Author: clfuu

Artists of all kinds—painters and poets, singers and sculptors alike—know the importance of imagination.  On the basis of art alone, we understand that imagination adds beauty of all sorts to our world.  At the very least, we can appreciate that other people’s imagination makes our world a more interesting and lovely place.

But our own imagination is a vital spiritual resource.  First, imagination helps us interact with the world around us in new and wonderful ways.

Transcendentalist philosopher and Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us of this power of imagination.  “A symbol,” he writes in his essay “Poetry and Imagination,” “always stimulates the intellect, therefore is poetry ever the best reading.”

We each were born with the powers of creativity.  While we’re not all going to be famous artists or poets or musicians, we each have the faculties to use our imagination to create.

To use these gifts allows us to change our relationship with the world around us.

Today, spend some time imagining.

Today, a prayer to recite from Rev. George Kimmich Beach:

Giver of being and freedom, thou who touches our lives in unforeseen ways, who unsettles our ease and upsets our self-satisfactions:

We wait in these moments of stillness to let the hidden processes of healing and growth do their silent work within us, and to let the quiet work of reconciliation be renewed among us.

Because we know that the ultimate issues of life—healing and growth, reconciliation and renewal—cannot be forced, neither by excess of activity nor by tumult of words, we seek out this stillness. We seek the quiet—the resting place—of our restless hearts.

Because we live with mystery, we trust that which is deeper than we know—which touches our hearts—which steadies us and rekindles our spirits—which, finally, in faith, may be named the love that has laid hold upon us, and will not let us go.

Amen.

Like power generation, we each can generate the energy to turn the spark of creativity inside of us into a force that does work in the world.

Where does the spark of creativity lie in you? How can you nurture it today?

Today’s meditation is entitled “Prayer of Co-Creation,” by the Rev. Lyn Cox:

Creative spirit, source of life and love:

We give thanks for the beauty of this day and for the company of those assembled here.

Thank you for the breezes of change, clearing our heads and bringing fresh ideas. May they cleanse our minds of the oppressions and isms that divide us.

Thank you for the flame of hope, the heat of righteous anger, the warmth of compassion, and the fire of commitment. May they bubble the cauldrons of transformation.

Thank you for oceans of love, rivers of connection, tears of relief, and pools of serenity. May healing waters flow over us and through us and among us, wearing down the sharp rocks of despair to bring joy in the morning.

Thank you for the good earth beneath us, around us, and within us. May we take this clay and co-create a new realm of justice and beauty.

Thank you for all these and more. We accept our gifts and commit to building, sculpting, painting, singing, and dancing them to life; to abundant life.

So be it. Blessed be. Amen.

We all have the power to create. To create beauty, to create goodness, to create justice, to create a better world. With each action, we choose what we would like to create. We choose how we would like to participate in the co-creation of our world.

How will you create today? Who or what are you going to create with?