MAYBE we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air _ explode softly _ and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth _ boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either _ not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.''
_ Robert Fulghum (musician, artist, philosopher and author).
Wouldn't it be wonderful?
Fulghum's slightly whacky solution to world conflict is the stuff of children's books and cartoons, but who can deny that there is something whimsical and magnificent in its simplicity.
Because we take ourselves far too seriously.
My happiness weapon would involve chocolate. Bags and bags of endorphin-boosting chocolate. The guns would be loaded with M&Ms, the bombs would hurl 70 per cent cacao shrapnel and prisoners of war would be dunked in a pool of ganache (strangely, they would blissfully comply, swim some backstroke and wiggle their chocolate-coated toes).
Waging war on boredom and mundanity and complacency is important for our quality of life _ and our sanity.
``Never are we bored these days,'' a certain professor once said, referring to the over-supply of distraction.
``That's a problem,'' he maintained, ``because boredom is the mother of creativity. There is no creativity without boredom'' (Anon).
How easy it is to limp through life, settling for the mediocre. With a job that ``puts food on the table'', you live for your holidays, keep the marriage together for the kids and fence-
sit on politics _ the future of our country.
You deserve better.
Galatians 5:1 says this: ``Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you'' (The Message).
Argh _ I love that verse.
It flies in the face of religion _ Christianity that says ``you must do this or that to know God''.
And it speaks of God's creativity.
In her book The Confident Woman, Joyce Meyer encourages readers to live outrageously.
``We are not created by God to merely do the same thing over and over until it has no meaning left at all,'' she writes.
Imagine a life seasoned with spontaneity. One only harnessed by the imagination. And free. The kind of freedom that comes from faith in God and assuredness in eternity.
That's what I call a full and throbbing life.
I shall sign off with these words of wisdom from Dr Seuss; ``You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on
your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go ...'' (Oh, the Places You'll Go!).
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