A Home with a View

Ok, so my home doesn't exactly have a view of much other than a parking lot, but one doesn't have to drive very far to find a gorgeous view. I took some pictures yesterday of the views from the top of the Masonic Village that is up the road from Elizabethtown, about five minutes away. I am amazed at how simplicity can take my breath away.

Today, I wasn't feeling great so I didn't leave the house except to take my dog for a half hour walk. It was gorgeous and cool outside, and I marveled to see so many of the leaves already starting to change. A few trees are starting to lose leaves at great speed. The wind was blowing a cool breeze, so I came home and opened all the doors and windows I could in our little apartment. My cat sat next to our front sliding door the whole day, looking longingly to freedom on the other side of the screen.

I watched a short piece of a movie called "10 Questions for the Dalai Lama" today. I'm not sure, with only 10 questions especially, that I learned anything different from what I already knew of him--practice non-violence and a non-threatening lifestyle (a timely message for our day's news), practice peace and compassion, examine yourself and explore happiness, let go of worry. The one that stuck out to me was actually the first question, which talked about self-discipline.

He was talking a lot about disciplining anger away from violence. I don't feel like outward violence is always the issue for most people; it may be inward violence: loathing, self-hatred, depression that is anger-turned inward (I don't think all depression is this, but some is), the small ways we punish ourselves for messing up. How does one discipline that, especially when no one else sees these attributes and we must be accountable to ourselves?

I know some of this exists in me. I remember at a retreat a few years back, we were invited to make something out of clay for a prayer experience of some sort. I don't really remember what the purpose was, but I had an image that stuck in my head. It was of a picture my pastor in seminary had, a statue that had been given to his hero, Carlyle Marney. The statue had one figure sitting with his head in his hands in despair; the other figure was sitting beside him, hands on both his shoulders. The picture was called "Compassion."

I decided that I wanted to try to make that for myself. As I am not an artist, it looked pretty horrible. I'm not even sure most people could distinguish it for human beings. But it was mine. I put it in my office at church to remind myself.

When I moved, I threw them away. I wish I hadn't now, but I also needed to purge. The act of making them is still enough--I have the original picture as well as my recreations in my head. I just wish I had a visual reminder sometimes, something that I turn my eyes towards on a regular basis.

But I think something more simple might also work, if I can practice self-discipline enough to stop, to enjoy things like the pictures I posted above. I can stop enough to be in the present, more than just to take a picture but to consider that the colors of the corn at that particular moment, the ever changing trees, the fields that roll on and on were made by Compassion for me to view, to take in, to enjoy for that particular moment. And my discipline will be to tell myself "It was worth the effort. I was worth the effort."