The Cost and Gift of Creativity in Relationships with John and Sue Cunningham

by on September 12, 2025

We are made in the image of a wildly creative God—and that means creativity lives in each of us. Yet, while it flows freely in childhood, many of us lose touch with it as adults, buried under busyness and productivity. What would it look like to recover creativity—not just for ourselves, but within our closest relationships?

This week, Dan and Becky Allender sit down with longtime friends John and Sue Cunningham, who are both creative in their own right. John is a potter, Sue is a poet, and together they’ve discovered both the beauty and the challenges of nurturing creativity in their marriage.

Their conversation explores:

  • The vulnerable (and sometimes costly) work of encouraging creativity in one another
  • How creativity can be both communal and connecting, and also deeply individual and isolating
  • The patience, generosity, and curiosity that can support your partner’s creative passions
  • Practical ways to offer meaningful feedback and engagement without shutting each other down

Whether you write, paint, play music, garden, or simply long to bring more beauty into your life, this episode will encourage you to see creativity not only as a personal practice—but as a vital part of your relationship.

About Our Guests:

With more than 30 years of experience, Susan Cunningham has walked alongside and listened to the stories of countless women and men across the United States and around the world, helping them to discern and engage what God seems to be doing in their lives. Because of her unique background, she is an especially attentive listener and effective communicator. Her work is thoughtful and wise, Biblically and theologically informed, educational and inspiring. She is committed to providing practical guidance in the present and God’s hope for the future. A Licensed Professional Counselor for over two decades, Susan continues to work with The Allender Center, facilitating lay counselor training and women’s sexual abuse recovery. She enjoys a vibrant counseling practice, and was voted “Best of Charlottesville, Virginia” for four years in a row by the public.

Susan has two master’s degrees: one in education from the University of Southern California and one in counseling from Grace Theological Seminary. She completed her counseling internship under the direction of Dr. Larry Crabb and her mentor, Dr. Dan Allender. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Virginia, a Nationally Certified Counselor, and an Advanced Christian Life Coach. She is a member of the American Counseling Association, the American Association of Christian Counselors and the International Christian Coaching Association. Susan is a graduate of  the Selah Certificate Program in Spiritual Direction. She offers spiritual direction companionship by nurturing awareness and attentive listening to God. She is a member of and abides by the Code of Ethics of the Evangelical Spiritual Directors’ Association.

Dr. John Cunningham is associate professor of humanities at Providence. Prior to working at Providence, he spent many years as a pastor and counselor. He has a B.F.A. in art from Bowling green State University, an M.A. in Biblical counseling from Colorado Christian university, an M.A.R. in philosophical theology and philosophy of religion from Yale university, and a Ph.D. in theology, ethics, and culture from the University of Virginia. In his current role, he is passionate about students flourishing in college by opening themselves to the wonder and delight of the life of the mind and preparing themselves to live out their callings. in addition to his work at Providence, Dr. Cunningham enjoys art, making sculpture and ceramics, watching films, riding his motorcycle, and hanging out with friends. John is married to Susan, a gifted poet and counselor. They have two delightful children, Evan and Elisabeth, and a golden retriever, Bono.

Related Resources:

Listen to the Living Poetry Podcast with Susan Cunningham.

View John Cunningham’s ceramic art at cunninghamclay.com.

Hear more from John and Sue on previous Allender Center Podcast episodes:

 

Episode Transcript

Dan: A lengthy introduction is often not helpful, but I just want to warn you, this is a lengthier introduction before I introduce the esteemed guests that we have this morning. So let’s start with two premises. Number one, that we are created by a creative God and that were made in the image of God. And as a result, no one gets to say they’re not creative. Everyone is creative. Now, certainly creativity as research would indicate, is almost at a hundred percent in between the ages of two and five. But by about age seven, eight, particularly around age 10, it has dropped almost 70%. So we live in a world where creativity seems like it’s uniquely part of certain unusual people’s lives, the artists, and yet we all know that many of us don’t really feel like we are that creative or that artistic. So when we begin to have a conversation, let me tell you what we’re doing today, we’re going to have a conversation with a remarkable creative couple. In fact, I think we talked about this, Becky before that is I don’t think we have anyone that we know and have known for decades that we would actually name as so remarkably creative.

Becky: Absolutely. That is the case. John and Sue,

Dan: When we talk about John and Sue Cunningham, and I know they’re going to defer. I know. So I, I’m just setting you up John and Sue so that you don’t have to actually say anything about this. But as both of you remarkable therapists, John, you are one of the most thoughtful theologians I’ve read, particularly, again, if people want to go back almost years to our conversation about Jonathan Edwards and Von Balthasar the issue of beauty. Again, for many people that sounds a little too academic, but you are both therapists. You’re essentially both theologians, but Sue you as a remarkable and professional poet, meaning you’ve made money from your poetry. And John as a remarkable potter, professional potter, not just little avuncular and a vocation, but a real clear professional potter. You guys are some of the most creative,

Becky: Also is a, gosh, spiritual director. That is another whole set of creativity and of the heart.

Dan: So when we begin to talk about the reality of creativity, that it’s inevitable. Everyone’s creative, most people don’t think of themselves as being creative, and yet creativity is part of every marriage. So just welcome John and Sue. Did you see why it had to be a lengthy introduction?

Becky: Plus we didn’t say we met them both what, around 19 80, 86, 87, 88 88.

Sue: 88.

Becky: Yeah. There we go.

Sue: Yeah. I mean, we go back many decades and we started dating in that early year, and so being able to talk with you and be with you and start dating at that early juncture, if I would’ve thought we would be talking about creativity all these years later, I would not have believed it.

Becky: Wild. Just wild.

Dan: One of those sweet gifts. So grateful for both of you, but as we jump in, I’d love to just get your initial response to the reality of your creativity and how it plays out in your marriage.

Sue: Yeah.

John: You want to start, Sue, do you have a thought?

Sue: Well, I’ll start by saying how you were saying that people don’t necessarily think of themselves as creative, but when it really started, for me, when I was teaching elementary school and Becky, and we’ve talked about this, but there was something about being a creative teacher that was really important to me. I didn’t necessarily think I was uniquely creative or super creative, but I was like, I value this so much. And that’s really how I knew eventually that I was creative was by how much I valued it.

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re thinking of how it affects marriage. I think it’s easiest for me to see it in what happens to our marriage when I’m not doing something overtly creative. Again, I think you are absolutely right. It’s not possible not to be creative, but when we own it, embrace it, channel it, get into it, feel it. You can sense when it is. It’s different. And there was just a long stretch in our marriage where all I was doing was working. I was teaching. I was just preparing the next lesson. I loved doing that, but there was such a depletion of something that I was probably not real fun to live with, just grumpier, self-absorbed, and it was the creativity that kind of brought life back. Even though I loved the work I was doing, I was working all the time, and I didn’t have an overtly creative, I was finding ways to be creative even in that, but it’s the lack of creativity I think that, in me, that that was damaging to our marriage, I think. So that’s a backwards way of answering your question, but I think it’s really true.

Dan: Well, and I’d love to hear, John, how you came into your own sense of art, your own creativity, because both of you have unique histories like all of us, with regard to a world that likely has not supported your art, your creativity. Again, if we go back to that initial statement that by what, fourth or fifth grade, most people have lost 70% of that creative energy, and it’s heartbreaking. I’m not blaming the American system of education. I just think there are countless forces that work against the capacity to imagine, create, and to dream.

John: Yeah, I think that I had not heard those statistics that you mentioned, but they sound right and they were true I think for me, I started, somehow my parents had a vision of hiring a practicing artist for private art lessons for me when I was about seven. I was showing an art show sitting the newspaper and stuff at seven and eight. We still have a painting in our kitchen. I did when I was eight that I actually still like. It’s amazing. But it did go away. It did filter out, and you’ve got to do something that other people understand or something or value at least enough to get paid in this world. And then in college, I started out as a history major and couldn’t help it just went over to art again and got a BFA in an art degree in sculpture and ceramics. But I was thinking at the time poorly, I think, because I’m like, there’s no way to make a living with this, and what I’m going to really do is do ministry, so it doesn’t matter what my degree is. That was some pretty poor thinking at that point, but that’s how I was thinking. So I think your statistics track out for me, it’s always been there, can’t stay away from it. Even when I was doing other things, I would take some community college art classes and find ways of, even when I would teach as a professor, I would spend an inordinate amount of time graphic designing my PowerPoint slides, and people would say, you are spending too much time on this. People. Not Sue, but people are like, why are you putting six hours into this presentation? And I’m like, I don’t know. But then I realized and actually had a therapist tell me, that’s where your creativity’s going. That’s where your art’s going is graphic design. So you can’t stay away from it, I think.

Dan: Well indeed, again, we don’t need to go into the elements of your dissertation and the work that you’ve done looking at the category of beauty, but even there theologically, so much of your life and labor was shaped by that it intrigue of what captures the human heart in beauty.

John: Yeah. I just had a flash, I assume you know this, Dan, but I was in the counseling program and listening to you do lectures. I think it was in marriage and family. I don’t know how you got on a nietzschean views of aesthetics, but you did and in spades, and something lit up in me, and it was through you that the interest, my lifelong interest in beauty took wings, and then I went academic with it after that. But I kind of thought, well, I’ll figure out beauty check, and then I’m going to move on to philosophy of art. I dabble in philosophy of art, but I still haven’t got this sort of philosophy of beauty thing figured out. But I forget your question, but I just was struck by that. I remember sitting there listening to you, and it was what… something lit when you were talking about that.

Dan: I’m glowing.

Becky: Love that. I love that.

Dan: Well, and it’s the freedom to be able to go, my art has always been in the category of words. Can’t draw, can’t sing, can’t dance. When I think about creativity, it has been in the realm of language. But when you think about your creativity, my beloved, when Sue mentioned about teaching, I’m like, oh, I remember your year.. . And so intrigued by what you were creating for your students, would you have resonated with what Sue said?

Becky: When you said that, Sue? I had never put that together before. And I love that because certainly as a kindergarten teacher who, as a person that said I will never teach kindergarten, and that’s the class I got, it did, yes. But I had never heard that, and I never overlaid that with my teaching until this moment when you mentioned that as a teacher. So thank you. I had forgotten about that.

Dan: I think when I think about that, I also put words to the fact that when we think about our experience and conversation of art, creativity, it has been the interior and exterior, but the interior of our home, how Becky has created beauty in furniture, where it exists, what exists, and the things that you bring, almost like a table bears the presence of your art.

Becky: Oh my goodness.

Dan: Don’t you think that?

Becky: Well, I guess, but I love creativity, but I was safe. So I did cross-stitch reproduction samplers, which I had never seen in my life until I got into this southern PCA where Dan was working, and then also crocheting and knitting, and then needle points, see everything that was safe that I knew I would succeed at. So I still hope one day to return to painting, which my life is too busy right now, once again to paint. But I chose a safe route, and I’m just in awe of both of you for not sticking with safe routes.

Dan: Yeah. Well, and again, I just have to underscore that if you walked into where our dryer and washer is,

Becky: Yes. Yeah, the laundry room that would be called.

Dan: Oh, yeah, yeah. Somebody with words. Yeah, It’s filled with her art, filled with the paintings. It’s one of my favorite rooms to walk into when I’m just having to think about something I don’t like, particularly being near the dryer and washer. But it’s like…

Becky: Well, and that’s it, because the art teacher said, keep your beginning paintings because you’ll learn from them. I always see, oh, I did the shadow there wrong. Oh, the light was coming this way. You know what I mean? So I’m hoping one day to get my paints out again. But it’s… yeah.

Dan: I think what I’m underscoring for all of us is that creativity, even when it was as rich as it was for you, John, at that early period, is something that likely dissipates. Very few people will continue the discipline and the effort to grow creativity, but also, I think a lot of people fail to see their creativity shows up in how they make a meal, how they plate a meal, how they create beauty within their own home. So if we go back to that two core premises, one, everyone’s creative and you cannot help but create art and beauty in your world, but how often do we ponder what I want to ask you next, and that is how has it played out? How has it benefited you and your marriage? How has it challenged you as you have at least pondered something of the creativity of your marriage?

John: Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to observe that this creativity thing, it ebbs and flows, but Becky, the fact that you’re saying, oh, I want to start painting again, that Sue started doing poetry in her fifties. I hope your listeners will be like, it’s not too late. I think we get that feeling like, oh, I can’t start this now. I kind of came back to pottery again just recently with last, I don’t know, five years. You’re thinking about writing fiction. I’m thinking about writing fiction, Dan, and I’ve never done that. I don’t know where I got the wild whim I’m going to write a murder mystery. That’s insane. But just to go ahead and do it, I hope your listeners feel the freedom to say that these things come and go, and it’s never too late. I just wanted to throw that observing that all four of us have started new things that we didn’t begin with.

Dan: Well, that love of beauty, that sense of we are made in the image of God, and we cannot help but be creative because we have a creator God. So the impulse to make something better, like clean the garage, I spent four or five major days of the summer cleaning the garage. It’s not even close, but at least it required imagination/play to begin that process. So between art, but also creating beauty, it’s an important intersection. But cleaning the garage is a form of art. How you plate food is a form of art. But what I want to come back to that question of where does it cost you in your marriage? Because both of you are creative, but in very different ways. And I would say that’s true for the two of us as well.

Sue: I think that creativity is such a combination of being really solo and individual as well as being communal and vulnerable. It’s so vulnerable because in the early stages, and maybe honestly every stage, it’s kind of a mess. You don’t really know what you’re doing. And there is this sense of, I’m going to keep it very private because I’m so insecure about it. I think it’s probably dumb. It’s not going to work, et cetera. And I remember the first poetry workshop that I did, I started out saying I was in kindergarten with poetry. I didn’t know anything. And I was in this group, and all these people were accomplished, published poets, but they were so kind to me, and they helped me learn how to find my voice and how to write. And I remember at the end of every session, they would have an open mic and you could sign up and you could read your poetry. And I was like, I’m never doing that. But one day they had the signups, and I said to John, I said, I think I’m going to sign up to read a poem or two. And he’s like, yeah. And I said, no, really, I’m going to read my poems. Remember I told you I’m never going to read my poems in public? And he said, I know, but he said, art is meant to be shared. And I knew that you would do it one day. And I think that’s a good example of how John has encouraged me at the times when I needed someone to say, you can do it. You can take this risk. You can step out. And it was actually really helpful and surprising. I was like, wait, you always knew I would do this one day? And he said, yeah, I knew one day when you were ready, you would.

Becky: Oh, I love that. And I remember when you started doing that at the Allender Center at the Narrative Focused Trauma Care. I was like, I’ve known you for a while, the late eighties. Like, whoa, how in the world is Sue getting up there? And then you’d read it, and then you read it the second time. I guess that’s how you read poetry. I never knew that. You read it once and then you read it a second time. I’m like, you go girl. And was so incredible. And your poetry is so moving. It’s like a volcano in your heart that you are not only teaching us, but you’re allowing us to feel what you are instructing us to see.

Sue: Well, I love that, Becky, and again, back to you, Dan. There was no one in the world I would’ve done that for except Dan who said, are you going to read a poem? And I was like, no, I don’t think so. Yeah, I want you to. And I was like, oh, okay.

Becky: I didn’t even know that. I love that.

Dan: Well, and when I think of cost, and this is my pettiness, but it’s there when Becky says, let’s look at the living room and see if we want to move. And I’m like, the living rooms work for this decade, and it will work for another decade just as it is. And I’m like, why do you need to have change? Why do you need to have, I mean, almost every physical move of change of the creation of that interior of our world, I’ve opposed almost every one. And yet…

Becky: Correct. Yes, I do remember that as well. Yes.

Dan: And again, you would think after 10 or 20 or 30 examples where I see what she’s created and it’s better, it’s invigorating, it’s satisfying, but I just don’t want to do the work. And I think that’s been where the tension has been, at least for us, the cost has been at times I’ve opposed you creativity because of what it’s going to cost me in terms of time, effort, but even more so I don’t like change.

John: I think that is a cost. You have to get into the other person’s form of creativity. I dunno anything about poetry, and I have to listen to poem. I’ve learned a lot just from listening to him now where I’m like, I’m tired. I don’t do, she’s like, you want to hear my poem? Yeah. So there is that cost. But I think the other cost or price in our marriage is there’s something about creativity. It’s so communal. When something beautiful or aesthetic happens, you have to talk about it with someone. That’s a plus. But it’s also a very individual thing. When you’re in that creative flow, you don’t want to be bothered. You don’t want to be interrupted. You don’t want to come to dinner. I am in my studio covered with clay. It’s about seven o’clock. I should be heading back, and I’m doing more of the cooking these days. I should probably go, maybe she wants to eat dinner, but I’m like, I’m in the zone, man. So I’m calling like, Hey, do you want to just get a salad because I am cooking here. So there’s a profound separateness to it too, an individual part, and even something that can border selfishness. But because it’s uniquely, I think creativity is uniquely communal because even if you see a beautiful sunset, you have to take a picture of it and text, someone tell ’em about it. It’s connecting aesthetic things you can’t not talk about. You have to connect with somebody over them. When you experience something aesthetic or something beautiful. Not all are just beautiful, but when you have an aesthetic moment, you have to communicate and connect with somebody about it. But the making, you have to be, leave me alone. I’m in the zone. Right. Yeah.

Sue: We’ve gotten into some arguments because there’ll be a time when John is trying to talk to me and he’s saying, I’m ignoring him. You’re ignoring, I’m talking you and you’re ignoring me. And I’m like, ignoring you. I didn’t even hear you. I don’t even know that you’re here.

John: I’m like, that’s my point. Yeah,

Sue: I’m in the flow. I dunno where you came from. So there can be, there’s a lot of, I think, patience and a lot of generosity that’s required.

Becky: Absolutely. Well said. Both of you. Yeah.

Dan: Well, and the little I know about the brain with regard to this, that a lot of creativity is related to the medial prefrontal cortex, which also happens to be the portion of our brain that seems to be most operative with the word introspection. So the idea that you have to go inward, you have to tune into things that are within you. We can say effectively or internally. But there is a sense in which there is, again, a brain isolation and introspection that cuts off the normal communicational patterns. And the price of that, I think is pretty substantial. I think you’ve felt that a lot when I’m in the process of writing a book.

Becky: Yeah, definitely. So glad you pointed that out. It is so interior and it’s so singular in the process.

Dan: And oftentimes when I would come out of my cave, which Plato would’ve used as a significant metaphor, but as coming out of my cave, I could often at times when I wanted you to read, what do you think of this chapter? And I remember that the classic moment. Do you know the one?

Becky: No, I’m not…

Dan: Seriously.

Becky: Classic?

Dan: Okay, so we’re in bed… No, you go ahead. You seem to remember.

Becky: Well, I think I said something like, I’m bored with your field of study.

Dan: So she’s just read a chapter I’ve handed over.

Becky: It was the psychology side.

Dan: Whatever it was. The point was, it was that moment of

Becky: It was costly to read all those pages of every book. I’m proud of you but before it went to print…

Dan: And again, I’m not saying that it was good writing or necessarily what ended up in the book, but that sense of, I need feedback. And of course I’m, I’m open to critical input

John: After copious praise, please. Yes.

Dan: I need, as you put it, copious praise, delight, honor. It’s the child who shows their painting. And if a parent were to respond by going, well, that’s a lot of yellow. It’s like…

Sue: It’s crushing.

Dan: I need you to engage.

Becky: Think copious praise should be in every pregnancy book because I love that so much. I should have needle pointed that on our pillow.

Dan: Well, we know there’s a cost for anyone in the work of creating beauty will be opposed. And I think, again, to just name that in most marriages, that opposition probably has to do with our own sense of isolation or rejection or labor. But I also think there is always a hatred of beauty and a hatred of creativity from the kingdom of evil. And in that Satan hates the creation of goodness in any form. So to actually be able to go, we’re not just talking about our own marriage and relationship. There will be opposition, whether it be cultural and school systems that prize conformity more than individualism or our own lives in terms of we got to get a job, got to make money. And our “unique artistic way” generally is not going to make much of an income all that it comes back to then how do you grow? How have you grown creativity in one another?

Sue: Well, I think it’s really great that you are separating money from creativity, because even people who write will say, well, I’m not published, so I can’t really call myself a writer, or I haven’t sold my work, so I can’t call myself an artist. And I do think that’s a lie because it puts creativity on this level of dollars. And that’s not what it’s, because as you said, we’re image bearers. So I believe that every time you engage in creative act, whether you’re planting in your garden or playing with words or playing with paint or clay or musical notes, whatever it is, we are bringing in the kingdom of God. And so I think one of the ways that John has really encouraged me is to work at it. You said, Dan before, I don’t want to work on it. It really is work, it’s play. But I think as believers, as image bearers, it’s not like we want to just put out poor craft. It’s like we want to get better. We want to find what is more connecting. And John will be one of the first who… And this is a fine line between criticism that is just critical and helpful feedback that can say, I think your voice, I think you’ll be better heard if you go back at it. Not necessarily he doesn’t, and I don’t want him to tell me what to do, but just go back and try again. You’re on the right track, it seems like. But give it another go. And that’s a lot of trust in that. So as a couple, you need to trust. He’s, for me, and even if I think I’m done, sometimes I’ll say, here’s the poem and I’m done. And he’ll be like, well, why don’t you go back and try again. Keep going. You’re on the right track, but keep going. Yeah.

Becky: Oh, that’s so tricky. So difficult, but so loving because you know it’s from the other who sees you, and you trust. Wow. Thank you.

John: And from somebody is for you, and yeah, you’re actually begging for let me know what worked and what didn’t, because I want to know, but I want the copious praise. And then I want a couple of criticisms and I want some more copious praise and just sandwich that thing in the middle, because I do want to know. And I think we found a way to get up because you’re always so, she’s very good at copious praise, let’s put it that way. And so you can hear it. But I think the other thing that is a cost and something that we have to do for each other is spend money. And that’s always going to be a tension point in the marriage to say, yeah, you can do another poetry seminar for however that much it is. She would be like, you should go ahead and go to Italy to this workshop in Tuscany at this wonderful place where you go in with world-class artists and just make stuff. She’s like, yeah, go. There’s a lot of money. But she’s back in that, and we could have used the money elsewhere. So I think when things come, creativity, creativity, cost, cost, money too. Paint costs money, ridiculous amount for a good brush, right? At $40 for one, good paintbrush or something. So to spend money is a really tangible way, I think that we try to work out and prioritize. We’re not any good at money,

Sue: And it’s not easy. It’s trial and get back up again.

Becky: I’m so glad you brought that up, because again, that wasn’t even on the horizon of my thinking. But it’s true. There is always a cost with creativity, with beauty always. And yes, whatever the form an art form of speaking or pottery. Yes, yes. So true. And you have to be self-sacrificing actually in one area though. And that doesn’t mean you’re on a pedestal or the other person is there is sacrifice for beauty in any realm.

Dan: So a question to be asked of you, my love. So have you felt my support in your painting?

Becky: I really have. I really have. But at this season of life, you’re on the road a bit more, and I get to go with you until you slow down. I’m not going to start because you just can’t. To me, I need a little bit more expansiveness to start to continue a painting or to paint rather than a needle point project that I can take on the plane with us.

Dan: And here’s a point where any wisdom from spiritual direction or therapy you land.

Becky: I kind of opened up the Pandora’s box.

Dan: No, this is where some of the cost of, I’ve been very surprised. I love her work. We have four of her paintings of angels prominently displayed in our house, and they matter to me. It’s that question of what would you grab if you knew the house was on fire? And yeah, I’m going for my computer, but I’m then going for those four paintings. They are delightful. We made cards when we send cards to people.

Becky: Yeah, you did that. It wasn’t on my horizon.

Dan: But I think the point of frustration for me has been my encouragement for you to do more work, gets thwarted with all sorts of, perhaps I’m not entirely delegitimizing, her excuses…

Becky: Grandchildren, birthday party.

Dan: There’s always something busy time, always something. But that’s the point behind and before and underneath and above all creativity. It feels superfluous. It feels like, oh, I don’t have time for that. And you could create so much more.

Sue: It might be creating space for her to have space. I think that that is a very tender, vulnerable thing to say. What John was saying before about the lack of creativity can lead to disintegration. You might notice, and Becky, oh, it seems like you need some time and some space so that you can create, because we’ve been on the road so much.

Becky: I like that. Dan had a dream of his creative desire to have a garden, a vegetable garden. Well, guess what? Who was weeding that vegetable garden? Come on. I knew that would happen because I know this guy. So now this year we switched to flowers, which is a little bit less weeding, but still so much more beauty you can look at.

Dan: Oh my goodness. Something that I fought because we have a vegetable garden, but now we go into the garden, not every night, but often, just for even a few moments because it’s just being surrounded by beauty. And it would be a great place for you to put up.

Becky: I could have a easel out there.

Dan: Yes, you could.

Becky: Well, Dan is weeding and Becky can paint. I think that’s a great idea. Oh my gosh, I think I should make a card like that, a greeting card.

Dan: Well, but let’s just go back to the theme that is, it is hard labor to let yourself have both time and money to create. And whether that again, is a good meal versus just getting a meal done or a piece of art like you’re painting. But to know, there will always be excuses and, but again, how we counter those and how we begin to go, yeah, why don’t we, because we have a day or two left in the summer without full-fledged return. Would that be something you would be willing to set aside those days to take your easel out to the garden while I pluck weeds.

Becky: Well, now it’s a challenge. So yes.

Dan: Well, I think that’s part of the process is I don’t think that if we had have this conversation without the two of you being with us on screen and having it, I think you would’ve dismissed me to the nth degree. Well, you never would’ve thought of it. Maybe that’s also the point.

John: But the other cool thing about creativity is let’s say you’re just not painting right now. Too busy, too stressed out, and then something happens here and you get sort of bamboozled into, okay, now I got to do it. I said I was going to it on a podcast. And you do it once, and then it gets it going again though, right? Then the juices come back, then it’s not like, oh, this is something I should do. But then the light comes back, the spark, the priming of the pump. If I can mix it by 10 metaphors, it gets going again. Once it just gets going, and then it gets its own life because it is energizing. But there’s something about creativity with that, right? It can stay dormant for so long, but once it gets going, it takes off a little bit.

Becky: That’s true. Helpful.

Dan: Before we end, I do want to ask how your unique art shows itself in your marriage. Another way of saying that is, your marriage is a piece of art. How does your artistic impulse, your aesthetic engagement, your poetry, your pottery, how does it show up in your marriage?

Sue: I have been thinking about this because even though I write poetry, for example, on the natural world and my story and biblical women, most of my poetry isn’t about our marriage or about a big philosophy or anything, even my Christianity. But I like to think of my poetry is kind of like the book of Esther, where God is not named at all, and yet God is in every chapter. I feel like our marriage, the people we love, our faith is in every poem I write, but I don’t necessarily write about, I never write about John. You know what I mean? Some people do. Some people do have a lot of that, but that’s just not the way I’m inclined. But I do trust and like to believe that our marriage, the love that holds me, comes out in my creativity.

John: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s true. But I also think just in real practical ways, I think we have this word, we love enlargement. Edward used to use it. Anything that gets involved with God basically or anything beautiful, good and true, it makes you bigger. And there’s something where my level of poetry before knowing Sue was kind of roses or red violets or blue, and now actually my world has expanded because of her love of this. I read poets that I would’ve never heard of. She sees things in sculpture, in ceramics, in art, history that you picked up from…

Sue: I know nothing about pottery or clay or even art. I had no art classes. No art history. So I’ve learned so much. Yes. Been very enlarged.

John: Yeah. I have one kind of aesthetic for certain kind of pottery that’s very ugly. It’s very wabi-sabi to use the term that some people know. Very rough and brown and burnt, and it’s an acquired taste. But she can see it now and recognize it.

Sue: Now. But not for the first 25 years.

Dan: Oh, whoa. Well, in that sense that the differences create a new way of seeing, to put it in language that we often use. It’s a orientation, a way of thinking and seeing that the other’s art, creativity compels in some sense, transformation. In order for you to participate, if you want to know one another, you have to know what moves the other with regard to beauty.

John: Yeah. Just a two word summary of that from Leonardo DaVinci. He said, everything is “Saper Vedere”, it’s to know how to see. So you see things through somebody else’s eyes. You’re seeing way more. And then you know how to see something that you didn’t before, but to know how to see is everything. Yeah.

Becky: It is everything. And this is what’s on Sue’s Living podcast, Living Poetry. Sorry, podcast. It’s exactly what you do, Sue. You teach us how to see through the eyes of different poets.

Dan: Yeah. You would be in, shall we say, a loss of something good if you don’t know Sue’s podcast. And so that would be one. But also before we end, how can people see and therefore get access to pottery.

Becky: Yes.

Sue: Yes. John, talk about Bamboozle. You should, yes. Get him. Give the challenge to him to get his website.

Dan: How would people, I’m sure they don’t want to purchase, but just to be able to see vision.

Becky: That’s right. Do you have a website?

John: It’s that thing that maybe all creatives have of like, oh, I don’t have enough of my best stuff to put on the websites. I don’t tell about the website. Like you Becky, with your think of like, oh, it’s not ready to show you. I’m never going to say a poem. So there’s a little bit of that going on. But I do have a website and I’m on Instagram. I think it’s Cunningham Clay, and what’s my website? It’s cunningham clay.com. But I haven’t even updated it for ages. And that would be a point of growth for me to do that. Right. I take a look at it and always see the flaws.

Dan: So that might be part of what we can end with, is the notion that for all of us, but particularly you, Becky, and for you John, repentance is part of the creation of even greater beauty. And without repentance, without that participation in, I’m making excuses, I’m justifying not being in the realm of being able to offer or to experience failure by doing it again, scraping it, doing it again, scraping it. It’s part of the work of redemption that we’re talking about. And I think that’s a great gift that we’ve invited our two spouses to repentance.

Sue: Oh, good. And we have witnessed here bearing it and encouraging,

John: But you have to too. Which means submitting more poetry to more journals, which I’m on her pretty much daily about.

Becky: See? Tit for tat.

John: It goes around, yeah.

Dan: Thank you both. Thank you both.

John: Thank you guys. We love you.

Becky: Yeah, we love you too. This was so much fun.