Beauty in the face of violence

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am not doing something new every day this year, and I am not doing things that will make for entertaining blog posts for people to read, but that I am just doing things for ME that hopefully bring me joy. And so that means sometimes it will be the same old thing that brought be joy yesterday. And the day before. And the day before. If I'm lucky!

And of course, I don't want to spend an entire day in pursuit of something just for myself; that would be out of balance. But the more I think about it, I do hope to spend more of my time—whether seeking it or happening upon it—in joy.


And sometimes I have to remind myself that even in the face of tragedy, heartbreak, and violence (the school shooting in Newtown, CT) that it is still OK to seek time for myself, and to seek beauty. In fact, it might be even more important. Because we need to take care of ourselves and each other. And we need to see the beauty in the world. We need that to be good people, and to continue to create art, and to be forces of change for good in the world.

And yet it is difficult to write about the thing I did today, knowing that while I was doing that, people were in the deepest anguish a person can experience. And so I am going to just use an image, and hope that this image will hold out some beauty to people, and that the beauty will inspire us to take a moment to breathe, to give thanks for our lives, and to care for each other and our world.