Looking for the Good

In one of the Shire posts, I wrote about how much I admired the statue of Evangeline in Nova Scotia. A memory popped up after that post. It was a scene from the kindergarten class in Manhattan Beach where I was the volunteer Music Lady. The teacher would suddenly call out, "Statues!" and all of us in the room would stop in whatever pose we happened to be in. I loved this moment where is seemed the world had lurched to a stop and was captured in a symbolic, "This is who you are." Remember the ballerina in Central Park? The quick change from one "still" to another was wonderful. So you can imagine my delight when I came upon this statue on 34th Street of a painter painting a painting of a wall mural. If you examine closely you can see that the sculpture includes his painting.

Now--you will say it's taken me a long time (decades!) to discover a connection between statues and my philosophy of life but just yesterday, I noticed. Statues may have made me a "looking for the good" person. As a child I always had a little altar atop a chest of drawers. I'd put fresh flowers there each day and touch the faces of the "santos" I had been given. Santa Rita was my favorite. It never occurred to me she was gruesome with the spike embedded in her forehead, blood dripping. I would touch the smooth cool stone and marvel at her serene adoration. Clearly, she was a role model of sacrifice and gratitude. And how about those Nativity set sheep so glad to be near the Baby? From tender beginnings such as placing a bowl of hibiscus next to a figurine came my defining world view.

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...may the blessings of tiny /large revelations be yours...