Lynn Underwood

Art, science, and personal experiences all help us better understand who we are and how we can flourish

Tag: compassionate love

  • new life

    art by lynn

    Where do we find new life? I have recently been re-watching the BBC series Call the Midwife, set in London in the 1950’s and 60’s. It highlights the courage and compassion that can be exposed in tough times for the midwives, the patients, and their families. It shows the role of community. It faces head-on the difficulties the characters are having, and the challenging environment they live in. Not shying away from the moral quandries, and not offering simple solutions. It does not ignore the role spirituality can play in the broadest sense and handles it with such a delicate touch. The scaffolding of each episode contains childbirth. That pain is necessary for a baby to be born.

    Our pains too can lead to new life for us. Of course we do not choose to have pain, and avoid it when we can. But I look back on tough times in my past and cheer the fact that I am still here and alive. It gives me courage for the future. Have little sprigs of new life ever come from tough times you have had in the past? 

    sketch of asa by lynn

  • Stitched with compassion and wire

    art by lynn

    “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” – JRR Tolkien

    The little things. 

    In the midst of the many really bad things happening in our world now, it feels easy for me to just give up, toss in the towel. What good can I do?  

    The drawing above is of a nut person, given to me as a gift. It was carefully created by my friend Jane from bits and pieces of nature. It is hanging on my kitchen wall. She sends these out at Christmas as gifts. Each of us has ways of being in the world, and actions that are ones that only we can do. I do not make nut people and carefully package and send them out.  I am not called to run for political office. I can admire those who make a difference in ways that I do not. But we all, through all the small things we do in life, by standing in our own shoes and listening for what is next for us, can help to ‘hold evil in check’ as Tolkien wrote.

    I can ask a friend how she is doing. I can bake something nice for family. I can smile at the cashier at the grocery store and ask them how their day is going. I can paint a picture and share it. I can really listen. I can send a few cards via snail mail. I can mend a hole in someone’s sweater. I am trying to discover how on earth I am going to get my latest book project out into the world to reach those who would find it helpful in their lives. I am daunted by the task, but is there one step I can take towards that this week? Each one of us has something we can do today that can make a difference for good in the world.

    “In our imperfect world

    we are meant to repair

    and stitch together

    what beauty there is,

    stitch it with compassion and wire….”1

    1. From the poem ‘“Holding the Light” by Stuart Kestenbaum ↩︎