Humor and Imagination-Food for the Soul

Lately I have been struggling with the heavy impact of ongoing frustrations and disappointments in my personal and professional life. This morning I woke up as I often do these days feeling a bit gloomy and anxious. I prayed for someone or something to lift my spirits and give me a sense of joy and hope. As I was scrolling through my emails to organize and delete the back log of messages, I touched upon one I decided to read to see if it was worth sending to my daughter. I ended up enjoying it so much that it became the answer to my prayer.

A handsome young man, Mac Barnett, was explaining in a TED talk how art is an "honest lie" that touches upon the truth. He suggested that art is the place where truth and lies intersect, which children are able to understand and enjoy more easily than adults. This is why he has chosen to write stories for children. Mac's stories about wonderful creative stores such as the one that sells articles for pirates and another that features products from various periods in time; his mention of community groups for children, fostering the imagination through writing; along with his description of one of his imaginative children's books, delighted me with their humor and excited me with their examples of whimsical fantasy. I laughed often and was filled with a sense of joy and inspiration!!

I was reminded how much humor and imagination can restore us and inspire us to connect with our souls-the place where love, joy, and creativity live. As I grow older and become more healed and evolved, I find myself taking more of my life less seriously, being less intrigued by factual content and the ways of the superficial, competitive, and materialistic world contrived by so many people. I have become more interested in Nature's world, the Spiritual world, along with the domains of Spirit and Soul. It is in these places that true beauty exists; it is in these places that pure love, joy and peace abound. The practices of fueling your imagination and finding humor in life along with their sister experiences of embracing quiet moments, listening to soothing music, and observing nature restore us by helping connect us to sacred spaces that evoke the most healthy and pleasant emotions along with the most creative and satisfying ideas, thoughts and behavior. Let your imagination soar, laugh from the depths of your belly - let them restore and inspire you as they did for me today!