Touched by beauty

The haiku attitude is this: you prepare yourself to be touched by beauty.
--John Paul Lederach.

This morning as I drank my tea and watched a rainstorm arrive to shake the last blossoms off the cherry trees, I listened to a forty-five minute talk by John Paul Lederach (here, if you’d like to hear the whole thing yourself) on haiku, photography, and “peacebuilding.” Lederach, a professional mediator (not meditator, though he does both) takes five or ten minutes a day to be receptive and attentive to the possible arrival of a moment of beauty. He believes that a moment of stillness helps us to connect with nature, our loved ones, and the world around us; and that ultimately if we do that, we are going to be “peacebuilders” because if we feel our connection with others, we can’t possibly want to commit violence against them; if we sense our interconnectedness, we view every being as worthy of respect and regard.

Lederach committed himself to a 365 photography project (on Instagram), in which each day for a year he waited for a beautiful moment to arrive, took a picture of it, and posted a photograph with a haiku. He limited himself to just one follower--his wife--because the project was a private matter, less about connection with others than about being true to himself and making the haiku moment part of his daily life.

Riding the streetcar later in the day, I was moved by two tender young women sitting in front of me. They talked as if they were the only two people in the world. When they stood up in the lurching streetcar, they gently steadied each other. I pulled out my pocket camera to take a picture of their loveliness and just as I did so, one kissed the other on the cheek. Click. My haiku moment. Without the haiku.