January, 2024
Yesterday I learned that the word “inspiration” means "the drawing in of breath".
And I'm not sure how to articulate the way those words settle into my bones.
It just makes so much sense. Why would a constant exhale ever be sustainable?
And where does that breath come from? The life and art and relationships that I'm crafting have a different, and much greater, source. The Creator breath in, my smaller creator breath out.
To "pray without ceasing", a seemingly impossible thing, becomes an inescapable reality when I'm just breathing in rhythm with the Maker of my life. My awareness of divine breath in me means that my life truly does become a prayer.
It's so encouraging to me as an artist, and even more freeing to me as a person.
Ecclesiastes 3 feels like the heartbeat here.
"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens...
and a season for every activity under the heavens...
He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
Without the divine, everything is meaningless. Nothing more than a vapor, and certainly not worth my attention.
But with the divine, everything finds meaning, right timing, and perfect beauty. Drawn endlessly from the Maker's breath, in joyful pursuit of eternity without the pressure to make sense of it.
This is helping me remember why I like curating creative things. Ideas, color palettes, paintings, crafts, songs, recipes, well-crafted paragraphs, and free scribbles. Pinning things you love, capturing things you notice, saving things you like — it’s not just a creative exercise to be more productive. It's the search for God!
To me, it feels electric, like my soul's recharging. At the same time, it feels exceedingly calm, like a giant sigh of relief in the middle of the inhales & exhales. I stop trying to make sense of things too great for my little mind, and instead I focus on what's been put on my heart in this moment. When I live inspired, aware of my need for divine breath, I live so at ease.
I call it collecting "inspiration" because it really is like stopping to draw a breath. "Inspiration" — anything that helps you pause to inhale slowly after running too fast for too long.
It's the gift of thinking “too deeply” about things like kids movies and song lyrics and good meals.
And the surrender of not giving things like insecurities and accomplishments as much weight.
When we talk often about beautiful things, they become inescapable. It becomes a reflex to notice good; no matter how many darkness I see, I can’t help but find just as much (if not more) in color.
So, with sweet awareness of my breathing (in...and out...) — this is what I'm repeating to myself today —
Any doubt that I have, any feeling that I’m not producing enough or creating correctly, is overruled quickly by truth:
I’m only failing when I forget to stop & catch my breath.
Here's to breathing slow & deep, and staying inspired!
