Coming This Sunday: Finding Inspiration

This Sunday, our own Jackie Frietas will be preaching.  You may know that among her many talents, Jackie is a poet and this Sunday she will be sharing a few of her poems with us.  The theme of the service is “Inspiration is Everywhere.”  Jackie will be sharing some of the ways she finds inspiration and encouraging us to consider what we find inspiring.  As she says:  “Life needs inspiration along the way as we journey through various experiences.”  One of the texts she will be using talks about God kindling a light in our hearts.  Allowing that light, or inspiration, to shine through us reveals the glory of God.

Speaking of being inspired, I was inspired to share this post by Carrie Newcomer that was inspired by a picture she saw on a fence in Florida:

Carrie shared a story about a young boy who drew a picture of his mom. She explained that often kids tend to go through stages in their drawings of people.  One of those stages she calls the “blobby-guy” phase, (like the drawing in the photo above.)  The boy she was talking with had drawn a picture of his mom in that style: a blobby middle, stick legs and arms and long hair. She asked him about the picture and he began to tell her about his mother and he began talking about all the things she did for him, make his lunches, comb his hair, work in the garden and then his eyes lit up and he said with excitement, “My mom has fingers” and drew some stick fingers on his picture.

Carrie says:

“What a beautiful moment of wonder and realization. How exciting to see him notice and register something that he hadn't really thought about much— his marvelous mother, who did all kinds of amazing, clever, caring things—had marvelous fingers. Maybe that is why I often comment to people I meet on something I find extraordinary about them or something I really appreciated about how they were interacting with me. I guess I just like to be with the person I am encountering. I love to notice what is marvelous about them because there is always something marvelous about every single person I meet. It is nice to let a person know they are appreciated and it creates in me an ongoing feeling of wonder and revelation— kind of like that little boy who became so alive when he noticed something and then drew his mother's beautiful fingers on his blobby-mom picture.”

When we discover things, when we notice the beauty that is always there, when we pay attention to the moment, that light of God awakens within us.  Carrie reminds us that the good is there, we just need to look for it and to be grateful for the marvelous people in our lives. 

Be sure to join us this Sunday, and if you missed last Sunday, be sure to check out Rev. Gaffney’s sermon from last week where he talked about the challenges we face in seeing the good in others.