"Openings" is the Quaker word for life moments which invite growth
and learning. I would add creativity. The other day, while walking
through a nearby neighborhood, I came across a house that had lost a great
curbside tree to age or disease. But rather than chop down the whole thing, the owner used
the bottom third of the tree trunk to carve a great owl which seems to be checking out
the street's comings and goings. Upon closer look, I discovered the especially insightful and creative touch — two owlets looking out at us from their
hollow trunk nest.
Henry David Thoreau wrote: "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you
see." Someone might have looked and seen a dead tree that needed to be taken down, someone else saw an owl with nestlings.
An opening could occur while reading an article or book, catching a news item or listening deeply to someone's suggestion or insight, and I hear myself saying, "I never thought of it
that way."
An opening might occur in the moment of self-realization, when I ask, "Why do I keep doing that?" or "I don't like that about myself; why do I still think this way?" or "Why have I not grown up?"
A woman was told from a very early age that she couldn't draw, paint or sing — that she had no creative abilities. She accepted that as a fact about herself and lived well into her adult years with every creative impulse shutdown. She remembers gratefully the moment it all changed, accepting an invitation to join a community which encourages the arts. An opening!
As children, the first thing we learn about God is that God creates. God loves to create. God takes time to create and to actualize God's wonderful imagination. And we were made with capacities to grow, learn and create. There's something divine about that, isn't there? What about it?
An opening might occur in the moment of self-realization, when I ask, "Why do I keep doing that?" or "I don't like that about myself; why do I still think this way?" or "Why have I not grown up?"
A woman was told from a very early age that she couldn't draw, paint or sing — that she had no creative abilities. She accepted that as a fact about herself and lived well into her adult years with every creative impulse shutdown. She remembers gratefully the moment it all changed, accepting an invitation to join a community which encourages the arts. An opening!
As children, the first thing we learn about God is that God creates. God loves to create. God takes time to create and to actualize God's wonderful imagination. And we were made with capacities to grow, learn and create. There's something divine about that, isn't there? What about it?
