The Peak of Inspiration

I awoke last night at about 2 am.  That, in and of itself, isn’t so noteworthy.  The reason I woke up is.  The sound of rain on the roof.  We live in a desert.  This is not a common occurrence for us.  As I lay there trying to process what I was hearing, another sound came into my mental focus and gave me pause for thought.

We have a small sound machine running at a low level most nights.  I guess it helps to quiet the voices in our heads so we can sleep better and longer.  The sound machine was set to the sound of rainfall, or something very similar.  But as I pondered the two sounds, the imitation and the genuine, I was struck by the contrast.  One was simply a sound, the other was refreshment falling out of the sky.  One was a digital copy.  The other an element so necessary, so completely vital to life, and so absolutely out of our control. 

Part of my business involves designing and drafting house plans.  I have complete respect for the developers of the software that I use.  It is extremely powerful and, as much as is possible to achieve on a computer screen, very realistic.  But, laying the marvels of technology aside, in reality it is just a picture.  A sketch of what could be.  Contrasted with the finished product, a house that you can walk through, see, touch and feel, a house the protects and offers security, it is just a dream. 

I read, the other day, of a social media personality that used the recently developed AI technology and created an artificial version of herself.  Having accomplished this, she made this artificial person available to the public.  At a dollar a minute, you can hire this fake person to be your girlfriend.  A dollar a minute to not feel real love, to not have real arms around you.  Think about that for awhile, and it can break your heart.  It’s an imitation, and so very far from the real thing.

There are many good things in this world.  Love, fellowship, friendship.  There is real thankfulness, real beauty, real selflessness.  There is true happiness and satisfaction.  But for every good thing, there is an imitation.  For everything genuine, there is a fake.  Something that promises so much, and delivers so little. 

The sad thing is, sometimes we are fooled.  We can’t always see through the skin, we can’t always feel the heart.  The imitators surround us, they offer us things right here and right now.  They play the sounds, they show us the pictures, and they promise us the love.  Unbeknownst to us, they have no substance.  Nothing to back up their promises.  No way to fulfill the dream. 

But I do not believe that we are without hope.  We can seek out the imitators.  We can uncover their disguise.  We can see them for what they are.

They tell me that to learn how to detect counterfeit money, you don’t study the counterfeits, you memorize the real thing.  By knowing the genuine, you can spot the fake. 

Imitators will come.  Good things, real things, will come too.  Give them both the test. 

Like the rain, will this wash me and bring life?  Like a home, will it shelter me, protect me, and give me a place to rest?

And when it comes to love, will it give, or will it take?  Will it help me, or hold me back?  Will it strengthen me, or destroy me? Will it leave me, or seek me?  And, maybe most importantly, will it, can it, wrap it’s arms around me and never let me go?

There is a love like that.  And when you find it, well, you will have found everything.