Mabel gifted us a beautiful cross-stitch of the Twenty-Third Psalm and went so far as to have it matted and professionally framed.  When we took it home I knew exactly where I wanted to hang it; right outside of our bedroom door in the hallway so that every time we walked out, it would be the first thing we saw, reminding us of the gift, the giver and the promise it contained.

I AM NOT A HANDY MAN

I didn’t look for a stud to put the nail to hang the picture.

I didn’t even put up a super-duper wall hanger that would have been just as sturdy as nailing it into a wall stud.

I just eyed it up and put a nail in and hung the piece of art.

I have no idea why framed art like that has a way of falling down at 3:00 a.m. instead of 3:00 p.m. but that’s exactly what happened and when I heard the crash, I knew immediately it wasn’t a burglar, but a poorly hung picture.

We all have that picture, don’t we?  It is the picture that each of us have been gifted or maybe even painstakingly painted ourselves; and not only paint but we frame it; we make sure we put it in the best of mats and it has glare-less glass over top of it so we could see it from any angle without any kind of shadowy, distorted glares. This preciously framed picture is the only one of its kind.  It includes those we have put in our picture, who have made up our lives and painted all of the intricate strokes that would have made it impossible for us not to be US.

It is reflective our pristine PLAN  A with no forethought of any kind of a PLAN B

It is THAT PICTURE, the one and only un-replicated ONE that we treasure most; that most often falls from the wall, no matter how it seems to be secured. The one-of-a-kind-picture that we have painted for our lives, for our family, for our loved ones; it’s that picture that we hang on the wall and whether we first find a stud or whether we wall anchor it, somehow, someway, that picture, usually in the middle of one of the dark nights of our souls, without any warning whatsoever, falls and gets 100% obliterated; it gets smashed, the glass, the frame, the mat. The Vision.

The actual picture itself gets destroyed and we never can put it back together again because it is that obliterated.  Isn’t that our life?  It doesn’t matter how many goals we have set.  It doesn’t matter how many New Year’s Resolutions we’ve made and actually kept; It doesn’t matter how expensive the pen we’ve used to write our script on a mystical pad; it doesn’t matter how we dream, we wish, we deem it all to be; IT IS HOW it all turns out to be, despite of all of those other concerted efforts.  OFTEN it does not turn out to be that way.  OUR WAY.          .          .

We are all a collection of jagged, smashed pieces; broken pictures fallen off the wall; constantly attempting to gather and putting together pieces that never can be put together again.

THE WORST PART.            .            .

We seldom see the good news of the never-to-be-put-together-again-picture we’ve held so dear to us.

THE TRUTH.          .          .

Sometimes it takes a good picture smashing to have what could have never been imagined.  It may never be expensively matted, framed or professionally hung, but in living-vivid-color, it’s as real as your heartbeat and more desperately needed than your next breath.

The picture of the PRESENT MOMENT is never perfect, but it is very real and even more,

EvOlViNg.          .          .

It just could be THAT PICTURE might be better than the one that we put on the wall,

 the one we grieve the most;
Crooked as it may be
keeps us from seeing
THAT PICTURE.          .          .          .

YOU

hear it more and more:

IT’S    NOT    A    SMALL    WORLD  

 SO    MUCH    AS    JUST    A    BIG    LIVING    ROOM.       .       . 

I do a Keynote presentation where I hand out of Baggie full of objects

that helps us Understand that very thing:

IT’S   NOT   A   SMALL   WORLD   SO   MUCH   AS   JUST   A   BIG   LIVING   ROOM

One of the small objects I place in the baggie is a puzzle piece;

I tell the audience that the we’re often told to

LOOK     AT     THE     BIG     PICTURE

which is really an overwhelming thing to do.         .         .

It   is

P  I  E  C  E      b  y      P  I  E  C  E

 that our lives are literally put together and

T  A  K  E       S  H  A  P  E
R  E  C  E  I  V  E       M  E  A  N  I  N  G

I give the audience a puzzle piece to remind them just how important

 I  S

T    H    E         M   O   M   E   N   T

I give the audience a puzzle piece to remind them just how

WE       ALL       FIT       TOGETHER.

Mother Theresa once said,

“IF    I    LOOK    AT    THE    MASS,    I    WILL    NEVER    ACT.”

If she thought about just how many suffering victims there were in the World, it would have been emotionally paralyzing and prevented from actually providing help.

I don’t have to help every poor, hungry, down-on-their-luck-no-one-gives-a-damn-about-me-person in the World.        .        .

JUST   THE   ONE   IN   FRONT   OF   ME
JUST    THE    ONE    BEHIND    ME
JUST     THE     ONE     BESIDE     ME

J   U   S   T        T   H   E        O   N   E !

We really do have the World in our Hands.        .        .

It’s not so big

T H A T      W A Y,

is  it?

Very  manageable;

I don’t know the 12 Mystical Ways to Open your Soul

I don’t know the 21 Magical Ways to open your Heart

I      do      know      that     when

I    LISTEN    WITH    MORE    THAN    MY    EARS  

I    RESPOND    AND    NOT    SO    MUCH    REACT

I    REPLENISH    MY    SOUL    TO    REFILL    ANOTHER’S

I    REMEMBER    THE    WHOLE    PERSON

I    SUFFER    WHAT    OTHER’S    HAVE    SUFFERED

I    GIVE    MYSELF    A     PASS    FOR    BEING    TOO    HUMAN

I   know

that my Puzzle Piece becomes a little bit more important

I know

that the World becomes a little bit more smaller in my Hands.       .       .

More, uhhhh,

H           A            N            D            A            B            L            E

for    me
for    you
for    us
A      L      L