"It is Well"
7x9, oil on canvas
There is nothing like the passing of a human life in effectively
re-centering priorities. It is a beautiful time, yet much less
productive time, at least in tangible things. Not as many checks next to
the items on my to-do list. My thoughts have been less focused on
painting, especially blogging. Days and evenings have been spent with
people who need the company. There have been more phone calls, more
focused attention on people, more time in prayer.
But for me, there is no such thing as a "work-life balance". My life informs my work. My work is often meditation on life.
This life is so transient. Painting the sunrise will teach you.... As will the passing of a loved one.
You
can send cards on birthdays, sit through the family dinners be there in
body, know a person in fact and miss knowing their soul. (I don't say
this because I have regrets with
Cathy's life. I don't have any. I say this because there are others in my world into which I don't currently invest heart and soul.)
You can take a thousand photos of the sun as its rays reach over the
horizon and transform the morning into another world. You can know how
to mix a deep sky blue or the color of a tree in the shadows. You can
paint one hundred paintings and say "that was fun". You can look at a scene and recognize that it is beautiful. You can do
all these and miss knowing the One who spoke those things into
existence. This world is nothing but a whisper of the glory of His
character, a reflection of His beauty, a glimpse of His love and a
fragment of His power.
Words do no justice. Nor does my paint and brush. But I feel as
George Herbert when he wrote of his poetry:
Hearken unto a Verser, who may chance
Rhyme thee to good, and make a bait of pleasure.
A verse may find him, who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice.
I hope that with my brush I can in a small way "turn delight into a sacrifice" for my viewers as well.
Ashland Station in the Snow
