Works in Progress

Opening my Insight Timer for meditation, I was caught by the beginning quote “You are both a masterpiece and a work in progress.”  I can readily identify with being a “work in progress.”  A masterpiece?  Not so much.  Yet I have pondered those words.

I suspect I am not alone in resisting being characterized in such a way.   What would it mean to consider ourselves masterpieces?  Historically, a “masterpiece” was a work of a very high standard produced to obtain membership of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts. In modern use, a masterpiece is a creation in any area of the arts that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person’s career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship.

Maybe we need a new definition for this concept. “We carry within us the wonders we seek,” wrote Sir Thomas BRowne. “We are all a part of the divine spark. All have a purpose in creation and that purpose is called Love. That love, however, shouldn’t be concentrated in just one person, it should be scattered throughout the world, waiting to be discovered. Wake up that love,” wrote Paul Coelho. The sense that a divine spark within me that connects to the divine sparks in others seems like a tapestry which constitutes an ongoing masterpiece. Perhaps the quote on Insight Timer was an attempt to convey that very idea.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Cafe for each other and all those we encounter. Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  Paul Coelho, Brazilian author, with history as a theater director, actor, lyricist and journalist, further wrote: ““When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”—from Coelho’s best selling book The Alchemist.