Life is a Mosaic

Daniel Spitzer, the 19th century Austrian journalist and satirist, once wrote, "Happiness is a mosaic picture made up of nothing but inconspicuos little joys."

And I agree with him, up to a point. Happiness can be made up of "inconspicuous little joys". But I'd like to extend the metaphor to encompass the whole of our lives, which can be compared with a mosaic in their rich variety - containing sorrows as well as joys.

Nearly 30 years ago, I was working on a cross-stitch sampler to commemorate the first ten years of my marriage. I wanted it to be a surprise for my husband, and spent every lunch-hour at work stitching away. It comprised a rectangle of  "quilted" squares, with the following words in the middle: "Marriage is a patchwork quilt: bits and pieces of two lives come together to form a new whole. Some meet perfectly at the corners, while others must be stretched to fit. The dark pieces set off the light, and the rough add texture to the smooth. And if Love is the thread that stitches the pieces together, it will last a lifetime."

And today, nearly three decades later, these words are as true as they were then. No-one's life is full of unalloyed joy. All of us have encountered pain, sorrow, grief and suffering, as well as joy, elation and happiness. Yet as the sampler says, "The dark pieces set off the light, and the rough add texture to the smooth." Exactly like a mosaic. 

I also think that the mosaic / patchwork quilt metaphors can remind us to step back and consider the whole picture, rather than being so focussed on a particular tessera / cotton patch / life event that we cannot see the whole. Cannot see the wonderful balance in our lives, or the presence of the Spirit. This stepping back can help us to detach from our emotions, to enable us to react in more skilful ways to stuff which happens to us. Or at least, so I have found.

Appreciating the Whole

It took me a while to puzzle out what Hans Christian Anderson meant by this week's quote: "Wenn man sich von den Bergen entfernt, so erblickt man sie erst recht in ihrer wahren Gestalt; so ist es auch mit den Freunden."

Which being roughly translated, means: "When you are far away from the mountains, you can see them in their true forms, this is also true of friends."

I understand the first half easily - when you see a mountain from far off, you can see its beauty and majesty as a whole. Whereas if you are closer to it, or even climbing up it, it's difficult to appreciate the whole of it. Especially, perhaps, when you think you're getting near the top, and you come to what you thought was the horizon, and there is another long bit to climb.

There are so many different ways of interpreting the second half. It could mean that you only appreciate your friends when they're not around, or when you've lost their friendship. Or it could mean that when you're away from them, you miss them.

But I think it means that it is often difficult to appreciate your friends as individual human beings, as whole people, when they are close to you, inter-connected with you, involved in your life. And that sometimes, we need to make the effort to see them objectively, to insert that little distance between ourselves and them, in order to understand them clearly. And not to impose our own thoughts and feelings on them.

Perhaps it is only when we are at a (little) distance to our friends that we can see them whole, and truly appreciate them as unique, precious children of God.