Mehkurydiaries

Creation often begins before the first brick, line of code or drop of paint. It begins when the thing receives a name. A nameless idea can wander around the mind for years wearing the clothes of “someday.” Name it, and it acquires borders. It can be described, challenged, remembered and summoned. This is why naming is not clerical work. It is the first architecture. In Genesis, God speaks light into existence and calls the light Day. The command is not vague. What is being called forth is already intelligible to the One calling it. He had named it light before calling it. Romans describes God as the One who calls things that do not exist as though they did. That is not positive thinking wearing a church suit. Divine speech carries creative authority. Human speech does not possess that sovereignty, but it reflects a smaller pattern: we name what we intend to bring from possibility into form. I have named ideas before I possessed the complete machinery to build them. BioSSD. HalloZero....

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Isaiah’s image is more severe than it first appears. The well may be full, but fullness is not enough. Water still has to be drawn. There must be a vessel, a hand, and something strong enough to reach into the darkness and bring what is hidden to the surface. I have begun to suspect that inspiration works the same way. Ideas are not always absent when we feel empty. Sometimes they are simply deep. And joy, not noise, entertainment or the performance of happiness, may be one of the ropes by which we reach them. We usually put joy at the end of life’s equation. Work first. Struggle first. Survive the month. Finish the manuscript. Win. Endure. Then, if life is merciful, rejoice. But a mind trained to postpone joy eventually forgets how to receive it. Worse, we demand inspiration from the very state that has exhausted it: pressure. We sit before a blank page as though interrogating a suspect. We threaten the mind with de...