If you make a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Imagination rules the world (Napoleon). There is nothing more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one! (Mark Twain had no respect for people who knew how to spell words only one way!)

The English professor in Dead Poets Society ('John Keating' played by Robin Williams) dramatically tells his students Carpe deum - 'Seize the day!' Every one of you will die, he warns, and the critical question is: Will you wait too long to make what you should of your lives? 'Make your life extraordinary!' The climax of the film is the suicide death of one of Keating's brightest students, who was driven to despair by a father who insists he excel academically so he can go to Harvard, but in the process give up his hopes of pursuing a career in theatre. In a powerful scene, full of symbolism reflecting Christ's death, Neil dies. And, of course, Keating has to go.

'Don't make me think, it hurts!' is a terrible confession...

Lord, may your creative aliveness stimulate my mind. May I be open to a few new ideas. Amen.

THERE'S A SOLUTION SOMEWHERE!

It is the wisdom of the clever to understand where they go, but the folly of the fool misleads. Proverbs 14:8.

I have found that the bestput-together people I meet believe there are many solutions to every problem: the challenge is to find the best one!

# The war on drugs in Florida led Sheriff Robert Vogel to post highway signs warning of a drug search ahead. His deputies then stopped vehicles that slowed down or made a Uturn to avoid the search.

# The 11.34 pm train to Lilydale in Melbourne was frequently vandalized by bored young people. Solution: a jukebox in one carriage, and a local band in another. Result after a couple of months: commuters up from an average 38 to over 400; and no vandalism.

# Meanwhile, the battle against loitering teenagers at some 7-Eleven stores in the U.S. is being won - by piping saccharine tunes by bands like

Mantovani's ('Some Enchanted Evening')...

Seriously, there is a solution to your problem. Someone has found it. And God is a creative God, who gives wisdom to those who ask, says James (1:5).

I'm open to receiving wisdom, Lord, and creativity, and understanding. Amen.

CREATIVITY WORKS!

Get wisdom; and whatever else you get, get insight. Proverbs 4:7.

Alexander worked on the 18th floor of a multistorey building. When in an elevator on his own he always got out on the 16th floor. Why ?

A hot topic in the workplace is creative problem solving. The most precious commodity in business - or any organization in times of rapid change is a fresh idea. The biggest challenge is connecting innovation with existing business. Books like Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain are selling millions of copies. If you'd thought of teflon, velcro, postit pads, you would now be among the very, very rich!

Histories of warfare describe huge numbers of lives lost through stupidity, or simple bravery (Gallipoli, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Napoleon's and Hitler's invasions of Russia, the Iran-Iraq war). Sometimes options that lateral thinking explored led to brilliant victories without such human carnage. I once put this problem to a group of Navy personnel: the neutron bomb, and chemical weapons kill people without damaging buildings. Think about how to develop a device that destroys buildings or weapons of warfare without killing people...

By the way, Alexander was too short to reach the right button!

You are a creative God, and you delight in what you have created. May I be like you! Amen.

OUR GOD IS A CREATIVE GOD!

I have called Bezalel... and I have filled him with the Divine Spirit... to devise artistic designs. Exodus 31:1-4.

Artistic creativity is a view of the world, of the arts, of human emotions, which sees beneath the surface, or rearranges components of these into novel or beautiful forms. Truly creative people can get in touch with the 'precivilized' self, the world of the child. Freud believed the artist was able to reach into the 'preconscious', to examine his/her own psychic processes and then transform these elemental forces into the world of art. Art provides a path from fantasy to reality. Many creative people, particularly in painting and music, have preserved a childlike ability to have contact with the whole self, with the unconscious, the very deep parts of the personality that most of us lose as we grow up and get 'civilized'.

Illness can be creative. Schumann was liable to dramatic mood changes and this is reflected in the varying level of his output. He did all his composing when 'high' and nothing when 'down'. Freud and Jung went through prolonged depression over a period of years, soldiered on, producing very little, but out of this dark time produced some of their greatest work.

Thank you Lord, for both the order of created things, and the joy of creativity. You are continually creative, and we are invited to share in your creative purpose. You stimulate in us gifts of creative vision and inventive skill. Amen.