The following is an excerpt from a fantastic book I just finished…and cannot recommend enough.
“I am working at my desk one day, eyes poring over something. You know how you can feel when two eyeballs are staring at you? I look up and it’s Danny. He’s a short, chubby ten-year-old who lives in the projects and is one of the fixtures around the office. A goofy, likable kid who does not do well in school. He seems to have purloined this oversized sketch pad, nearly as large as he his. He has it resting on his arched knee, and in his right hand is a pencil. He’s sketching me. He works furiously on this drawing and then positions his pencil, held up at me, as if to size up the subject of his portrait. this is a technique he has retrieved, no doubt, from cartoons. He works on the portrait and then stops and holds his thumb and pencil at me to, again, capture my essence. This cracks me up. It is completely charming and funny. So I laugh.
Danny gets quite annoyed, “Don’t move,” he says, with not a little bit of menace.
Well, this makes me laugh all the more to think it makes any damn difference if I move. I’m howling a lot now. Danny turns steely on me, not the least bit amused. He becomes a clench-toothed Clint Eastwood. ”I said, ‘Don’t move.’”
I freeze. I stop laughing, and he finishes the portrait.
Danny rips the sheet and lays the thing on my desk, revealing his obra de arte. And there in the middle of this huge piece of paper, about the size of a grapefruit, is me, I guess. Apparently, I been beat down with the proverbial ugly stick. It is Picasso on his worst day. My glasses are crooked, my eyes not at all where they should be. My face is generally woppy-jawed, and it is an unrecognizable mess. I’m kind of speechless. ”Uh, wow, Danny, um … this is me?”
“Yep,” he says, standing proudly in front of my desk, awaiting a fuller verdict.
“Wow, I hardly know what to say … I mean … it’s … uh … very interesting.” Danny looks a little miffed. ”Well, whad ya spect. YA MOVED.”
We squirm in the face of our sacredness, and a true community screams a collective “don’t move.” The admonition not to move is nothing less than God’s own satisfaction at the sacredness, the loveliness that’s there in each one – despite what seems to be a shape that’s less than perfect.”
Tattoos On The Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
Ch. Water, Oil, Flame
A great comment to add to our blog on female friendship, where we hope to encourage a “Don’t Move” approach to ourselves as women, the satisfaction of our own sacredness and the loveliness that lies in each one of us…
note: the title and content (minus my small note at the end) of this post is taken directly from the book Tattoos On The Heart. Authorship – Gregory Boyle.
this is beautiful, thank you so much for sharing this!
“we squirm in the face of our sacredness” – how profound and true!
A beautiful follow up to the previous post
C.J. -
Thanks! I thought the same thing. There are MANY points in this book that have similar comments about accepting our own beauty and moving away from evaluating ourselves and others before we know and *accept* our own and another’s sacredness, beauty, loveliness.
To me a “Don’t Move” is something we do not hear often enough about ourselves, or pass on to those we love and cherish in our lives.
I do love what Danny says in his exasperation with “G” – “Well, whad ya spect…YA MOVED.” When we move, we can make more of a mess of things trying to be who we are not, be better when we are not fully healed. I am laughing and shaking my head as I type this…knowing that it really is funny…and that there are so many times someone in my life could have said to me, “Well, whad ya spect, Sal? YA MOVED.”
Don’t Move C.J.!! Even just for today!!
Thanks for writing in. Always glad to see you on our blog.
I will be looking this book up, sounds wonderful!
The ‘Don’t Move’ is such a striking call to self acceptance. We work so hard to change and alter who we are to ‘be better’ – I work hard at it anyway – and the reminder, that right now, I am lovely, is enough to really stop me in my tracks!
I am also reminded of many individuals I know with disabilities. I worked in a community called L’Arche for 2 years. It’s founded by Jean Vanier – if you don’t know him, his writing is a similar to vein to what you posted, the beauty and giftedness of each individual (he has a book called ‘becoming human’ that is really powerful!). Anyway, my time there led to SO much self acceptance as I saw individuals who – by society, would be judged as ‘useless’, ‘ugly’, ‘flawed’, “weak’, ‘crazy’ etc….lived with such a deep love of God and themselves. They had no choice but to acknowledge their weakness and vulnerability and also see the beauty and gift they offer – many of them are lovely artists, hard workers, actors, peaceful, gentle generous hearts, the list goes on. People with disabilties embody all the vulnerability, mortality, weakness that the rest of us fear and mask and try to cover, hide, avoid! But their lives helped me see how much I hide of myself and that real knowing and acceptance only come from those vulnerable moments, acceptance of self right now, with the flaws and all!
I also had an interesting moment recently as I reunited with two friends. One friend of mine very kindly commented that I looked beautiful – and instead of being awkward or self-deprecating as usual to act humble or disregard it, I said a really genuine ‘thank you!’ The other friend clearly seemed uncomfortable with my acceptance of this compliment and jumped in with a joking mimic of me saying, “Ya, I know!”…in a way to exaggerate my acceptance of the compliment into arrogance. I thought it was so interesting to see his response, and was thinking of it in respect to the samantha brick stuff too, how to him it seemed arrogant for me to even accept and embrace the compliment! But to me, it felt good, to accept my other friends’ words, acknowledge them with gratitude and not reject them with feelings of unworthiness!
Alright, that’s the end of another novel
Thanks again, the wording of that quote is really powerful, will be keeping it closeby!
Great comments C.J. – I think we could all add more compliments to one another so that we get better at allowing ourselves to say “thank you”. It does seem we have the chance to (like you said) either accept compliments with words of gratitude – or – reject them with feelings of unworthiness.
I think your comments about L’Arche and people with disabilities. There are so many ways that we value one life over another, calculating beauty that is more “obvious” or “acceptable” over more abstract beauty that helps us value the significance and loveliness of another person. So easy to judge, to filter through what we see – whether it is tattoos (as in this book) or disabilities (as in the book you mentioned).
Thanks for writing in your thoughts!