I was under the weather yesterday and never made it to the computer. So today when I read my horoscope the words made me chuckle. "Want to take up a cause? How about waving a banner in protest against the extreme under-appreciation of whimsy?"

Whimsy….an odd or fanciful idea…a whim. Not a word we use very often. It is a wonderful word to say, a word that feels good in your mouth. Whimsy. Yet, it doesn’t seem like something someone might take up as a "cause". Peace, yes. Hunger, definitely. But whimsy?

And yet, isn’t whimsy the beginning of almost any new and creative movement in the world?Left to pure rationality, total reason, what might our lives be like? Surely any fine piece of art, any musical composition, and poem, comes from a fanciful idea of beauty, of what needs to be spoken. Even those things we trust, like planes that fly, like bridges we cross, like elevators, for instance, would not exist without an element of whimsy. What about all those new medical procedures that will eventually save lives? Any new, innovation, any creation began in some form as an ‘odd or fanciful idea.’

Which is perhaps why when we say the word ‘whimsy’ we often think of children. Children live in the world of whimsy, where a stick becomes a sword to be pulled out of the stone, where a bath towel becomes a cape used by the one who will save the world.Giving birth to odd and fanciful ideas is the work children take up everyday. 

When I look at the creativity needed in our world these days, it seems we could all use a good spoonful of whimsy. We need the odd idea that will help feed the children in the world so none will be hungry. We need the fanciful dreamings of countless people to solve our environmental crisis. We are dying for the perfect scheme of anyone who will help deliver clean water to all those who have none. And what about war? It will undoubtedly take all the whimsy we can muster.

So perhaps today my banner might read…We can’t leave this to the children
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"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I heard a loud voice saying:"See, the home of God is among mortals."  Revelation 21:1