There is a dawn moment when the heavens are blue and the sun creates yellow above the horizon of the sea and you see a blue with a yellow stripe emerging beneath and at that moment we awake to the flag of Ukraine.
Please get up in the morning and reflect on the sunrise and the values that we wish to arise in us and the values that we wish to grow and we wish to make happen. But the sun will rise quickly and the bright light will blur all and the busyness of the day will flood into our lives and we will forget the point that we need to remember when we awoke.
We can live in horror at one man’s poverty creating destruction on another land, the brutal attack and destruction of the sovereign nation of the Ukraine and systematic murder of its people. And we need to hold that and remember and not forget but we also need to have a horizon that we can look out to and set sail towards. It is a horizon of our values that we want to rise to and we know that are true, are kind, are good, that build a loving and prosperous world. May we see the Ukrainian flag on the horizon at dawn and wake to work throughout the day to make life giving values alive for all.
So I give you a picture, taken from my home in March in 2021 at dawn, showing the sun rising at that moment when the Ukrainian flag can be on all our imaginations as the horizon of our hope. Let us wake, look out and remember Ukraine and the values of wonder in our hearts that we want to make real in the world and decide what sacrifices we will make this day to make wonder come alive for every person in the Ukraine and for every person in the world.
This reflection was inspired by the artist Karen Tusinski who paints stunning pictures of the horizon in Rockport Massachusetts and who has painted a Ukrainian flag on a canvas and placed it in the window of her gallery. I’m asking artists to paint pictures of the Ukrainian horizon to keep us inspired.