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Inspiration or perspiration?
As a violin student I became accustomed to hearing my teacher's version of Thomas Edison's comment about genius. "Genius is ninety-nine per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration." Quoted in Matthew Josephson, Edison (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 435 . My teacher would say, "Practice is I percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." These words were calculated to get me to work when I had been sitting around waiting for the inspiration to hit and consequently getting nothing done. But for all the good this saying can do, it also has its limitations.
After a while, one feels the demand is for 100 percent perspiration, with inspiration a lost jewel. The buoyant joie de vivre seems lost. For instance, sometimes an orchestral musician, who plays the same music year in and year out, may begin to feel as if life is an endless bombardment of Brahms's Fourth or Beethoven's Fifth.

October 27, 1986 issue
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Discovering the unfathomable depths of Spirit
Scott Truesdale Thompson
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Spiritual reconciliation
Pamela Sperry Thorndike
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Loved
Elizabeth Brown Dresser
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Inspiration or perspiration?
Donald Stockton Krishnaswami
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Drug aftereffects: freedom through reformation
J. Thomas Black
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Daysong
Elizabeth Keyes Williams
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God's way—always the best way
Erwin S. Cornelius
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Why the Ninth Commandment is so interesting
Allison W. Phinney
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Freedom: "a privilege of maturity"
William E. Moody
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How not to worry
Mary S. Henderson
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My blocks spell LOVE
Doris Kerns Quinn with contributions from Josephine Engel
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What a wonderful blessing Christian Science has been to...
Barbara Janiece Lee
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Christian Science has brought me much joy, comfort, and healing
Janet Madeline Erskine
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I welcome this opportunity to express my appreciation for...
Ernest C. Pearson
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My heart is overflowing with gratitude for a lesson I learned...
Sally Lou Lind with contributions from Karin Anne Beaudin