There are two principles that are at work in any act of creation:
1. An activating power
2. A field that receives that power
From a scientific standpoint, these two principles are at work throughout the natural world. The atmosphere of the earth is activated by the radiation from the sun to produce light. Without the sun, there would be no light. Likewise, without an atmosphere to reflect the sun’s radiation, there would be no light.
Sound works in a similar manner. I still remember my junior high school science class in which a bell was rung in a clear, plastic box. As the air was sucked out of the box to produce a vacuum, the sound of the ringing of the bell diminished to nothing.
My immediate interest in creation is in the field of human culture, knowing that how we function as human beings profoundly affects the natural world. So what is our relationship, as human beings, to the activating power that is relevant to what we are creating in our life?
Creation is initiated when a person feels the activating radiation relative to themselves and their creative field as an imperative. The dictionary defines an imperative as a command; something not to be avoided or evaded. An imperative calls for action. An idea is one thing; a feeling or a passion is another. But an imperative is something that you have to act on. It is an impulse of creation. And it carries the connotation that we’re not going to take this action later—we’re going to do it now. Answering an imperative brings creation into the present.
Recently, I spoke to a consultant who worked with us occasionally at Sunrise Ranch on various projects. We were speaking about doing more work together and he observed that we hadn’t really seemed serious to him about what we were doing. It seemed to him that we were dabbling. We did a little now, a little then, but we hadn’t actually taken the attitude We’re doing this!
It was humbling to hear this. But it was true. I said, “I get it. And we are doing this now.”
As I reflected on our work, I realized that the people on the team I had been working with had not felt the imperative. And because of that we were missing something else—momentum.
When we feel the impulse of the Creator within us, we are feeling the imperative. And if we’re feeling it and we’re acting on it, we’re bringing that imperative. And when we do that consistently, there is momentum in the process of creation.
We gain momentum when we are not willing to put it off—when we say, This is so important, I’m doing it now. Knowing that there is an unfoldment to creation and there is a rhythm to that unfoldment, I am not procrastinating over this. Yes, I’m embracing the rhythm, but that rhythm is happening now. We gain momentum when we accept an imperative individually or when we accept it together.
So what is the creative impulse in your life that is or should be an imperative for you? What’s important enough that you’re willing to take it off the back burner and bring it to a boil? What do you value enough that you are willing to make it a now thing?
The word God means so many different things to different people. There are so many layers of meaning around it. The real God is the Creator—the activating radiation within the Creation. As the disciple John said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John is not referring to a God of religious belief. He is referring to the creative power of the universe. The Word is the activating radiation of God—the Creator. When we tune in to that radiation as human beings, we experience it as an imperative. And when we answer the imperative we feel, creation is set free in our life. Creation gains momentum.
The momentum gathers, most importantly, in the field of human consciousness—initially, your own consciousness as an individual. The spiritual imperative stimulates thoughts and feelings and gathers to it the energy of creation.
But any significant human creation requires more than one person. It requires a field of coherent consciousness held by at least two people. And for that field to be held, there has to be a bond between the people who are holding it. The quality of the creative field being held depends on the depth and strength of that bond.
As I reflect upon my own life, I feel so fortunate to have such a wide range of people that I can truly call friends. Perhaps because I am out front about my own purpose in life, I find people who share that purpose with me, which is the awakening and transformation of human consciousness. Among us, there is a sense of something important and significant that we have to do together; a sense that we have been brought together by a reality that is larger than we are as human beings. There is a sense of the destination that we are moving toward and of the common place from which we come.
Twenty-two years ago, I wrote a bluegrass song, I’ll Meet You There, which my wife Joyce recently dug out of my files. It contains these lyrics:
I’ll meet you there!
In a clearing in the trees
We will meet on bended knees.
For me, the writing of that song was the speaking of a prayer. It was a prayer that I would find people who shared the experience I was having of yielding to a Higher Love. It was a prayer that some number of us would find ourselves in a clear space—a clear field of heart and mind in the middle of a turbulent world. And in that field we would allow the Word—the activating power of the Creator within us all—to stir us, to move us, because we felt the imperative of it.
The magic of it is that when this transpires for a person, or any group of people, they become the Creator that is activating them. In their world, they become not only the clear field but also the activating power. They are radiating that same activating power that they felt and received, and which is now expressed through them in a wonderfully human kind of way. Creation is gaining momentum in their field because they have embraced the imperative they have felt and touched.
I share everyday-holiness with people who are having this experience. Not just Sunday-morning holiness, not sanctimoniousness, not incense-and-robes holiness. I share the holiness of being that surrendered field of consciousness that receives the Word—the activating power of the Creator. I know the holiness of letting that activation vibrate through me. And I know the sacred privilege of bringing that activating power to the larger field in which I live.
I still feel the imperative that I felt long ago when I wrote that song. I’m still speaking that prayer. I’ll meet you there. What do you say?