Portraits: What is Missing?

I enjoy viewing the public artwork in my city and while traveling.  To display creativity and beauty invites or encourages us to do the same: be creative in our thoughts; search for beauty in others.  We try to connect, to recognize something familiar.

While on a recent trip, I was stopped by several forms of artwork: pieces of tile arranged to reveal a Dutch nobleman; people dressed in black and red to silhouette the face of Marilyn Monroe; and a figure seated in a Sukhasana pose.

What makes up who we are?

Each of these art objects draw upon individuals (tiles, people, strips of metal) to form the whole.  Similar to a jigsaw puzzle, a missing piece would cause the image to be unfinished, incomplete, not whole. Remember what it was like to get to the end of the puzzle and discover one piece was missing?!

Is that what it is like when a loved one dies, moves away, or leaves us when there is a disagreement?  We feel separated, unfinished, incomplete, not whole.

Can we look beyond our first impressions?
(See what makes up the black and red marks,
click on image to enlarge)

I wonder if that is also true when we do not explore our assumptions about others, our conclusions about their intentions, or how we no longer see how they have changed?  We remain unfinished, incomplete, not whole.

If we focus only on the individual tiles or people in the Dutchman and Marilyn portraits, we lose the ability to see the image that is created when we come together.  Or, maybe we are locked inside the shell of what we believe: a hollow cavern that imprisons us by our thoughts.

Is there more to us than our outer shell?

This doesn't mean that we must give up our values and what is important to us.  Instead, we are invited to share what makes us unique -- while at the same time, listen and accept what is important and unique about the other person.  What binds us together is the Spirit that created and infused us with beauty.  Our goal is to seek the Both-And of the unique individuals we are and the beauty created when we come together.

May we seek out what or who is missing is our lives and learn to cherish our ability to see the whole.
 

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)