Tag Archives: Inspiration

June 2011 Soul and Solace

On Parade

While strolling through Austin’s Old Pecan Street Festival, we happened on a strange parade: three children, stair-stepped in height, marching single file through the crowd, heads down, hands holding foreheads. Those are some very worried children, I thought—until I saw the steady drip, drip of clear liquid between the largest child’s fingers. The three were applying ice cubes to their foreheads—Texas heat, meet the ingenuity of children!

How did this “mobile cooling unit” idea come into being? Was it one child’s brainstorm? A group inspiration? Had one of them “applied” the method successfully in the past? However the idea was birthed, all three knew—and literally applied—a good idea when they heard one.

What powerful, imaginative ideas surround us! This month, let’s be inspired by inventiveness. Let’s scope out great ideas. And let’s take it one step further: let’s put feet to inspired ideas and take them on parade, whether we’ve iced our foreheads or not!

Where do you find great ideas? What do you do with them?

March 2009 Soul and Solace

A school principal told this story at a teacher’s conference. A student was brought, again, to her office. He’d a long history of acting out. Inspiration came as she gazed at the youth. Pulling a standing mirror from her closet, she instructed, “Stand before this mirror until you see someone you like.” Then she left the office. Once, she peeked to see the youth’s puzzled frown as he studied his reflection. When she came back later, he had gone­after that his behavior grew more thoughtful and loving and she did not see him again in her office.

It is easy, isn’t it, to describe how unacceptable, unworthy, or “less than” we are? What if, instead, just for the month of March, we let it be enough to be who we are where we are? What if we gazed in the mirror until we liked what we saw and then pulled out a mirror and invited others to do the same?