En Inspiro

The first work of the author, as I understand it, is not his first draft or his outline; his true beginning is inspiration.

This moment is the inventor’s fuel, it is the theologian’s revelation, and the philosopher calls it his epiphany.

Without this inspiration, our works lack the brilliance, creativity, and pathos that characterize all meaningful endeavors.

We are “created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us.”

I fear that we spend our lives completing tasks, instead of a mission, and the “good works”, which could have been ours, are left undone. Our schedules are full, but our lives are not.

Our world is full of works that are mundane and colorless and uninspired, and it is not begging us to produce one more that is devoid of any true virtue or significance.

If we filter our creations through what is born of inspiration I think we will discover a need to retool some our lives, and abandon some projects all together.

I would run my own life through these painful criteria, but I fear that I lack the moral courage to act upon what I find.

In Search Of The True Wilderness

I often find within myself an ache to go to the wilderness.

And I'm not talking about some cool meta-physical wilderness that is somehow an analogy to where I'm at spiritually either.

I'm talking about trees and mountains and creatures with four legs; it all feels like home to me.

Intuitively I am given the impression that this longing is greater than myself. I am speaking of that particular brand of desire which transcends an individual, or even a time. The belief of an afterlife, or the desire to find a soul mate I would categorize as such.

In short, these cravings do not belong to you or to me, but to all of humanity. 

Man was born into the unfinished wilderness; he awoke to a world where he was alone with God.

It is this genesis with God that I long for; the desire to be alone with God is inherently etched on the tablet of my heart.

We are unsure how long man was in this state with God, scholars presume it could have taken him years just to name the animals.

Woman was born into community; Adam, and a more finished creation awaited her crowning arrival. As such she craves this covering, this protection, this love and togetherness. 

Perhaps this is why she doesn't even like to go to the bathroom alone...or perhaps for us men, such mysteries are better off unexplored. 

I am not saying that she doesn't long for intimacy with God, any more than I am saying that a man doesn't desire to be with others. As a quick aside, many of you know that I have always maintained that the qualities belonging to the masculine or feminine are extremely subjective and change drastically with cultures and time; I believe the intrinsic, God given, attributions to be a much shorter list. So I will not make any conclusive statements here; but I welcome the conversation.

Jesus told his disciples: "You will leave me all alone; yet I am not alone, for my father is with me."  These moments in the proverbial wilderness when we are "lonely, but not alone", are calling to me even as I write this. 

For me the mountains provide me with this singular pursuit, but life affords us many such opportunities. Singleness is such a wilderness; an uncommon situation or struggle is such a desert.

In these moments I am hedged in; like the harlot wife of Hosea, my solitude separates me from all other interior interests and pursuits. 

My ear is tuned only to his voice; my heart has feelings only for him...And in these moments I am reborn and I open my eyes, awaking to a wilderness all my own with God.