We so often think we need special talents and tools to do something good. But just using what is in front of us, stretching out to express what is in our hearts in the moment, can lead to small good things.
While talking on the phone with my daughter recently, I picked up a ballpoint pen, and a sheet of printer paper. In front of me was a vase of ranunculus flowers given to me as a gift.
It is not yet spring here, but the flowers on the table were a taste of spring. All my feelings came together: listening with care and concern to the words of my daughter, feeling the love from the person who gave me the flowers, appreciating the unusual beauty of these flowers, feeling the urge to express some of this, not only in my words of response to her but beyond that. The perfect expression was not there – the perfect tools, the perfect talent, the perfect response to love flowing in me. But I could say and do something.
In these especially chaotic times, there are limits to what we can do. Each moment is an opportunity to do something: love in ways we can, express what we have within us, act in ways that contribute something good, acknowledge the good in others. I need to remind myself of that, and keep doodling – in my actions and words as well as in my drawings- using what talents and tools I have in front of me and not waiting for the perfect opportunity.