“Harmonium” – At the West End Gallery
If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nations.
When there is order in the nations, there will peace in the world.
― Confucius
A little peace in this world seems so simple when you break down the chain of conditions as Confucius did so long ago.
If we can somehow find righteousness in ourselves, pushing down our fears and prejudices, we will emerge as caring and accepting individuals. The beauty in the character to which he referred.
With this newfound graceful character, we become less contentious and judgmental, easier to live with. Maybe even content with our lot in life. The harmony in the home.
Nations filled with citizens who are satisfied and leading purposeful lives seldom, if ever, feel the need to wage war. In fact they desire widespread peace so that the balance of their own unity and harmony is not affected or upset. So the peaceful nations try to help other nations reach this same balance.
And with that done–voilà!— there’s peace in the world.
I realize that you might read this and feel that I am being cynical or mocking.
I am not. It really is that simple.
And difficult.
Harmony is just that– simple and difficult. We want it for ourselves but we fight a constant battle with our own fears and prejudices that sometimes strain the beauty of our characters which throws off the harmony of our homes which leads us to feel dissatisfied and angry. That leads to a nation divided by fear and manipulation which means that the things that need to be done never get done which leads to more and more disharmony. And this spills over onto the world stage which upsets the whole applecart.
Bottom line: No peace in the world.
But I remain hopeful.
Maybe that’s naive. I don’t know and I don’t care.
Maybe I need a bit of naive hope in order to push back my own cynicism so that I can begin to forge that first link in the chain of Confucius- righteousness in my heart. And that has to happen before any of the other connecting links in this chain can be made. We have to start at the bottom and find harmony in ourselves before we can build the rest.
Is it possible? I don’t know. But I do know that if I can do my part, my home will be more harmonious and happy. And if that is all that comes from this, that the rest of the country and the world refuses to forge their adjoining links, I still have the harmony I have created.
And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
The painting at the top is titled Harmonium and represents my own simple hopes for my part in this chain. It’s part of my current show at the West End Gallery. Hope you get in to see it.
Now for Sunday’s morning musical selection let’s play a song I haven’t heard in years. Maybe I am wrong but it feels like it’s one of those songs whose popularity in its own era didn’t really carry through the decades that followed. I heard it yesterday for the first time in I don’t know how many years. A lot. But I think that it works for today’s blog and this painting, outside of maybe a little too much synthesizer at its end. The song is Lucky Man from Emerson, Lake and Palmer. What the heck, I’ll throw in From the Beginning, another song from them that I hadn’t heard in what seems like ages. Nice mellow feel for this rainy upstate Sunday morning.
Redtree Times 