TELL Magazine August - September 2019

which help us to celebrate, grieve,
heal, reflect and move forward into
lives enriched with meaning and
depth. We have so many resources
within the tradition as well as a
{CREATIVITY}
Reverend Sam Zwarenstein
In 1994, Jeff Bezos took a
vision he had for e-commerce
domination, and launched what
became known as Amazon.
In the beginning, all Amazon
sold was books, but Bezos
knew that his company would
become a super-powerful force
that sold almost everything.
What made it so powerful was that
the model it was built on didn’t
require a retail presence. It was all
online, so there was one fulfilment
centre (which has grown to several
hundred) that would process
orders, collect money, acquire and
send out the books (and later on,
deliver just about everything).
This online kingdom offered
opportunities to any and everyone
to set up a virtual storefront, sell
whatever they’d like. They could
provide merchants and sellers
warehouse and logistical capabilities
to sort, pack and ship these
products, at a price, of course.
Amazon used to venture into areas
of the market (and our imagination),
that you couldn’t even fathom just
a short time before they launched
that product or service. Nowadays,
we’re eagerly awaiting news that
will deliver the next revolution in
our lives, the next concept that will
change the way we exist. In many
cases, we’re left wondering how we
lived before it came into our lives.
Then there’s Amazon Web Services,
which was originally developed
to handle Amazon’s e-commerce
infrastructure needs. It is now a
constantly evolving pool of newly
crafted prayers and rituals. And
we have the ability to create our
own prayers, to speak to God or
Spirit with our own words, from
multi-billion dollar business that
powers a range of cloud computing
solutions for others in the big wide
world, including Netflix, Adobe,
Samsung, Airbnb, and many others.
By the way, it also houses the
Kindle e-book library, and facilitates
the ability for Alexa (Amazon’s
voice-activated assistant) to
advise you on the latest movies
showing, describe the weather, or
if the traffic is too congested.
These are just a few of the
trailblazing products and solutions
that Amazon have developed and
that they continue to reinvent. One
excitedly wonders … what’s next.
The ability to think not only
outside the box, or outside of the
warehouse, if you like, has given
rise to all these opportunities and
more. The defining differentiator
seems to be the wisdom and ability
to step back from the hustle and
bustle of whatever is consuming
one’s time, and utilise the creative
enthusiasm to keep ahead of
our hearts. I hope that together
we can shape rituals and prayers
to mark moments together in
holiness and blessings.
what others may be working on,
to be a leader and innovator.
The world we live in is almost
prohibitive in allowing us to take
that step back, let alone be creative
and think outside the box. We often
find ourselves so busy trying to
cope with what’s already going on,
and in some instances, we’re trying
to catch up with work or other
commitments. There is no room or
time for the creative spirit to sprout,
take hold, and develop. We’re told
that to be able to think creatively, we
need to have a clear mind, free time,
and space around us, so that we
cannot be disturbed or interrupted.
The time to think and be creative
has become an almost impossibility.
However, I would venture to say
that in the case of Amazon and
its leadership, that is far from the
case. At any one stage, there are
copious amounts of activities on
the go, concepts flying back and
forth, ideas being developed and
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