Dreary, Dusty Crap

Aiming to reconnect with my once-favourite hobby I was on the quest for a perfect photo and it was not to be seen.  All there was in March in Lethbridge was dreary, dusty crap. That’s how I was feeling to start with so I was thought I ought to take shots of rainbows and sunshine, or pictures of something profound, provocative or promising at least.  But nothing.

So I set out anyway to deliberately take a picture of dreary, dusty crap. And here is what I found.

This bird house sits in a dead tree in our back yard. To top it off it was a dumpster find. It was not quite in a dumpster when we found it in Victoria a couple summers ago, but just on the ground outside ready to be trashed or claimed. We claimed it along with a second cuter one. We gave the second one to our camping neighbours in the nearby RV Park.  The lady had been waiting on the results of a possible cancer diagnosis. We got to know each other a fair bit in our 24 hours parked side by side in the RV Park. She was thrilled to have the birdhouse.  We took this one home and Dan nailed it to the dead tree.  I think of Colleen often when I see the birdhouse and wonder and hope for her wellness. In our own dreariness, we have much to be grateful for.  Last summer a little, chirping family lived in the birdhouse.  Soon I imagine a new feathered flock will move in. Life and gratitude can thrive even among the dreary, dusty stuff in our lives.

If you drove by our house in mid-March you would have seen this dreary, scraggly bush, half dead, half scrabbling to grow out of the dirt. But after I took the photo of what I was certain was an example of dreary, dusty crap, I saw the colour. Never before had I noticed the vibrant red branches on this bush.  The external stems masked what at the core displayed bursting crimson.  It is true of ourselves – even if we feel dusty and dreary on the outside, we must know at our core we have beauty that always exists whether or not we feel it and whether or not others notice it.

We need to seek out the beautiful in ourselves and others even if and especially if we are immersed in what seems to be ugly, dusty crap. We all have the colour of human at our centre and can choose to love ourselves, forgive ourselves and celebrate ourselves - and then do the same for others, looking past the external to their coloured core that reaches down to their roots.

An author by the name of Robin Sharma has said "What you fill your mind with is what you get."
The objective being to fill our mind with the positive and the beautiful.
It reminds me of another writing from a couple thousand years ago: ". . .  whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things."