Dear Friends ~ The year after my first child was born could have been called A Crash Course in the Contemplative Life. Overnight my daily landscape shifted from the external and the social, to the internal and the domestic. My driving need for productivity and efficiency made no sense in a newborn's routine. I faced rhythmic but unscheduled days with swaths of quiet time. A part of me panicked without the markers of purpose and meaning I had always used to define myself, but the new pulse of our home and the simple yet powerful needs of my baby created a steady familiarity with silence.
Home, at its very best, is a space of welcome and acceptance. Maya Angelou once wrote, "The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned". For some of us, this is an actual place: a house or a landscape. Other times home can be the people and communities that provide the sort of reflection — knowing and being known — that draws us further into ourselves in order that the whole world around us can become a place where we truly live. ~ Joy
Creative people tend to see life's problems as opportunities to exercise their creativity, to explore something new, to build character, to grow spiritually, and to develop self-knowledge. Love, creativity, and gentleness are closely linked. People who are creative and open to life are more able to learn to love others and themselves. Once we learn the art of turning problems into opportunities, there is no more distinction between self-love and the love of others.