The Beauty of Simplicity

As we entered her home, my friend stopped to pick a couple of blossoms off the potted tree which adorned the front porch.  I thought nothing of it.  She then went to her kitchen and returned with a bowl filled with water.  The white flowers were at resting on the surface of the transparent liquid.  The exterior of the vessel matched the alabaster purity of the flowers.  The interior of the bowl was a vibrant green, which spoke of life.  She placed the bowl on a cabinet, its dark wood top providing the perfect field to display the simplistic beauty of this spontaneous art piece.

“Beautiful,” I said.  She then told me she had painted the bowl at Color Me Mine, a business where you can add your own artistic flair to a piece of pottery and then they fire it for you.  I have never been there myself, but I have seen more than one example of the pottery created there.  Each possessed a wonderful uniqueness, because it was born from the creative imagination of the one who painted it.  Most pieces have been very colorful and possessed some wonderful design or pattern which set it apart.  Her bowl did not seem to fit the mold of the other works I have seen come out of the establishment.

I made a comment about the fact her bowl did not fit my expectation of what would be created from a day spent at Color Me Mine.  She acknowledged I was probably right, and then explained why.  What she shared made the bowl even more beautiful to me.

She told me the bowl was created on a day with her husband, niece and mother. They decided to spend some special time together doing something fun.  Painting pottery seems like the perfect outing.  She told me about the intercity of the design her husband had painted on the martini glass he picked out.  I got the impression her niece and her mother had added similar artistic flairs to the objects they had chosen to paint.  My friend, on the other hand, purposely chose to add only one color to the inside of her dish.

Now if you knew my friend, you would know she is one of the most artistically gifted people you will ever meet.  Her choice was not made because she was afraid she could not pull off an intricate design, or because she had no vision for what the bowl could be.  She explained to me she had chosen to use only one color of paint, and to paint only one surface of the bowl so she would not have to focus her attention on the piece she was working on.  Instead, she would spend her time focusing on the people she was with. 

She explained she had pained twelve coats of the glaze on the interior of that bowl.  This was work which did not require much concentration, but allowed her to activity participate in the process her companions were engaged in.  The simplicity of it gave her the capacity to be fully present with those she was with.

I wonder if her fellow artists recognized how simple her design was.  I could just hear one of them asking, “Aren’t you going to do something more creative with your bowl?”  I wonder if they also noticed how the simplicity of her project allowed her to focus her attention on them. 

I can just imagine her encouraging them as they went about the creative process.  I can see the smile come across their faces when they experienced being seen by her as she engaged them in conversation, not only about the project in front of them, but about their lives outside of that studio.

While they painted their masterpieces, she created the space necessary to be mindful of those around her.  It was a gift filled with loving-kindness, grace and beauty.

I wish I could say this is the posture I would have taken if I found myself at the same table.  I am pretty sure I would have been more focused on what I was going to paint and how it was going to look.  The perfectionist in me would have wanted to center my attention on the unglazed pottery in front of me, rather than the people who were sitting next to me.  I am afraid I would have made it more of a competition than an opportunity to be present with others.

Looking at her piece of art, understanding why she made the choices she did, I am quite confident nothing I could make would be as striking as the simplistic beauty of her bowl.  I was thankful for the creative decisions she made, the clarity of the water, the flowers which floated on its surface, but most of all for the moment I found myself in and what it was teaching me. 

We may not find ourselves painting glaze on pottery this week, but we will enter into moments where we can choose to simplicity, in order to create the space which will allow us to be present with people.  Doing so may mean we refrain from using the full extent of our giftedness or capacities.  It may also keep from showing others how much we can accomplish or how talented we are.  We might find ourselves laying aside our competitive, perfectionist selves and in order to simply be with others.

Would you be open to that? Could you choose simplicity in order to create the space which would allow someone else to be seen and heard?  Could you find the beauty in choosing to paint with only one color of glaze in order to express a higher form of art, that of making people feel known, and loved?

I hope you can.  After taking in the beauty of my friends bowl, I am convinced this kind of artistry creates a beauty which cannot be matched.

Dried Flowers and Distant Memories

Today, I had the pleasure of a long, leisurely conversation with a dear friend who always makes me look at the world from a slightly different perspective and who always encourages me to open my eyes to the simple beauty which surrounds me.  We were talking about creating space in our lives to be able to live in such moments, and the clutter which often robs us of such a vista.  It seemed to us, we often willing, even lovingly, cling to this clutter as a way of remembering such moments in our past and in the process rob ourselves of the capacity to see in the present.  As my friend was sharing her thoughts an image came to my mind of a book and a dried flower.

Actually, it was more of a memory than an image.  A friend had given me the collected works of John Steinbeck as a groomsman’s gift years ago.  He wrote a nice inscription in the front cover and the book is something which was displayed on our bookshelf for many years.  Several years ago, I took the book off the shelf to dust it and found in its back pages a pressed, dried flower.  It had long since lost its scent and its soft velvet petals had been transformed into a stiff, brittle mass which crumbled each time it was touched or moved.

When I discovered the dried flower I was not surprised.  I remember placing it between the pages of the volume soon after our own wedding.  It was a flower from Tammie’s bouquet.  Over the years when I would stumble upon the dried flower I would remember where it came from and what it represented.  Sometimes I might even call out to Tammie, “Look, the flower from your wedding bouquet.” I would always place it back between the pages and put it back upon the shelf. 

The last time I stumbled across this memento I took a brief moment to look at it for what it had become, not for the memory it held.  It was a dead, dry flower which was falling apart.  While it was a placeholder for a memory, it in no way adequately represented the beauty of my bride, or the flowers that she held, as she walked down the aisle towards me on our wedding day.  When I close my eyes, I can clearly see her radiant beauty.  The years have not erased the moment from my memory, but they were not so kind to the flower.  They turned it into a poor depiction of a beautiful moment. Because of this, I threw the flower out.

Before you crucify me as an unsentimental clod, remember there is no one who enjoys drinking in a moment more than I do.  I savor beauty and often pause to let it soak into my soul. I treasure the sacred spaces where hearts are open, awareness gives birth to discovery, laughter binds together and the capacity to simply be present to one another is cultivated. I treasure the tapestry which is woven when lives intersect over time and find myself both humbled and grateful at having so many which have been interwoven through years and years of relationship.

And yet, I do not want to hold any of these moments, or the clutter which I have accumulated over time to remember them, so tight that they prevent me from creating the simplicity of space necessary to discover the beauty of the present moment.

When I was younger, I did not recognize how one competed with the other, and so I pressed flowers into books. Now, I see it.  I have come to understand I have a finite ability to hold things.  There is only so much I can cling to before my capacity is filled. I see how the things I hold on to take up more than just space in my house. The recognition of these things is an invitation to learn to let go.

Looking down at that dried flower I realized it had let go long ago, even though I had done all I could do to hold on to it.  Throwing it away was simply a way of acknowledging this truth.

I shared this image with my friend and we let it soak in.

A little later in the morning we moved our conversation into my friend’s office and she drew my attention to a vase of flowers which had been on her desk and which were now near a sink.  As recently as the day before they were vibrant and beautiful, but overnight they had wilted.  They were now ready to be discarded and replaced.  She said, “Some things simply cannot be held onto.” 

She is right.  And yet, we often spend so much energy trying to hold on to that which has already withered.  This is true with more in life than just flowers. 

While something is blooming I say, recognize its beauty.  Be inspired by it.  It is right to take notice, to enjoy the space it fills.  Learn the discipline of savoring it.  Let the sweetness of its scent fill your nostrils.  Rub your finger tips to across its soft petals.  Place it where it can be illumined by the morning light which streams through the window. Allow your eyes to drink in its beauty often, for as long as it last, but do not cling to it too tightly.

Be willing to let it go, for chances are the space which is created when you do will allow you to see the beauty of that which is readying itself to bloom.