Who can truly listen to someone who is lost in their creative process? The artist has a project – right? To find a way to let her little light shine? Everyone of us, like the artist, faces this dilemma everyday. Each one of us possesses some lovely fragment of a greater mystery. And this piece of the bigger puzzle is particular. We often, or even habitually, get our thoughts tied up with our to do lists, our bucket lists, and our worries. But when we drop down underneath this routine static we immediately see signs of an authentic self. Something beautiful shows up and holds our gaze.
This morning it is the natural world holding me: flowering tree, birdsong, egg shell blue of sky, the whole neighborhood breathing with one breath. I realize whoever we work for may not care if we stopped to notice the fallen honeysuckle blossoms on the sidewalk outside. However, our attempts to notice such things are important. Why? Because stopping to be still enough to notice easily noticeable things that most often go unnoticed brings us face to face with the aforementioned mystery. We come upon the thing we missed and our minds wrap their arms around it. We know we are alive in the world. That noticing of things is your little light shining. The beam of your gaze is paired with personal delight in whatever you find along your way.