We Become Absorbed

By Published On: June 22nd, 2022
  • McCall Van Ord 2022
The practice of giving a gift of beauty to a wounded place, as we do each year for the Global Earth Exchange, fundamentally, changes our relationship with the place. How could a seemingly simple act make such a difference?
For one thing, we have gone to spend time in the very place we thought we had to avoid.
We have realized that not only are we not dragged down into some awful circumstance from which we can’t escape, but that just the opposite occurs: we see the place transform like a character in a fairy tale, from an ugly, debilitated thing to a living presence that impels an expression of love that we ourselves are uniquely qualified to give.
We discover that everything surrounding us is a potential component of the gift we make.
We find out how much we have in common with our neighbors, who also love this place.
We feel empowered to act and know our act needs approval from no higher authority.
We discover purpose and beauty under difficult circumstances.
We cease to be observers and become absorbed in what is before us.
We choose to get involved.
It is when we’ve given beauty to a place that we realize we are no longer separate. To give beauty is to marry the world, outside and within.
Join the world in making beauty for the Earth
this Saturday, June 25!
—Trebbe Johnson

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