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A Beautiful Truth
The duplex is still painfully plain: no shutters, no door trims, no bannisters specially designed to accent the porch area. The nice porch chairs, the swing have not happened for the porch is usually abuzz with busy bodies playing games. Indoors the walls are suffering, the furniture shrinking, the bookshelves piled rather than arranged.
Visual beauty is not an option; a functional outlet for abundant energy is an imperative. So I have to seek alternatives such as closing my eyes and remembering the years on the waterfront in the home where I could plot rooms of perfection and the tropical garden where I could pluck from the trees a tropical fruit cocktail anytime I felt thirst. And when I mentally visit my places of beauty, I am reminded of how the beauty was only visual, and once again I taste the horrors lurking beneath the serene surface. Thus satiated, I return with an understanding of the deeper beauty, the beauty which revitalizes and renews.
"The more I focused on lack and on what I couldn’t have, the more depressed I became. The more depressed I became, the more I focused on lack. My soul whispered that what I really yearned for was not financial security but financial serenity. I was still—quiet enough to listen. At that moment I acknowledged the deep longing in my heart. What I hungered for was an inner peace that the world could not take away. I asked for help and committed to following wheresoever Spirit would lead me. For the first time in my life I discarded my five-year goals and became a seeker, a pilgrim, a sojourner.
"When I surrendered my desire for security and sought serenity instead, I looked at my life with open eyes. I saw that I had much for which to be grateful. I felt humbled by my riches and regretted that I took for granted the abundance that already existed in my life. How could I expect more from the universe when I didn’t appreciate what I already had?" --Sarah Ban Breathnach
"And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:" --Matthew 6:28, King James Version (KJV)
Jane Mullikin
Visual beauty is a vital component of our well-being--or so I believed for many years. The rooms where I spent most of my time had to be peaceful, serene, and great effort was put forth to make them visually comforting to me. Last year when I purchased the duplex destined to become The Living in Simple Faith house, I pictured the shuttered windows, the door trims, the carefully placed and trimmed flowering shrubs I must have to properly accent the place. Thankfully, the large yew was just too big for the children to destroy, but the grass is giving way under the bocce ball scrimmages and the flowering plants are usually laced with plastic cups--not of the decorative type, either.
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