Big old world

I woke up knowing it was going to be a warm sunny day today and I have to tell you it has put a spring in my step. I kinda want to hit the road. Yesterday was cool and rainy and I happily sat with a cup of tea and went carefully over the whole website fixing little things. I did not get it all done. It is like cleaning a very large house but I got some stuff done. And it felt good. There is always work to do there, again like house work. 

Today I plan to make lentil soup the way my mother in law made it, with spinach and lemon and plenty of fried onion. I will put the lentils on to boil this morning. Then I will walk. Beyond that I do not know what the day holds. I step into it with love and hope and a prayer for grace. 

The light is so beautiful here in my studio right now it makes me happy to just sit and write to you and talk about the little things we usually talk about. It is nice to know that others care about the small things that can make a life so worthwhile. I feel you do because you read my letters. And that creates an affection, a sort of kinship I suppose. We are as comfortable talking to each other about an ordinary day as we are about love and faith. And those of course are no small ordinary things. These are both big miraculous things. Things we cannot quite understand or get a hold on. Love requires faith, and faith requires love. They turn to each. And we turn to each of them to make the day, to make each day.

Even when things feel as if they are not going right we have these things to turn to. We can focus in on these things in our life. We can see evidence of them all around us. We see our neighbours and our community and there is love and faith there. I see it in my studio, in the people who work there, the people who come there or visit with us online. Honestly, I see these things everywhere and these are the things I focus on. These are the things I try to fill my life with. I read the news for a few minutes each day so I know what is happening in the world, but I am careful not to let the world consume me because if I do I cannot create beauty. I could not make art. I could not help others make. And this is my job in the world and I have a responsibility to do it. So I remain aware but protective of my heart. Knowing that what we take in affects our outlook, and our output. Instead I do what I can where I can. 

And I believe, like some nineteen seventies bumper sticker, that love really is the answer. I I can choose love as often as possible in this one small life that I have been given. I can help. I can say kind things. Better still I can do kind things. And of course, all this is only "trying" and doing the best we can. For not one of us is perfect. But those of us who are trying are important, as small as we are in this big old world.