The bedside table

Maybe the desire to make something beautiful

is the piece of God that is inside each of us.

Mary Oliver

I believe we are all creative. We are each daily, creating our lives.

We are cooking meals, getting dressed, we are arranging furniture, choosing a film to see, deciding on what music to play, who to see.

Through choice we create our life.

And there are those that walk amongst us, that don’t really choose.

They fall into things,

they end up with a partner,

they drift here and there,

they have gifted the steering of their life to the noisiest.

What happens when we choose, is we become responsible in some way for those choices. Maybe that’s why is easier for some to fall into things, then there’s no way they are having to own those decisions. There must be something appealing to them to not make decisions, at all.

But for others, we can choose to craft a life. To be intentional, to make the choice, to be vulnerable enough to put a hand up and make a decision. We write out our values, we read books to uplift us, we try to make good choices even if they are hard.

I think this is a beautiful way to live.

To say yes to what we value, to raise our hand and vote, to be an active participant in life. For example, this website wont be for everyone. Its not designed with that in mind, I’m specific about who I’m writing for. And I’m okay with that, it might offend some, it might not have the mass appeal other websites have. But in order to create something, it must have a pulse of its own. I dont know yet what the fullness of this project will be, but I feel encouraged to create this little nest of goodness, of beauty.

For I want to live a life that feels beautiful. A life that is meaningful. A life, where at the end I feel that I was courageous enough to carve out a small pocket of loveliness.

Mary Oliver and John O’Donohue are full of the beauty and awe of living. They are both on my bedside table, I have intentionally placed them there. Their works are the words that I want swirling around in my being as I drift off to sleep.

I’m rereading Divine Beauty by John O’Donohue and Devotions by Mary Oliver. They are full of such wholesome goodness and oh the imagery. Its heart-filling.

And you? What’s on your bedside table? If they are books, are they buoying you up? If you havent considered this before, I dare you to take a look at your bedside, what lives there?

Is it helpful?

xx