Last week-end my husband and I took a trip on blue country roads to Forsyth,Georgia , where there is a furniture store that has discards from motel and hotel chains throughout the country.We were looking for a dinette set to replace the one we gave our son who moved North last year.We were unlucky in that pursuit but found something else for five dollars that landed in our truck before you could shout,"Favorite flowers"!
It was a large framed picture of a window(love them)draped with a lace curtain(those,too)and hanging from the outside was a window box(wow).Cascading down the front of the box are nasturtiums,(heaven)and other flowers.Of course,since it was five dollars, the frame was beat up but that is not of great concern in the affairs of the heart.
We took it home,my husband painted over the frame with gold paint and there it is in it's wonderfully banged up state;reminder of a lovely day in the country and a gift from my Mother.
When I was ten, I asked my Mother for a dollar to buy flower seeds.I bought three packs;marigolds,bachelor buttons and nasturtiums.I had never seen the last but the picture of the flowers on the pack was bright and happy looking.I followed the directions and within a short time, the rich Long Island dirt yielded a shoot and eventually I had much watched buds and then flowers.Dazzling flowers.This may have been my first creative act.There is no greater satisfaction.
While reading last night I came across the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi.Wabi Sabi is an appreciation of the beauty of things imperfect,impermanent and incomplete.When the Japanese want a bowl that is in the spirit of Wabi Sabi, they make sure that it has a defect,perhaps one side lower than the other.I found out something further about this concept."If an object or expression can bring about within us a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be Wabi Sabi." Andrew Juniper.
This idea,for some unknown reason, excites me.So I will let my thoughts go to where the Spirit leads.I believe that we come from Perfection and one day ,we return.In the interim, we are here in this obviously imperfect world.What we do here matters.What we do in this vale of tears.Since this is a pain filled world of imperfect health,people,circumstances, our task is to stand in the breach and try to bring balance with our goodness and faith.
We are commanded in Scripture to be perfect as the Father is perfect.I think it means that we are children of God and we are to become what He has perfectly set for us to do on this flawed globe we trod.Since he is love, that is what we are to become,perfect love.
My lumpy bell, scratched frame,rusted coil all speak to me of the imperfect that has such beauty.Perhaps,I have come to love these things because as I have aged,I am so much more gentle with myself and my many flaws and those of others.There are lessons in the imperfect that I want to learn.
2 comments:
Interesting, challenging thoughts.
When I read your blog about 'be ye perfect', my mind recalled the 'rich young man' of the Gospel. He'd kept all of the commandments since his youth, but what 'else' must I do to earn eternal life, he asked?
Despite knowing his greedy heart, Jesus still "looked at him and LOVED HIM".
Jesus knew before he challenged the young man to "sell all you have, give to the poor and come follow me", that young man would go away sad--unable to love another more than himself.
To me, being perfect/having God's perfection means loving another more than yourself--even to the point of giving up all you are or have. In today's world, that seems to be almost impossible. It means a Mother Theresa kind of life. So very hard to do yet God calls us each to do that.
But remember, "we are born with a closed fist, but die with open hands."
Challenging comment,anon.A Mother Teresa kind of life,indeed.How far are we willing to go?Thank you for all you do to encourage this blog and this writer.
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