Just a thought… Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. [Parker J. Palmer]
As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.
Ah, what to talk with you about today? There is (as there always is) so much hardship in the world. I don’t have an informed opinion on much of it, so I stay quiet, as I should, but at the risk of sounding tone-deaf when there’s so much pain – that hurts too. Can my two cents add anything, or change any minds? When the answer is obvious, I file it under N’s for “Nope” and move on.
In our own lives there is so much joy, so much fulfillment these days, weeks and months that – just as it did during the rising tally of Covid deaths, each of those numbers a person, a loved one – it’s making me feel even more out of step than usual with the “real world.”
But if you wanted that world, you’d go to your trusted news source, just as we do. So let me bring you into mine, once again, on this gentle Monday.
Our yard, as you’ve seen in pictures and do here, is blessed with an array of flowers and trees whose names I will likely never know. But on occasion we are visited by deer. And on Saturday, I squealed like a two-year-old watching The Wiggles meeting Sesame Street (yes, it’s a thing) as a mama deer walked through our yard with her brand new tiny spotted fawn. I don’t have a picture because I couldn’t pull myself away from the window. But you’ve seen Bambi, you get it.
Usually our views (and I) are more sedate. This statue is what I look out upon from our living room. She’s a resting Buddha that I rescued from my sister’s garbage trip when she was leaving BC for Mexico three years ago.
What’s special about this statue? Obviously, her repose, which to me is in sadness but with the smallest smile of gratitude – something to which I can completely relate.
But look at the back of her.
This is why she was destined for the dump. And I told Cindy I wanted her. I didn’t know why or for where, but I brought her back to the island and now she has a place of honour on our deck, not looking out, as we do, but looking inward in, oh, so many ways.
Because, you see, she makes me do the same; I see myself in her. The rest, the quiet peaceful smile, but the hole, the brokenness that is there, too. It’s not what people see or know me – or her – for, but it’s there and is as much a part of who I am as the serene demeanour that she presents to those who see her.
Am I serene? Well, that depends on the moment, the day and whom you ask! Do I let that brokenness define who I am or what you see? Never. Those who look from afar can’t see the hole, perched where she is and away from close inspection, and that’s perfect. But that hole makes up wholly who and what she is, just as much as that which she presents. And I couldn’t ask for a better representation of me or, for that matter, the world – in my view – than this broken, perfect piece that graces our lives.
There’s a lot coming this week and I’ll keep you abreast daily at my Facebook page and, of course, here on Thursday. And at the risk of jinxing anything, from today’s vantage point, it is ALL good!
As I truly hope that yours is, too. Thank you for coming by.