Trick or Treat

Okay, okay.  I’m a week early!

But Astrid and I are in Atlanta as we speak, having just spent a glorious weekend in the north Georgia mountains with my kids and grandson.  Halloween is everywhere.  However, for this post, my thoughts are back home where we live in the Netherlands….

Where THOUSANDS of these chestnuts have fallen to the ground from the HUNDREDS of trees that surround our citadel city.  Seriously.

Actually, they had all but fallen by the beginning of this month.  OCTOBER.  AUTUMN.  FOOTBALL.  They sprinkled the ground like lost-n-found money.  Like gems from the sky.  I became the little girls and boys everywhere who came with their mommies…and bags…to collect their treasures.  “Look, Mommy!  Look at this one!”

One day I took out my own bag and collected my own.  Enough to sink my imaginary ship.

TRICK:  Not a one of them was edible.

All my life I had heard about chestnuts roasting on open fires at this time of the year.  Though I had never seen or experienced it, I envisioned crackling fireplaces in cozy, romantic homes.  No one ever told me about the 55-gallon oil drums around Europe's open-air markets, spitting their fires underneath iron plates sizzling with sweet chestnuts.  The kind you eat. 

Who would have known there were two kinds!  I first found ones like these in Germany years back and raced home to roast them in the oven.  I had eaten my first roasted chestnuts in Munich a few years before and could hardly wait to taste them again.  I thought I had found money on the ground.

TRICK:  Those weren’t edible either! 

And that’s when I found out they either are or they aren’t, depending.  The ones that are are sweet chestnuts.  The ones that aren’t are horse chestnuts or buckeyes!  Another trick and what a waste, since the Buckeyes are my archrival. 

  

Nevertheless, I found myself a perfectly-shaped specimen from the above stash (where I live surrounded by chestnut trees--the ones that are non-edible tricks), and turned it around tenderly in my hand on my daily walks…until it felt like a TREAT.

And because the Dutch don’t seem too keen on the edible variety (why is that???), I now wait eagerly for our trip to Düsseldorf, Germany, in early December, to visit the Christmas market…and to find my chestnut vendor on the corner who will serve me up a paper cone full of the sweet delicacies.

Such is life's sermonette.  Sometimes you have to pick through the tricks till you lay your hands on the TREAT!

Heaven On Earth

When we say "it's like heaven on earth," everyone knows exactly what we mean.  Because it is!

We were at a heaven-on-earth a week ago when we had the chance to take the 15-minute ferry from Den Helder, north of the Netherlands, to Texel (pronounced TESS-el), the Dutch island nearby.  Astrid had told me about it for 4 years and I finally got to see and experience it myself.

Such a heaven is usually a place, something we see, but it can also be something we taste (like an angel peeing on our tongue, as the Dutch say), or something we feel...or something we do. 

Eons ago when my back-then husband was ministering to college students, he became licensed to administer the SIMA profile:  Systematic Inventory of Motivated Abilities, a proven, predictive process for identifying people's unique patterns of motivated behavior.  What I most remember is that two components have to exist to qualify as a truly motivated ability:  you enjoy it and you do it well.  If both are present, it leads to exceptional performance and superior results.

Kinda like God creating something and saying "It is good."  We are made in that image, says Holy Writ.  It's like heaven on earth.  God in us.

Technically, to do something well usually means there is significant positive feeback confirming the abilities we enjoy.  This happens at work when we're promoted.  Or when our art becomes famous and puts money in our purse. 

Look at what we do here at V&V, as well as on our own blogs.  We read each other's posts.  We look at each other's images.  And we leave positive feedback.  This builds our self-esteem as well as our virtual communities. It's a Mutual Admiration Society.  We stroke each other's backs.  We build each other up.

Is it possible, however, to really enjoy something and do it well without feedback from others?  I notice, for instance, some of the excellent photographers at my Shutterchance site who never receive comments.  How does that affect them and how long will they continue "creating?"  Will they stay motivated?

My guess is we all thrive on affirmations.  When we have them, we fly higher than a kite.  When we don't, we fall into the slough of despond.  But can we, I wonder, create heaven-on-earth in whatever we do no matter who gives a hoot?  Can we be excellent and say of ourselves and our art "It is good" even if no one sees our proverbial sunset or hears the tree falling in our woods?

In other words, can our art exist in a vacuum?  I've been pondering these things in my heart because I hate being "dependent" on the affirmations of others to determine if what I do is good.  And by whose standards?  I want to know within myself that when I really enjoy something and do it well, it is good.  Period.  No matter who sees it or likes it.  No matter what the exceptional performance and superior results.

But then, maybe even God needs a "Man!  That's good!" from time to time?  And if so, why not we who are made in God's image!  It does seem to work wonders for the motivation factor.