Prophets in Our Midst

A couple of weeks ago, a reading at church really caught my ears. “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

Well, I’m not a prophet, but this sentence speaks volumes to me.

How often do we consign our family members or friends to the boxes we’ve placed them in over the years? We assume that because we have known each other all our lives, we really know each other.

But do we?

This limited view was brought home to me a number of years ago, with a woman in my small faith community, whom I’d only known in the context of a ‘friend’ relationship. I knew she was a scientist, and sometimes she would mention human relations problems she occasionally encountered in her lab. Those questions, along with sharing child/spouse/friend stories, were the focus of our conversations.

Quite by accident, I learned that she has a global reputation in the field of renal research. She is a real celebrity in the scientific community. To me, she was a friend with ordinary, day-to-day challenges.

It got me to thinking about the perspective we can adopt when it comes to being an expert, a celebrity, or a specialist. Somehow, it seems that only strangers, people we don’t know, can hold the magic. Friends and family members are excluded from the equation—we’ve seen their foibles and consigned them to the roles we expect, or the roles they have adopted in order to ‘fit in.’

How often have I been oblivious to the gifts of the people in my life? It’s so much easier to categorize — “He’s the smart one.” “She’s the artistic one.” “He’s the troublemaker.” I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard variations on this theme, and spoken them, too.

Every one of us is so much more than that!

Lessons from the Art Show

Recently, my husband and I coordinated an arts and crafts fair for our church. This wasn’t a fundraiser or a sale, it was just an opportunity for our community members to share their talents. We had artwork, jewelry, poetry, crochet and needlework, flower arrangements, plants—all sorts of wonderful creations by people we knew as insurance salesmen or high school teachers. I exhibited some of my paintings, too.

One of our church friends is a fine photographer, and I was hoping he would be willing to share his work. But when I asked him, he ducked his head, waved his hand, and said, “No, no, no…” He is a shy person, and somehow it seemed to embarrass him to put his own talent on display.

While I am not shy about showing my paintings (the bird of paradise here is one of them), this experience made me think about how shy I am about discussing my hand analysis business. I hide behind a website, or wait until a friend actually asks me about what I do before mustering the courage to talk about it.

What a lesson for me! If I am not willing to share this transformative gift with others, how will they ever have the chance to see it, learn about it, and improve their lives through it? My keeping quiet is equivalent to my photographer friend keeping his photo library locked in his closed computer—others will never be able to experience the gifts we have to offer.

Welcome to Treasures Washed Up on the Shore!

I honestly can’t promise that every word that floats through this blog will prove a treasure. But it will be lovely to have a place to converse, express ideas, and highlight some resources.

For starters, in April I pondered my experience with income tax prep (joy joy). Here’s the post:

For the past several days, I’ve been steeped in a great American pastime—preparing my income tax returns. After trying out a new calculation software, and completing 95% of the work, I didn’t feel comfortable with the results. So I decided to start over, using my familiar, used-for-the-past-ten-years program. Our returns have a lot of ins and outs, and trying to answer those computer-screen interview questions was a challenge. I’m convinced the government pays people specifically to make this whole process as complex as possible.

What I noticed is that, until I hit that ‘transmit’ button to send the forms on their virtual flight, I could hardly think about anything else. This sort of focus tends to be a norm for me; if there is a big project hanging over me, it’s hard to devote time and emotional energy to other priorities. A driving force propels me along the path to completion.

When I finally arrive, it’s like dropping a weighty backpack at the end of a long hike. Freedom! It has been a joy to celebrate a day of reveling in completion energy. A few things went by the wayside for a while, but it has been worth it.

How about you? How does hyper-focus show up in your life (or does it)? When you have a big project with a definite deadline, are you able to moderate your focus and work on other priorities (including creative ventures) as well?

What is your strategy?