Casual Profundity
Just looking at this is making my back ache
I had a bit of an epiphany this week. In fact I had TWO! First - Jeremy G showed me some amazing lace - painstakingly crafted by hand and a very special piece of history. I was admiring this incredibly complex work of art as it hung, beautifully framed, in the entryway of his house. Jeremy explained where it had come from and how the ladies who created it were very much a dying breed (in the most literal sense). Apparently all real, handmade lace has a ‘mistake’ somewhere. Sometimes it’s fairly obvious and easy to spot but certainly not always. It is this ‘defect’ which shows the lace to be authentic - as in specially made by a real person, working for hours to produce an intricate and delicately interwoven piece. Honestly I could have stared at it all day. Not necessarily to search for the inconsistency but because, as a whole, it was perfect. Usually when we refer to something as perfect, we mean completely without fault, but with handmade lace, there cannot be perfection without a defect. If the lace is truly without any error it cannot possibly be authentic. I love that paradox. And I have to say, it’s been a tremendous relief to me this week to know that all the things we hate about ourselves, the things that stand out to us as huge defects and glaring faults, are the very things that prove how purposefully and carefully curated we are in all of our bespoke imperfection.
The Quokka - enthusiasm in animal form
Another gentleman from All Saints - Dudley - dropped in for a chat this week. He was telling me about an exciting new project he has been working on. He said that when he gets that excited, enthusiastic buzz about something, he knows it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. I think I have made it sound a little pretentious - but if you know Dudley, you know he is singularly lacking in anything even approaching such a thing. The way he phrased it was much more low key and casual but it blew my mind. So THAT’S what that sparkling, bubbling feeling around the solar plexus is! Whenever I get that sensation I feel like I’ve had an energy transplant - and the donor was the Sun or something. It’s a delicious, powerful and shivery burst of enthusiastic vitality. Even the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek enthousiasmos, meaning “inspiration or possession by a god.” So I have to ask - what are you enthusiastic about today?