I've re-read this post multiple times now and realize it's messy. Some parts may not even make sense, but it's so me I simply can't edit it. I need to be inspired, I shrivel when I'm not.  My emotions shrivel, as do my relationships, and my cooking, and my smile. I don't need inspiration to write my magnum opus, I need inspiration to LIVE MY MAGNUM OPUS!

I spent this past week with a marvelous collection of artists.  We enjoyed long, leisurely, and inspiring days together at a lake house in Northern California.  While it was our 3rd Annual Creative Retreat, this year was unique.  Usually my days are spent at the keyboard, pounding out words that had been pumped from my heart and sent coursing through my veins during the year, awaiting the time and space necessary to sit and give them sweet release.  This year, however, was different.  It's not that words weren't in me, hoping for escape, but that my tired heart needed rest.  Above all else I needed an inspired jumpstart; to be revved to life like a rusty old lawnmower, left in the weeds and the rain all season long.  It has been a long, intense season without much space to create.  

 

My dear friend Kelli and I texted, talked, and blogged over the weeks leading up to our Retreat - we confessed our shared need for Inspiration to one another.  Neither Kelli nor I write because of ambition, we create because of inspiration.  Kelli blogged a bit about our talk here.  

When Inspiration runs dry, our bones ache.  That will read as a silly sentence to some of you, but I wager, when it comes down to it, each one of us needs to be inspired in this life...  even if that inspiration doesn't pour out your fingers with a paint brush or at the keyboard.  

Most inspiration simply spills over into daily joys in our real lives, not the made up worlds we write.  We find joy in watching the crust on a chicken pot pie turn golden brown, and suddenly we bubble over into tender touches with our loved ones and feel the need to grab a handful of flowers from the garden to dress our dinner table with.  We see a sunset and breath deeper; smell salt in the air when the breeze turns just so, and find that we feel more alive than we did the moment before; we laugh with friends as the children play contentedly and are shocked by the tears that make their way to our lids and then take a bold leap of deeply happy abandon.

We are made in the image of God, who is, and was, and always will be a Creator.  Creative.  Majestically so.  Hanging galaxy upon galaxy, balanced.  Weaving a baby's soft skin, and the tenor in its infant cry.  Bringing forth out of nothing fragrance and the foaming sea; rocks in formation, worn intentionally over time; the hum of the Hummingbird's wings that buzz by your ear and inspire you to jump, afraid and elated!

And so I breathed the aromas in deeply, drank the colors and the textures and the display of God's splendor all the day long, each day of our retreat.  And my heart came away refreshed, inspired, and renewed.  

I've always used the word "INSPIRED" to describe a specific thing I'm prompted to do, a story to write, a person to call, a child to hug.  This time I am simply "INSPIRED" to respond to whatever comes my way. The need of a stranger, or the verse in scripture that leads me to a new thought, an applicable thought, possibly a post to write or just a new way to live.

When I am inspired by life, everything begins to inspire me.  I live inspired, respond inspired, and become a vessel through which inspiration might possibly flow.

And you?  Are you filled up and running over?  Or are you dry, parched, all poured out?  If you are weepy and worn I get it.  I'm sorry.  I know a good cry helps.  But do, dear friend, pull away!  Even our Creator pulled away and rested.  So find the time, the place, the relationship, the walk along the sea, to inspire you and fill you up anew.  The laundry can wait.  Find the moments to breath deeply.