IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

Funny how you can snap a picture of something quickly, all the while knowing that the subject in it requires more thought. Something captivated me about this giant clothespin sculpture. It seemed simple, but stately. It seemed out of place, yet perfectly in place.  It seemed insignificant and yet significant.

I guess it depends on how you look at it.

It's from a recent date day with my hubby where we had laughed and adventured together, The day was absolutely GORGEOUS. Just look at that sky!

The fun of the day was that it was planned on purpose but what the day was to hold was UNKNOWN, UNEXPECTED and FREE.

It was purposed both for appreciating each other's company and for appreciating the changing season of fall. My husband knows my heart: he knows I want to collect memories and not things. My birthday gift was an adventure- a local artist tour on a beautiful fall day.

He took my heart and mind on tour and let all my senses and my soul soak in memories.  The changing leaves and crisp autumn air made a beautiful backdrop for travelling backroads to different artists' galleries and workshops.

And...
the UNKNOWN part of the tour led us to wide open places and to wide open spaces, both in our relationship and in the people we met.

Artisans welcomed us with open arms into their homes and sacred creative spaces. It was clear to them their space wasn't just wide open for a tour, it was open wide to invite us into their life. They talked with us like we were family. They shared more than their space--they shared their techniques, their stories and their hearts. We saw beautifully created things but even more beautifully created people.  

The first stop on the tour is where I found the "sculpture" of the giant clothespin. I didn't see it until we were about to leave. It stood on the lawn of one of the artisan families. I quickly snapped a photo- wanting to remember how it looked with the sky and open space around. I  joked that maybe my husband could build me one. 

Did the people at that house love it for what it could symbolize too? I wish I would have gone back to ask.

It caught my eye because it made me fondly remember some of the first activities I planned and led in my classroom while practice teaching and how excited I was to see the kids' faces as NEW ideas emerged from inside their minds when I made an unexpected space for them to think creatively. It made me remember the many of the activities I tucked in my teaching kit for open or free time during supply teaching and how the kids eyes would dance as they connected with the lesson. And it made me remember the way I planned and taught when I had my own classrooms and the space I carved out for creative thinking with my own kids and teams.

You see it made me think of the wide open and free thinking spaces created during opportunities for "thinking outside the box". When paper clips, clothespins, bricks - all simple things- could find alternative uses and become so much more in the hands of people working together who are given space and time and encouraged to think openly.  That's that beautiful space planned on purpose that leads to beautiful things that are UNKNOWN, UNEXPECTED and FREE.

That beautiful clothespin reminded me of how when we plan for open space the skill of thinking divergently and creatively has room to GROW in all of us. 
And so, it reminded me of the POWER of alternatives.

But at the same time, the big old clothespin also reminded me of the opposite:
Of situations where people see no alternatives.

A clothespin can also JUST be regarded as something useful for hanging up clothes. And never go beyond pinching tight and leaving marks from where it stiffly and rigidly grasped the clothing as it hung out to move freely in the wind and dry on the line. They keep things tidy and in order.

 Life can be like that.

People can clamp down, shut down, and minimize the time taken up by things-- making life tidy so things can quickly move forward.  And so there can be spaces and places that aren't wide open and free to share ideas openly because of fear AND conflict or fear OF conflict. 

Finding alternatives, rumbling through a problem or situation or idea isn't neat and tidy.  It's messy work and takes up time. 

When people tightly hold onto their perspective, their point of view or their way of thinking, there is no room for a new alternative to be found. Tighter structures like shaming, blaming, exerting power and shutting down conversations can put a clamp on things and ultimately appear to be holding things together.

I guess once again, it depends on how you look at it. 

Creativity and critical thinking occurs where myriads of ideas can be brought out into the open. 

It's where people or organizations or families are UNITED because the leverage point that holds them together is the belief that each may hold conflicting views but something  BETTER can happen if they work together, listen to each other and respect each other's thoughts and ideas. 

And yet it's the same place conflict occurs because so often it becomes not the viewpoint that is different but the viewpoint that is wrong and even further... the person is not only wrong but bad. It's where people FIGHT to win by making one person lose  instead of fighting  for both to win. It is where 2 pull apart on an idea, situation, mindset or perspective. 

But what if we had a different mindset about conflict? A creative mindset?  A mindset that it is worth seeing and understanding not only our perspective but the other person's too.

What if we hinge on principles that the CREATIVE maker of the universe said were worth holding onto: 

An unwavering culture of respect
where we see others
as valuable children of God
Where we view conflict as a process of
bettering ourselves
by understanding others
Where we seek to not only be understood
but to understand
Where we DO NOT say
we SEE a person clearly
when we have not even heard them out?
When we SEEK the other out
enough to HEAR
and UNDERSTAND them
without trying to talk louder
and silence them
Where we listen in
without feeling threatened
by another's perspective
not being the same as our own?

That's THE MAKER'S WIDE OPEN SPACE.  Our maker.. THE maker. 

It's the wide open space where NEW IDEAS ARE BORN. And it's the wide open space when conflicts morph into solutions. Where we find an alternative better than either of us imagined.

That's where we change our homes and our world. That is where we are actually STRONGER together. 

That's  where ALL our hearts are truly safe to be known and seen and loved. Because we find something wide open, unexpected and free in our relationships and in the people we meet. We find beautiful stories, beautiful hearts and even more than that... beautifully created people.

​Is there anyone you are fighting with you could agree to walk a little farther with and truly listen to today?

If they are unsafe and you have had to remove yourself from them:
remember to love them from afar and pray for them.

Bring them out into the wide open space God wants for them and they can't get to themselves because their heart isn't free.

You are loved, you matter and His plans for you are good.  So good.

Love you muchly. xo Cath