Celebrate Early!

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Happy-Kids Celebrate 2I paint in a sea of Spanish. For the past two years, every Wednesday morning I enter the inspiring atelier of my teacher Luz Jiménez Díaz. She is from Colombia and has lived in The Netherlands for the past 20 years. Most of my fellow students are also Spanish speaking, coming from Mexico, Columbia, and Argentina. They easily slide from Spanish to Dutch to English, sometimes laughing and chatting as they paint.

The large room is full of light. Outside a flower garden, tended by Luz’s Dutch husband Johan surrounds us. You enter the garden by way of a large mosaic terrace Luz designed based on Egyptian images and gods. In late autumn, the garden is still vibrant. White and purple cornflowers flourish while the sunflowers hang forlorn and creamy dahlias struggle against the cold.

A small group of us attempt to bring our imagination to life under Luz’s patient and encouraging eye. When I first started, Luz would often appear before my atrocious splashes of color and say, “Your work is full of feeling.” She would then take a brush and tenderly demonstrate a technique that she wanted me to learn. “Why don’t you try this?” she would ask, and I was completely swept away. Only later did I realize that when she said, “Your work is full of feeling,” it probably needed a lot more technique!

Last week I decided to bring German cakes to share with my fellow aspiring artists. We usually stop mid-way for rich Colombian coffee or herbal tea, accompanied this time with slices of tart, both thickly-layered, one of apple and another of raspberry cream.

“What are we celebrating?” everyone asked.

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Your Significance Reaches Beyond Your Imagination

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Our acts of kindness are like seeds in the wind. Surrender them to be transformed into miracles.

Our acts of kindness are like seeds in the wind. Surrender them to be transformed into miracles.

How often do you despair at your apparent insignificance? Between ISIS, Ebola, and the devastation of the world’s climate, what possible difference can we make? Such problems can feel overwhelming and our own meager lives seem so small. Even when we do rise above such feelings of inadequacy, we then might struggle to choose the most appropriate response. What actions can we possibly take at a personal level to affect what is emerging globally?

First of all, you and your actions do matter. My experience is that our significance reaches far beyond our imagination. Even the smallest acts of kindness directed towards rectifying the world’s injustices make a difference. But perhaps most surprisingly and wonderfully, even obscure acts that we may not consider meaningful can make a difference.

Let me offer you an example from my life. Sometimes I write poetry and often I wonder why. What purpose do these poems serve? I scribble them down in a notebook, sometimes share them, most of the time not. But then one day, I received a mysterious letter. The only address on the envelope was:

Catherine Ann Lombard
Giove, Italy

At the time I was living in The Netherlands. This letter, without any street address or zip code, had been forwarded to my new Dutch address from the Italian post office 1300 km (800 miles) away.

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Don’t Count Your Success!

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Actor George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin found true love and married in Venice.

How does it make you feel? Actor George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin’s wedding in Venice.

Everyday, we hear about successful people – people who are more beautiful, richer, and happier than ourselves. Our hearts might give a slight squeeze when we compare our lives to theirs. We never seem good enough … But wait! Next to these people full of unattainable wealth, beauty, and happiness are the fallen ones. The once successful people who have ended up divorcing, in trouble with substance abuse or alcohol, or worse, committing suicide. We might experience a slight sigh of relief. After all, we are much better off than them.

We often count numbers, especially when it comes to measuring success. We count the money in our bank account, and assume the larger the number the larger our success. We count the size of our car, boobs, house – the bigger, the better. For our spiritual lives, we count how many times we do yoga a week, how often we pray everyday or go to church every week, or how many minutes we meditate. The more, the better. We count how many friends we have on Facebook, followers on Twitter and Likes on our blog. The more, the better!

Where did all this counting come from? Today, blind faith in science has become the dogma of our modern Western society, along with its methodology. Empirical evidence, that is numbers, are unquestioned as truth, because numbers can be quantitatively counted, compared, and placed on a graph. This ideology has also filtered into our society as a way as measuring who we are as persons. But this kind of counting is sterile and leaves us always wanting more. Counting success in this way depletes all creative energy. We are left feeling exhausted and alienated and far from recognizing the process of living as full human beings.

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