Seeking Simplicity
March 31, 2008|Comments (none)
Just thought I would share some of my doodles from a meeting I attended not long ago. I thought that they were very telling. In fact, it is obvious that I wanted to be home with my chickens, simple life, and garden. While I’m no artist, I think that there is a great deal of meaning in mindless sketches like the one above.
The subject of the talk which inspired my sketches was on integrity/sincerity. The speaker quoted an article written about the root of the word which meant “without wax.” Here is excerpt from that article (by Denis Waitley):
In the Roman Empires’ final corrupt years, status was conveyed by the number of carved statues of the gods displayed in people’s courtyards. As in every business, the Roman statue industry had good and bad sculptors and merchants. As the empire became ever more greedy and narcissistic, the bad got away with as much as they could. Sculptors became adept at using wax to hide cracks and chips in marble and most people couldn’t discern the difference in quality.
Statues began to weep or melt under the scrutiny of sunlight or heat in foyers. For statues of authentic fine quality, carved by reputable artists, people had to go to the artisan marketplace in the Roman Quad and look for booths with signs declaring sine cera, which translates in English to mean, without wax.
For those of us who have chosen a simplified life… we rate sincerity/integrity very high on our list of values.
“Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.”
– Wendall Berry
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