"Having to call someone to drive me where I need to go isn't easy," my friend Jay said to me over the telephone three days ago.
My heart went out to him as I responded, "I can only imagine how hard it has been for you to be losing your eyesight; but your vision is beyond measure!"
I was speaking of his ability to impact the future through sight, beyond eyesight. Jay has an unusual ability to see opportunities that go unseen by others. And, he quietly moves forward to change the world around him, for the better, as be moves steadily forward. Such sight is one of his gifts, as well as a gift to the rest of us. Luckily, he's not the only one to share such a gift of sight.
Helen R. Walton said, "It is not what you gather but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived." The Helen R. Walton Children's Enrichment Center is the personification of this vision. Yet, looking more closely allows everyone to see how much she has impacted life in her hometown by following her philosophy of enrichment put into personal practice and create a healthy, nurturing environment focused on intentional play, exploration, and family well-being.
The seeds Helen planted over a lifetime are flourishing everywhere, in her hometown, as the invitation to accept her vision has been accepted and implemented by thousands of people. They've fused with her focus of building an environment of healthy living, art, and outdoor recreation.
When the town was ravaged by a bevy of destructive tornados on Memorial Day this year, the people joined together to shelter and feed those most affected before going out on the bicycle trails with shovels, wheelbarrows and chainsaws to rebuild them. A task that continues to this day as a result of catastrophic damage. Perhaps such damage was most apparent around the 120 forested acres surrounding the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Crystal Bridges houses one of the largest private collections of American art in the world and allows free general admission for all to come and experience enrichment of the soul by viewing artisan visions of our world in its galleries and experiencing art throughout its nature-rich grounds. The beauty of Helen's life is on full display here and the people who love it have not allowed a natural disaster to destroy her vision. Just as natural deterioration of my friend Jay's eyesight hasn't disconnected him from his vision.
Jay continues to scatter his kind of life, as he fully embodies the distinction between simply seeing and sight.