Bored

Year 6-Day 33 :Today, I am grateful my parents didn't care if I was bored. 

"I think it's necessary to let kids get bored once in a while - that's how they learn to be creative." -Kim Raver

What a great quote. When did it become so important to be busy? Do we sit down and compare calendars to "win" with who has the fullest schedule? How easy it is to get sucked into the whirlwind. Things like neighborhood yard games are practically gone. I will be grateful every day that my children grew up in a neighborhood where they played outside. When our neighborhood grew up, Walker's best bud had a yard full. It was good. 

Rainy days come - but they survived.  Then, video games entered the scene. I fear that they have destroyed the imagination with bigger and better graphics at every turn. 

Mama Ina Mae would not allow the word "bored", or she had ideas of what we could clean. We still had to clean sometimes, but her low tolerance of boredom took us to the creative zone.

"Boredom" meant I spent hours at the piano , April would draw and Matt would farm the shag carpet (if he wasn't out with Dad doing the real thing). We played "Gilligan's Island" (of course, I was Ginger) and pretended to be princesses. Some days we were birds and the porch stoop was our nest. We played school (I was the teacher)  and whatever else struck our fancy. We were allowed to cook and bake... which was better than cleaning closest. We created new fashions from old clothing and Mama's sewing scraps. 

We learned so much in the times we thought we were bored. I learned that magic carpet ride of a good book. 

We were created in His image. I believe creativity is a part of that precious soul breath He grants to each one of us. We each manifest it differently. 

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.-Genesis 1:27

We were created to create. Some with spreadsheets and perfectly organized closets and drawers, some with flowers and fields, and others use more traditional means of making art like music, dance, paints, cameras and pencils. I think many of us have set free our creative spirit in the kitchen as cooking shows have become popular and the plating is as important as the ingredients. A pretty plate raises the caliber of the experience. 

We need time to be still. We need time to let ideas brew. We need to pause and ponder the impossible. 

One of Mama Ina Mae's favorite phrases was "Necessity is the mother of invention." She borrowed it from one of the greats. It appears in the dialogue Republic, by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. That means it is really old!  Then and now, time to think and time to dream up ideas always paves the way for new discoveries. 

Some of the greatest scientific minds in history were artists, too. Imagination is a beautiful thing. It is a powerful tool. 

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. -Henry David Thoreau 

Made in His image... made to be a maker. 

Today, I am grateful my parents didn't care if I was bored.