Whether you consider yourself a creative person or not, I am sure you can relate to me when I say that I have a desire to live in a constant state of inspiration.
You know that feeling when you look around you and everything seems charged with life, energy or beauty. You could be anywhere - in a country field filled with flowers, or a third-world city filled with noise, colour and vibrant life, but somehow everything seems good. You could be eating dim sum in a cheap Hong Kong takeaway, and it tastes fabulous and the people look beautiful and your mind fills with ideas and enthusiasm. You could be on a South African mountain top with the wind blowing the smell of sun-dried grasses and cool snow melt streams, and you feel that it is great to be alive and that the world is benevolent.
Now, there may be some of you who wake up in the morning feeling that way, and live every day with that as your norm of experience. However, I bet you would admit to me that when you have to fill out your tax return you may just lose your enthusiasm and your drive. Or perhaps you are a numbers person and the tax return thrills you. Well then, I bet your joy ebbs a little when you get to your Ladies Retreat Day and your discover that the theme is Expressing Your Spirituality Through Paper and Glitter.
The truth is that we are all made for Heaven. We all have the capacity to live life seeing beauty, joy, colour, life, energy, no matter where we are or what we are doing, and to be inspired to express ourselves in our unique ways through our interaction with this environment. It's that sense of seeing the intrinsic good in our surroundings and circumstances and allowing that to seep into us and bring out of our inner beings what lies nascent there, unique and waiting to be drawn out to express and create.
I guarantee you that every person on earth experiences this feeling at some time, and that for every person the circumstances are different. A person born to mother will experience it at the birth of her children, or in the moments of each day that she sees them becoming who they are through her nurture. A person born to be an architect will sense it in the presence of great buildings, and in the shadow of a building they have designed or at the draftman's table as the picture in their mind translates to paper. I could go on and on. You all know how it feels, and you all know when you've felt it, no matter how short and fleeting a moment it may have been.
The trouble is that we live on Earth, with tax returns, people who scream in traffic, school teachers who hurt our children's confidence, rubbish that spills on the road, and an endless myriad of small daily things that go wrong. That's not even mentioning the big things like failed marriages, children dying, wars and famine.
So this morning, I wanted to remind you that we are designed for Heaven and we live on Earth. My day has had a little of both. It is hard when you have started the day in Heaven and you come down with a bump.
My goal in life is to discover every possible way that I can bring Heaven to Earth. That may mean a mindset shift first thing in the morning, or deciding to behave in a certain way. Mostly, for me, it means taking time out to pray. Somehow it does the job of getting my thoughts right without having to try! But it also means watching and waiting...what is it that brings you alive? What things do you do that bring other people alive? In the end Heaven is all about bringing life and love to Earth. I am keeping a close eye on things so that I can learn how I can be part of that in my daily and often mundane routine. In the little steps I take, I think I can getting closer to making most of each day a Heavenly experience.
