Small things with great love . . .

I spend a lot of time sacrificing good in the search for perfect.   For that matter, actually, I spend more time than I’d like to admit sitting still and never even trying because perfection seems unattainable.    This remains the biggest challenge I face when tackling anything new, creating anything.   With raging ego, I want whatever I do to be huge, great, original, unsurpassed - perfect.   Standards impossible to live up to, right?   

Wandered through a really cool gallery while in San Diego last month, with a lot of different vendors and artists’ work on display.   It seems art with themes of India seems to be the hot new thing with a lot of artists, at least out here.   Appears to be the trend du jour along with all things from Asia.    Much of it is beautiful, reds and golds, silks and jade and marble carvings, exotic and pleasing to the eye.    I wandered into one area with wooden, ivory and jade carvings of different little Hindu gods and mythological characters.   

I spent a moment with Ganesh, always one of my favorites to examine.   The god with the head and trunk of an elephant.    The carvings were fantastic.    Ganesh is supposed to be the remover of obstacles, or according to some interpretations, the god who places obstacles in your way to help you grow.   Either way, he represents growth and change.    I found a great handmade keychain last summer in Maui, with antique beads and a small Ganesh on it that I bought for a friend who I felt could use some help with obstacles in her life.   It was so beautiful, I almost kept it.   That was my obstacle.  

Anyway, so I’m standing in this beautiful gallery, surrounded by beautiful things - original art, antique art, and artish things, fondling an ivory Ganesh, trunk and all, and I look over and see there’s a little gardening section right next to where I’m standing.    There’s a shelf of rocks with quotes carved into them.   I’m fascinated so I wander over.   

My eyes are drawn to one rock in particular.   “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”   It’s a quote attributed to Mother Theresa.   It’s a message I’ve been getting a long time in many ways from many sources, but until that moment, it had never actually taken root.    

I just read it and said to myself, very meekly, “oh.”   

Sometimes it just takes being hit over the head with a rock to make things crystal clear, doesn’t it?