Amy Leonard: and One Mile

There was something about the artist's work, you see.  Something she couldn't really understand.  All she could say was that it struck a chord somewhere deep inside her.  It was a world within a world.  It was a dream within a dream.  It was a captured note.  It was a bottled song. 

In short, it was magic in a jar.

So she asked the artist, Amy Leonard, Please....would you?  Could you? Knowing when she said these words, that it was greedy.  That there were things to buy for her hotel.  Important things, like faucets and blankets, and mattresses.  But she also knew that she must have one:  a commissioned light just for her. A light like no other.

And so the two of them, thousands of miles apart, put their nodding heads together and made a plan. The Marrakech girl said, please, may I send you some things ...a Buddha hand, a porcelain bird, some rosary rings?  The artist, weaving her magic, then asked in return, please, may I add these other sacred things, an amulet from this religion, a medal from that religion?  Because they both had a hope, you see, that in this confusing world in which we live - filled with bombs and conflict and deafening noise - that there was a place where there could be understanding.  Where it was quiet.  Where you could almost hear a bird sing.

The world within a world was put in a box.  And then the box was put in another box.  And then it was shipped.  A thing of beauty.  A delicate thing.  A fragile thing.  This place of understanding.

The artist named the light, One Mile.  Not so far to walk really. If only the ones who are right on one side and the ones who are right on the other side would take those steps  and  say, I am right but you are right, too.  Oh, what a thing......what a thing that would be.

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