For the third year in a row, the Chinese club at our kid’s school hosted its annual International Cultures night. In a tiny rural school of 300 kids (K to 12), an entire town enjoys food from around the world. A local Chinese cultural group performs traditional and modern dances. Kung fu demonstrations amp up the excitement.

An outside observer might think this is the least likely town to embrace an evening like this. This midwinter tradition, though, has become comfort food for all of our souls. There is at least a foot of snow on the ground from the last storm. People are cocooning most of the days. On this icy February night, however, our gym is filled with warmth and connection, giving birth to my latest hypothesis.

In counseling and other helping professions, there is a saying that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is connection. Right now most of our town is clapping along to a Chinese folk song. People are waving at each other and at the guest dancers. It has me thinking that connection is the antidote to most of what ails us in society.

I connect to the world through creativity. I use it to vent and heal, and it helps me find the spark in others. My years as a special educator have been completely about finding and nurturing the sparks in my students. The sparks look different, but always serve the same function of reconnecting them with school or their community. Lately I’ve been taking a leap of faith and sharing more of my art, embracing the connections it helps build.

I could be wrong. Those connections may not be the answers to all the world’s problems. But even if they are only a small part of the antidote to division, I’m willing to chase them.

What helps you connect with the world?

Yesterday I went plein air painting with a friend. It was a brand new experience, and at first I think we’re both worried that we would spend too much time talking and not enough painting. In the beginning we did, but as we each found our own part of the scenery that was compelling for us, we fell into a childlike state of parallel “play,” a collaborative contemplation.

Soon, the pencil and brush seemed to move by themselves, and a peace that only comes from meditating on the ordinary miracles of trees and fields settled over us, only to be broken, briefly by the occasional passerby. There were no expectations for what we would produce, and neither of us shared our work at the end.

I Still can’t quite connect to painting with oil again, but that was a smaller point yesterday. There was a bigger connection happening. 

Without saying a word, we both realized that the point of the day had been the peace and not the pieces.