We are going to jump right in. Are you ready? It might get heavy.

I was thinking about inspiration, and where I draw my inspiration from and where other people may draw inspiration from and what does that really say about us and what we are producing. We read a lot in our house. We also listen to pre-recorded talks from philosophers, and theologians and preachers online. Then we talk about it, and see how it fits into the grand scheme of things. And it gets your gears rolling. Sometimes it is inspirational, sometimes it is just really interesting and we have a good talk. But something Rodney just played me struck me to my core and you must hear it. But before I hand over the meat and potatoes let me explore a few ideas I had planned on talking about already.

Inspiration is something every person needs. We seem to crave it. You can see it on social media clearly. There are so many stories that are meant to be inspirational. People overcoming the greatest odds and succeeding. Or despite the greatest odds are living their best life. These stories are shared and people like them and comment, “so inspirational”. They are not wrong. They ARE inspirational stories. But how many of these are you seeing in a day or a Facebook scrolling session? Are you so inundated with these stories that you become anesthetized to them? Are you scrolling past? I admit, I do. I cry way too easily and pass those stories right up. I have no need to sit around crying. But I have friends and family who do, and that works for them, it gets their gears rolling and thinking and inspiration happens.

If Facebook was a physical place, you could throw a rock blind-folded in any direction and hit an inspirational quote. These are however not limited to social media. On my desk, right now, 2 inches from my computer I have an inspirational quote rolodex (for lack of a better word) you can change the quote every day and there are hundreds of them. I received it as a gift from a dear friend and I love it. A lot of inspiration has come from that card deck. (inspirational card deck.. Is that better than rolodex?)

You may need different inspiration for different things. I read Stephen King for inspiration as a fictional writer. My quote card deck is inspirational for writing and daily life as well. Being outside can be inspirational, if you sit and listen. People you have conversations with. Talks you listen to or go to. Church. People say inspiration can be found everywhere because it can. And there is no wrong answer. If something inspires you, good. Use it. Let it fuel you. Hold on to it.

Now, here it comes. This morning, Rodney played me an excerpt from a lecture given by Terence McKenna. If you do not know who that is, don’t worry about it today. I am sure he will come up again and I will tell you more. Anyway, it was 8 minutes long and very good, then the last sentence came and I looked at Rodney with my eyes wide. I made a comment on how deep that was and rewound it so that I could hear it again, and again. He said, “Reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half baked moron consuming all this trash manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” What does that mean? It means just what it says. What are we consuming in our minds everyday, in between the good stuff, inspiring stuff. All of that “stuff” is meant to throw you off your path.

My message today was going to be Find Your Inspiration. But I decided that instead it will be Reclaim your Power.

Reclaim your power from the rest of the world. Don’t give it away. Go out there and be inspired and use your power to do good, make this world better for every living being. Every time we stop to talk about what the Kardashians are doing (poor girls I am sure they are used as these bad examples all the time- bless their hearts) we are giving our power away. When we spend time wondering why so and so is on a vacation or did such and such we are giving our power away. You need all your power, especially now. You need it to realize that we are on the same team, we are all human and we all deserve to live our best lives no matter what.

If you are looking for further documentation on why this statement is so profound you needn’t look further than the Bible. Which obviously predates Terence McKenna, but I know he would agree whole-heartedly. Jesus tells us the same thing. Do not worship false idols. Give to Caesar what is Ceasars but don’t let that consume you. Now, that is horribly paraphrased. Really. But you get the idea. These ideas are not new. But these ideas are harder to deal with now, more than ever. We are easily consumed by the trash manufactured by the cultural engineers. In fact, we are so consumed by it that we are manufacturing it ourselves. We are creating worlds where we are constantly bombarded by every single person we have ever known, and every famous person’s thoughts and ideals. (I’m not saying this is always bad- there are good points to these worlds too) But what I am wanting to point out is how we need to be more careful. From the time you wake up to when you go to bed, we must be a conscience participant in our own lives.

Stop wasting your time and your power on trivial things. Get inspired. Reclaim your power.