it begins and ends with love

Everything, absolutely everything is from the vantage point of our own filter or lens through which we see ourselves, our life and those around us.

"We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are."

~ The Talmud

We perceive things and forget to step back and view the entire picture. It's like the scene in Ferris Bueller's Day off where they hop around Chicago seeing all the famous sites, including a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago. Cameron stands, viewing the Impressionist work of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. Through pointillism, the arrangement of dots form shadows and light and characters and nature and beauty. All at once he feels like he is apart of something greater as if he were in the composition containing a seemingly infinite number of dots of color.



Just like the mind blends color to form an object, our minds blend our circumstances to reveal one thing. If we step closer and even closer it reveals the secrets and misunderstandings and the hidden images that make up the whole of the masterpiece.

You and I are made up of the sum of our experiences and when we look at people at their face value rather than the radiance just underneath their mask, we're tempted to make false assumptions, jump to conclusion or assume things about them that perhaps aren't true.

My job is to remain pliable as I gather new and better information that enables me to see the entire painting. Can I allow my perception to change and harness judgements? Moment my moment, perhaps.

Judgement is the thief of compassion, just like comparison is the thief of happiness. In the end, every dot, every work of art, every human healing begins and ends with love. It's the journey of a lifetime that extends beyond my comprehension.

“And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

I felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind.”

~ Pablo Neruda