God's Genius at Play

 

This week we are exploring the continuum of information to inspiration.  Yesterday, we asked the question, where are you curious?  What do you want to know more about?  Perhaps you started a list of places you’d like to travel or check out a book about or find a class.  Information is one part of the continuum, at the other end is inspiration.  Inspiration is what expands and evolves our souls.  Inspiration is the slow ripening growth of our faith toward beauty, justice, love, and God’s presence.  Often inspiration can be found in music, paintings, poems, plays, movies, and books.  Inspiration can also be found in complex problems that push our ability to solve.  Inspiration can be discovered by looking at the past, being in the present, and open to the future.  Inspiration is like the sound of grass growing, only it is our life that is inching in new directions and destinations.

When was the last time you felt inspired, felt the goosebumps race and run up and down your arms?  Wait, don’t race past that question!  When was the last time you stood speechless somewhere or tears in your eyes?  Inspiration can work hand-in-hand with information. Sometimes when we learn something new, we are moved to live, act, and talk in a different way.  But information alone does not always lead to transformation.  We see examples all around us.  We know that smoking causes lung cancer, but people still smoke.  We know that drinking too much or spending too much money or constantly surfing the internet can all be addictive/detrimental to our health ~ mentally and physically and relationally.  We know that racism and discrimination are hurting God’s beloved.  Information alone doesn’t necessarily lead to transformation or people making changes.  Often, inspiration helps with this.  We meet someone who has been sober for twenty years who offers to walk with us.  Or we encounter someone who tells us that we don’t need to spend every hour staring at a screen and shows us another way.  We form a deep friendship with people whose skin tone doesn’t match our own. Information and inspiration can play with each other and can be separately experienced.

Where do you long for inspiration?  What conditions keep you open to God’s presence?  How might you let that infuse your living.  May the God whose creativity is still at work in the world here and now inspire you to let lose your light of God’s presence today.  Amen.