Inspiration

I saw a quotation recently about how we sit in front of the TV, and we decide we want a Coke, to buy some jeans and we decide we know what car we want, and that we also want a hamburger, and we actually think these are our own ideas.

   I was thinking about that yesterday while driving.  How we think we have free will, and that we know where our ideas are coming from.  I'll go to Wal-Mart to pick up some glue to fix something, and come out with no glue, but batteries, a DVD and chocolate, and will go home and over the next hour will think "I really like girls in jeans.  And I like Seth Rogan. He's funny.  And Monster is my favourite kind of energy drink.  And I wonder if the sequel to Thor is any good.  And I need socks.  And I like cupcakes."  And I won't really know why I'm thinking this, unless I pay attention.

   I was thinking about how when I was a kid, every time I felt a little surge of passion or life surging through me, I was trained to the point where I'd "have" these thoughts, these ideas and feelings:  "That's the flesh."  "The World is calling."  "Got to be a good testimony, of course."  "Can't expect the Lord to bless me if I'm doing things I know right well aren't pleasing to Him."  "We are such sinful creatures."  And I really thought I was thinking these ideas myself. I had no idea where they came from.  I thought they came straight from me.

   And when I was seventeen, and lying in bed thinking "Why are you such a freak?" "Why can't you fit in anywhere?" "Why does no one like you?" and "You'll never get a girlfriend" and "If you killed yourself, everyone would be sorry," I thought I was thinking up all of that, all by myself too.
   Some people I will interact with, and will find afterward I am thinking "I am interesting and know things and people like me being around."  Others I will interact with and afterward will find myself thinking "I am a self-deluded fool that everyone can see right through."  It would be slightly comforting if the best of people made me feel inadequate, and the silliest people made me feel good, but it's usually the opposite.

   Apparently the ancient Greeks sometimes thought that their thoughts and impulses were the gods acting.  That the muses giving them their best ideas.

   And all over the Internet right now, people are saying "We can't let gay people marry or we'll stop being a Christian country" or "Republicans will bring us back to the Stone Age" or "gluten will kill your grandmother!"  On and on.  And people think these ideas are coming from them, too.

   So I started thinking "Do you know where ideas come from, generally?  Like, when you have them, do you check them and wonder where they're coming from?"

   Because when I was a teenager, some of the most inspired, passionate, popular rock stars described what it was like to "get in the zone" while performing.  How a mood overtakes them, how when they write or perform songs, it's like they are a conduit for the songs.  The photocopied articles my parents were given by others said this was proof positive that the devil was possessing these people to seduce children to make them serve Satan.  And then my parents thought this stuff too for a couple of years at least.  And they also thought they thought these things up themselves.

   But songs come to me.  And I wonder where they come from.  I no longer assume the answer is always "Satan."  Nor "God" nor "my muse" either.  And "my subconscious" doesn't really tell me much of anything, nor is it, probably, the whole story.

   When I was a kid, we had bible conferences with "Ministry as the Lord May Lead."  Nowadays, they just say "Ministry As The Lord Leads."  The claim is the same.  If a man takes that platform, he is inspired and led by God to go up there.  We didn't have the hymns picked out in advance for Sunday morning worship, either.  We believed strongly in the idea that the Holy Spirit should inspire what happened at church.  But it was odd.  The men didn't sound like that was happening. I mean, who were we to judge and all that, but they just said the same exact stuff the guys who'd died had used to say, forgetting exactly how it had been worded.  Photocopies of photocopies of photocopies.  It didn't seem like inspiration.  It seemed like imitation.  Some even imitated the vocal cadences of the dead guys.  If enough people die,  soon no one will know they're doing that.

   Now why would God not speak through these guys?  People are listening sincerely, aren't they?  Ready for whatever God might have to tell them?  Or are they?  I think this is all a very interesting question.

   Nowadays, when I go to meet up with any group of people, to do music, or talk, or help or listen or whatever, I want the Holy Spirit involved.  I'm not going to claim that I am always silent until the divinely inspired words pour flaming down on my head and out of me like a whirlwind.  But I know what "being in the zone" is like.  I know what synchronicity is like.  I know what sympatico is like.  And I want that. And I think God's in that.  I think when people, things and events "come together," the Holy Spirit is involved.  I think He binds efforts together and makes thoughts and feelings get understood and expressed.  Sometimes music or cooking or touch expresses things which cannot be uttered.  And I think He's in that.

   Do we even know what ideas are?