Love Opens
Love opens courage steps harm threatens danger waits. Love opens timid stays winds blow through and through. Unlove stands in the way that it does; preying on timid obstructing, obscuring, swirling, gusting. Love moves the way that it can; creating chances opening options softening, seasoning. Love opens minds and hearts, doors and windows. Clearing channels of communication finding its way. Love opens onto a way of saying what needs saying. Love builds by invisible hands which craft and construct, mend and heal. Love dreams -- real as any hard fact so we wait, we hope. Love imagines what can happen when soul by soul together we pray. Where unlove shouts, "Make way!" Love makes a way where there was no way so good can go about its business turning knobs and carrying brides across thresholds. Behold There's a space for the love of God to fill me when I open up; empty lungs want air parched mouth wants drink panging stomach wants food the seeking soul opens for sustenance, moment by moment. Me me Me me Me me the baby birds cry, asserting themselves. fill me. feed me. pick me. Love does
Creative Juices
Where do creative juices come from?
This is my question as I plod along a very familiar path. Foot by ever-loving foot, sneaker meets pavement. The feet move slower than molasses but the brain is another story. Literally.
My brain whirrs with ideas, putting things together that I never thought knew each other. Suggesting solutions. Sketching plot. Outlining. Organizing. Energizing. What had no life when I stepped out the door now seems like the best idea ever. Strategy meeting serendipity all along my way.
If this only happened once, I’d dismiss it as lucky and be on my way. But it always happens. It’s as reliable as the sunrise and as remarkable as stumbling on an old friend you haven’t seen in 30 years. It emerges out of nowhere, but yet it doesn’t. And the odd thing, and this honestly seems unfair, is that calling it up is entirely within my control — even as it has a mind of its own.
This creative swirl waits for me … to let it. To let it in. To let it happen. To let it dance and sing and have its way with me. All I have to do is move. To take this old body out for a spin and see what shows up.
No equation for success here. No requirement of “this many minutes before the endorphins kick in.” No exclusion clause stating “only works after six weeks,” or “must be fit to apply.” No, this is not an exercise device; this is a bodily device. A gift my body gives me when I love it enough to take it out of the box and play with it for a while.
It plays back. And we have a fine time. Let’s do this again, we say, and then we do. And whatever I’ve brought with me sorts itself out. Creatively, with all the juicy parts included.
So juicy, in fact, I run for pen and paper the minute I hit the door. Don’t even bother finding my reading glasses, I’m in such a hurry to get things in writing before they disappear into the distraction of the rest of my day. If my scribbles are a bit hard to decipher later, well, that’s part of the puzzle of fun, too.
If you’re ready to let your creative juices flow or maybe give ’em a bit of a kick start, my book, Made to Move: Loving God through our Bodies will give you 6 weeks of mind and body activities to get you going. (Find it with practice videos here Upper Room Books or here on Amazon.)
It’s NOT an exercise book. It’s a movement opportunity. See you along the path!
Renewal
The whole world comes alive when the sun rises. One by one, two by two they emerge from east, from west, from every way and every other way, whole flocks together as if a heavenly call has gone out and they're heeding its message. Is it the rays, the light, the glimmer that bids them come? the oranges, reds, the magenta that dazzles and displays? or something else I can't see, can't hear, can't comprehend? Is there a knowing I don't know? A joke I'm not in on? Ashore, I stand mired...heavy...earthen. the only unflighted one of morning. Astonished at their soaring, gliding, joyful shouting, "Here I am!" "Coming!" "Wait for me!" Guzzling the good, good news of morning. What a glorious day has come and is coming when we, weighted and terribly terrestrial loosen our ties and shed the lashing pinning our wings. And, with the rest, come alive in the new day.
