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a beautiful work

Gazing at the image before me, I was struck by its expressive detail and emotion-eliciting details.  I was beholding  th e lovely work of a rendition of Simeon holding the baby Jesus, with Anna looking on in amazement. The look on Simon's face!  It's absolutely precious.   The artist,  Jan van't Hoff , was born in 1959.  That is right, 1959.  This is a mere 10 years before me.  In fact, I have every reason to believe he is still alive.    This is modern art!  Somehow, I am not sure what shelf the Chicago Institute of Art would place this painting, but it certainly looks like it would be amongst the greats.  And then it struck me. Beautiful work is still  being created. In this day of phones, internet, shallow lives filled with disposable relationships and unstable futures, someone somewhere is creating beautiful work. This weekend I was also exposed to a different type of beautiful work.  It was the work of silence and meditation.  It is beautiful in what it does
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Centering

There's this concept called "centering" that we leaned in school.  For me, it was one of the hardest concepts to understand at the outset. Did they mean standing in a centered way-- like balancing your shoulders over your hips? Or did they mean centering yourself between the ground and the sun.. sort of like a hovercraft? Or perhaps it was something more esoteric like having your mind centered on what was right in front of you instead of all over the place? And then to make it worse there was some guy doing a yoga pose right in the middle of the page, looking serene.  Do we have to learn yoga and stand on one leg with our eyes closed to get this centering thing? So, I'm just going to define it for you my way, because that's the only way I can do it right now. For me, centering involves any activity that helps me get my mind, body and spirit aligned.  Very often one part of me is dominating the sphere.  Sometimes my mind is over-active--like I can'
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When a mother becomes a therapist

You know what they say about women?  Our lives, responsibilities, relationships, work  and the menu for the week are all snarled up like spaghetti in our minds and hearts. Just like we could carry a toddler on our foot and a preschooler on the hip while juggling the frying pan and the phone, we can take a call, finish the soap notes, change the linens for the next client and think of a funny memory all at the same time. Multitasking aside, the mothering tendency does not fall on everyone in the same way at the same time, even amongst those to whom were afforded the privilege of doing this mothering thing "full time". For me, though, it usually happens like this.  When God gives me a client, I take it seriously.   That's right.  I take it to be that everyone who walks through my door or into my life.. for whatever length of time.. is just that.. a gift.  And for me, God is the giver of gifts. Gifts are to be cared for, nurtured, treated responsibly.  Just like the
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