Today's Thought - March

[bluidkiti]

March 27

Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.

~Arthur Schopenhauer

Many of us have felt that we should have and give an opinion about everything right away. After a movie or a concert, for example, we may want to step right in with our comments and judgments. Often we "shoot from the hip," without thinking or being attentive to our feelings or the feelings of others.

This can be a way of warding off the experience, enclosing it within words. All of us have feared that we might be caught off guard and compelled to change or expand our own ideas; we feel fear because the process leaves us vulnerable!

Watching a movie or a play, hearing music and lyrics, seeing works of art: these can open us up to the unfamiliar and the new, and if we are quiet and attentive, we can come to fresh insights and understandings. So, too, with people. If we are patient and willing to listen, we will always be learning and growing through contact with others.

The beauty and joy of life dwell within differences. I am learning to be open and attentive to what has not been part of my existence up to now, so that it may come to color and enhance my life.

Today's reading is from the book Answers in the Heart