsbury agreed to publish Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1996. The first novel was published as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by Scholastic in America in 1997. Her name is Joanne Rowling, but she writes under the name J.K. Rowling to attract a male audience as well as female. She went on to write six more novels for the series, and the seventh and final book was released in July 2007. All seven novels were adapted in to films, and J.K. Rowling’s success with the series made her Britain’s 13^th wealthiest woman. Most recently, she was a screenwriter for the 2016 movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The film is not a sequel or prequel to the Harry Potter series but an extension of it. Even an eighth story was released in the form of a play entitled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This shows the long lasting legacy of J.K. Rowling’s creativity.

Plot Outline for Order of the Phoenix

           Looking at Rowling’s creative writing process, she wrote plot outlines for all the chapters of Harry Potter on paper.  While writing the first book, she wrote the rules of the magical world she was creating and what the characters can and cannot do. J.K. Rowling did not write with an audience in mind; she wrote the story she wanted to tell.  She drew much of her inspiration from her childhood, family, and experiences. She wrote a series of rabbit stories when she was six years old and she knew she wanted to be a writer. Shortly after she began writing Harry Potter, her mother passed away from multiple sclerosis. When speaking about the effect her death had on Rowling’s new novel she said, “Her death is on virtually every other page of the Harry Potter books. At least half of Harry’s journey is a journey to deal with death in its many forms, what it does to the living and what it means to die. What survives death? Its there on every single page” (1). The emotions she portrays in her characters come from her own experience; she creates new ideas for this imaginary world from “existing categories and concepts” (Ward, 157). Another influence in her creative process was her failures. While writing Harry Potter, JK Rowling was dealing with her failed marriage and depression. In her Harvard Commencement speech in 2008, she discussed the benefits of failure and how she never would have achieved such great success without all the failures in her life. This thought is similar to the reading by Lehrer, which discusses the importance of failure in science and learning from it. Without her failures and rejection, the world may never have come to know the magical world of Harry Potter and Hogwarts.   

Sources:

1. http://www.oprahmag.co.za/live-your-best-life/self-development/oprah-talks-to-jk-rowling

2. http://www.biography.com/people/jk-rowling-40998

3. http://www.biographyonline.net/writers/j_k_rowling.html

4. Ward, Thomas B. "What's Old About New Ideas?" 157-78. Print.

Lady Gaga—she’s not an overrated pop star, I swear.

The entertainment factor—how many talented singers, songwriters, and performers achieve fame and sold out arena tours. Pop stars come and go, but the truly creative ones leave behind work that lasts a lifetime.  With that being said, I can guarantee you’ll never forget the hook of “Bad Romance” as long as you live.

Lady Gaga popped up on our radars back in 2008 with her first single “Just Dance.” It was a catchy tune that the lady herself wrote in about ten minutes. Ten. Minutes. She wrote many of her biggest hits in about that short timespan—Poker Face, Born This Way, etc.  Is that lyrical genius? Writing songs that everyone still sings along to (whether they like it or not) in only ten minutes is quite the feat.

Genius is characterized by “three manifestations of phenomenal achievement: outstanding creativity, exceptional leadership, and prodigious performance,” (Simonton). It’s difficult to argue that a pop song is outstandingly creative just because it’s catchy, or that Gaga has paved the way as a leader in her field more so than any other pop star (i.e. Madonna). But in terms of prodigy, the ten-minute songwriting at age 22 could earn her that title.

I chose to write about Gaga not just because she can write the next earworm in the blink of an eye, but because of her most recent projects. Lady Gaga is known for her pop stardom, but she has also proven her talent in the realms of jazz music and acting. She is truly a jack-of-all-trades. Her latest album, Joanne, takes a whole new turn, drawing inspiration from country and blues music, while unraveling a narrative centered on her aunt, Joanne. It tells the story of a family member she never knew, but whose artistic spirit and familial impact shaped Gaga’s own creative journey. It is by far Gaga’s most raw, real, and personal album to date, and while it isn’t a Grammy nominated work, it is unique and standout in a line of diverse creative projects.

 I see many similarities between Gaga and Igor Stravinsky. Both pull from their roots, drawing inspiration from the old into their contemporary art. While Gaga’s recent work was based on the story of her deceased aunt, Stravinsky used Russian folklore as the basis of many of his compositions (Gardner). Additionally, both Gaga and Stravinsky immersed themselves entirely in the worlds of their creation. Gaga doesn’t just write the songs, she creates the whole concept—from the costuming to the general choreography even to the scenery of the videos and live performances. Stravinsky similarly involved himself in the choreographing and scene making of his operas (Gardner). Both artists are masters of their own art, yet they haven’t boxed themselves into just one aspect of it. They understood that there are many parts of a great performance, and they learned about each part in order to contribute to it.

All in all, I find Gaga to be one of the greatest pop artists of our generation. She is truly unique and talented, and her work becomes more and more intentional and experimental as her career soars on. As evidenced by her own words, Gaga embodies a creative soul, through and through:

“I started to understand how I could make music and perform in that way without being so watered down. I don’t have any interest in performing in [a typical, boring way]. I believe there is something in my performances that is more honest about who I am at heart.”

Wonderbag: The Slowcooker That Doesn't Require Gas or Electricity

As someone who is very interested in sustainable solutions to food security, economic stability, and environmental issues, I was blown away by this innovative, yet simple invention by Sarah Collins. It's called the Wonderbag (see how it works here). It's a slowcooker that doesn't require gas or electricity, and cooks food for up to 12 hours after it has been brought to a boil. It also acts as a portable cooler by protecting food and beverages from the heat. But WAIT! We haven't even discussed the best part. The Wonderbag is designed to empower women and communities in Africa (and now all over the world) by allowing women to spend less time 1) finding and gathering firewood for open fires and 2) cooking multiple daily meals over open fires. As a result, girls and women can spend more time at school, work, and attending to other daily tasks and life events when they don't have to carve out time for gathering firewood and cooking their meals. Additionally, by mitigating the frequency and burning time frame of open fires, the Wonderbag significantly reduces environmental and health issues, such as air pollution and smoke inhalation. 

Now, let us all collectively cheer, or have a moment of respectful silence for the mastermind behind the Wonderbag. Sarah Collins, a South Africa-based social entrepreneur, attributes her creative, inventive nature to growing up in apartheid South Africa in an entrepreneurial, politically-minded family who encouraged social solutions to inequality and other issues. 

Before inventing the Wonderbag, Collins ran her own community-based ecotourism company in Botswana, where she firsthand saw the effects of minimal access to electricity and health & environmental impacts from open fires. Wanting to provide a solution to this, she remembered how her grandmother used to wrap her pots and pans in cushions after she took them off the stove, also known as heat-retention cooking. She expanded on this idea and eventually came up with the Wonderbag, which is made of polycotton and recycled foam. To date, more than 1 MILLION (!) Wonderbags have been sold in countries all across the world. Meet Sarah and hear her talk more about the Wonderbag here! 

Sarah's creative process was greatly influenced by her family members and family philosophy, as well as her extensive knowledge and experience about social development, particularly in various environments in Africa. Her problem-solving abilities remind me a lot of analogical thought transfer (Weisburg) and opportunistic assimilation (Smith & Ward). 

Have more questions about the Wonderbag? Check out these FAQ's!

Want to buy a Wonderbag? For every Wonderbag purchased, one is donated to families in need in Africa. Happy shopping!

Win from Within

If you've ever been to a sporting event in recent years or watched one on TV, chances are you've seen large, orange coolers on the sidelines, players drinking from green water bottles with orange lids, or even a coach get dumped with a colorful liquid after a big victory. If you haven't, well, make sure to tune in to a sporting event soon and you'll see what I'm talking about. All of these sights are tied back to one creation that goes back almost 50 years, to a drink that has revolutionized the way athletes replenish and stay hydrated and to one of the most iconic symbols in all of sports: Gatorade.

Chicago Cubs 3B Kris Bryant is "showered" with Gatorade by teammates after a victory.

It all goes back to the spring of 1965, to a nephrologist at the University of Florida, Dr. Robert Cade. Cade, who was the director of the renal and electrolyte division at the university, was asked by assistant football coach for the Gators, Dwayne Douglas, why players lost so much weight in practice and games, but urinated so little afterwards. Cade learned that players were losing so much electrolytes when they sweat, specifically sodium and potassium, that it was interrupting the body's normal chemical balance. Thus, the more the players sweat, the more they lost their energy, strength, and endurance. Together with his team of researchers, Dana Shires, Jim Free, and A.M. deQuesada, Cade began studying the issue of dehydration on the football field through experiments with players on the football team. After a couple months of testing, results showed players electrolytes were out of balance, blood sugar was low, and blood volume was low. "Each of these conditions, by itself, would to some extent incapacitate a player," Cade mentioned, "Put them all together and you can have real problems." Soon enough, they had created a drink designed to rehydrate athletes by replenishing carbohydrates (sucrose and glucose sugars) and electrolytes (sodium and potassium salts). The sugar to keep the players' blood sugar going up, but not too much that it upset their stomachs, and the salts to replace the salt they lost in sweat. However, there was one problem: the taste. In fact, the taste was so bad the first time that players had to spit it out. But thanks to the addition of lemon juice, suggested by his wife Mary, Gatorade was born.

Gator lineman Chip Hinton testing Dr. Cade's creation in 1965.

As for Dr. Cade himself, he was a man of great character and a man who used his profession to help and serve others. His continuous drive for knowledge and learning led him to becoming an award-winning medical teacher and influential scientist. However, he was much more than that, describing himself as a "physician, musician, writer, poet, and inventor." Two of his greatest passions include music and automobiles, which has culminated in a collection of over 30 violins and over 60 Studebaker carriages and automobiles. In addition, to his invention of Gatorade, Cade is also credited with the creation of the first -shock-dissipating football helmet, a high-protein milkshake used by surgical patients, athletes, and cancer patients, and an innovative way to treat autism and schizophrenia through diet modification. Cade was a master at problem solving, which was where most of his ideas and inventions were directed. Whether through convergent problem solving or divergent, Cade was able to quickly identify problems and come up with helpful solutions. His background in the Lutheran faith motivated him and inspired him in all that he did, specifically helping and serving others. His work was a reflection of his Christian beliefs and he carried these ideals and values out in the way he treated people and the friendships he developed.

Dr. Robert Cade alongside his most famous creation, Gatorade.

Today, Gatorade brings in close to $2 billion in worldwide sales annually. It can be found on the sidelines of over 70 Division 1 colleges as the official sports drink of their intercollegiate sports, in addition to being the official sports drink of the NBA, MLB, and MLS. Gatorade continues to further its research and better enhance athletes everywhere, keeping them hydrated on the field and replenished off of it. So next time you're at a sporting event or watching one on TV, be on the lookout for that orange lightning bolt logo, and remember...you win from within. 

Sources

http://www.research.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v08n1/gatorade.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/business/28cade.html

http://www.gatorade.com/company/heritage

http://nephrology.medicine.ufl.edu/education/visiting-professorships/j-robert-cade/