Accidental Perfectionist

What’s on your bedside table?

What if we were to take from the Earth Only what we needed To feel whole and fulfilled and beautiful? ... https://accidentalperfectionist.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/entry-27-what-if-we-were-to-take-from-the-earth/

Feed your soul, not your stomach. Strengthen your resolve, not your muscles. Dress your spirit, not your body. Sense your senses, for they are there. Hear your emotions, don’t act on them. Speak your truth, but do not yell it. Follow curiosity. You will reach Joy. 7/14/16

I hold Art in high regard. That is an understatement. I feel utterly unworthy of Art. I was 7 or 8 when I first witnessed Art. Or, it is my earliest memory of witnessing something transcendental, that I later would identify as Art. It was a photograph, taken by my father, of his mother’s hands pushing fabric through an old sewing machine. It was black and white, and highlighted her weathered hands. I remember loving this photograph, as it allowed me to learn about my grandmother, even though she had already passed away. It also showed me a part of my father I had never known - the tender love he had for his mother poured off the edges of the 5x7 piece of photo paper. That is the power of Art. What is the earliest memory you have of witnessing something inspiring, breath-catching, that you would later identify as Art? Was it a photographor a painting, music, dance, poetry, or something else?

Expire Expire They are going to expire Expire Expire They are going to expire 7 inmates on death row, the court vacates their stays Asa says I have no choice They will be killed within 11 days The midozalam flows, from syringe through his vein Jones gasps for air, They say he’s not in any pain Was Asa in the room when Jones was injected Could he see through the mirror? Did he feel disconnected? Or did he turn out the lights and say a blessed little prayer He doesn’t know that Truth comes through in our nightmares? Expire Expire They are going to expire Williams counts every minute, he is scheduled for Thursday Will he ask for communion, or Will he get a stay? Genie decides to attend and witness Williams’ death She lives 2 miles from the prison Will she watch and hold her breath? When you have lost a loved one, everything’s destroyed But can killing another person Ever fill that void? Expire Expire They are going to expire Expire Expire They are going to expire 7 lives, 11 days, the officers ask for reprieve The load is too much, they say, We’ll have no time to grieve Why rush, why now, Governor, Citizens inquire. It’s the meds, he says, the meds that are going to expire The meds The meds Are going to expire The meds The meds Are going to expire Based on current events: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/04/07/with-lethal-injection-drugs-expiring-arkansas-plans-unprecedented-seven-executions-in-11-days/?utm_term=.70aa8a6019a8

I am addicted to making meaning.

I don’t want a sappy souvenir, so I decide to buy him a bookmark - it’s thoughtful and represents my love of reading. I select carefully, one with dried flowers in just the right orientation, balanced and beautiful. The accompanying note, I decide, will be romantic, not frivolous, substantive. I draft the note, and edit it, and then write it once again. All three painstaking sentences. On a yellow legal pad, I practice scripting it, in print, then cursive, then a different cursive, before writing the final version within the hand-crafted card. I hear him say “very poetic” through the receiver as I sit in my parents’ bedroom with the corded phone. My heart lifts off, my mind floats. It is the best compliment I have ever received in my 14 years, even more so because it was from someone I was head over heels enamored with. It was so important that I get each word just right - together, they reflect the light coming from my soul, through my heart, onto the page. By contrast, to tweet, is simply, agony.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From The Sea

That is all.

We have moved all that is important from the sideline to center stage. Only then, will you know the essence of me, because together, we will see the essence of the world.

I want them to relish everything and be free Because in essence, that allows me to be me.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action – Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. - Rabindra Nath Tagore (1883-1902)

I continue driving down the highway, wondering what Jesus would do if He walked with us today.