Article August 16, 2004 Issue

I'm learning to love the DETAILS

By Joan Taylor

I'VE HAD A BIT of trouble lately with the me/world connection. You know, with seeing the significance of "daily life" in the context of a world that sometimes seems in big trouble.

Mostly, I've been questioning life's details—grocery shopping, making meals, working to earn a living, the usual bits of yarn that knit the day together. I've found myself wondering, "How can I go about these activities with real joy, when, in the face of what's going on in the world, they seem almost inconsequential?"

Renowned modernist architect and furniture designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe knew something about details. One of his primary rules of design was, "God is in the details." Albert Einstein had a different slant. "I want to know God's thoughts," he once commented, "the rest are details."