I'm Busy

I’m busy. I mean, I am so busy.

Not in an uppity, “I-have-no-time-for-you” kind of way. Although, to be honest, I don’t have an open day for lunch for at least the next month.

I’m busy crafting a well-considered middle.

It looks like I’m painting, and I am. But there is so much more to a painting than the pigments and canvas. There is so much more to a painting than even the talent of the artist. The deep processing that happens in the soul of an artist, I believe the thoughts and considerations and emotion that an artist feels her way through while painting, can become infused into the finished work of art.

There was a time in my life when heart break looked like something. It looked like me sleeping late, or it looked like no fresh flowers in the house.

At the present time, deep joy and healthy processing looks like something entirely different. It looks like me with a tube of Titanium white standing in front of a canvas. And what comes out of my brush is first showing me who I am, as God sees me.

We humans are not born to be multi taskers. But we are made to be dual processors. We can consider the lilies while we wash dishes. We can silently pray for a friend while we do data entry at a computer. I can be crafting a well-considered middle while I paint. In fact, if I do not paint, my life would not be nearly as well considered as it is. For example: I can plan and dream what my next hospitality gathering could be, while I paint a dinner plate dahlia on a 36x48” canvas.

It’s going to be simple and special. “The art, or your next gathering at your house?” I hear you asking me.

“Both.”

That would have to be my answer. Because my consideration of the one is spilling over into the planning of the other, which comes back into the doing of the first again. Back and forth, through this dialogue, this dual processing called art, I end up crafting the parts of my life that have nothing to do with paint brushes or acrylics or linseed oil.

When an artist does her art, when she puts herself into and through the process of creating from her inner being, with no guarantee as to whether it will be received or rejected - she might also be crafting a well-considered middle, by simply, resolutely, picking up the paintbrush and dipping it into the paint.

She could have been a teller at the bank. She could have stayed with her day job. She could have decided to go the route of uplines and downlines and work every day to network her net worth. But no. A believing career-art artist has chosen to buck the system, and she has chosen to dual process: to sit at the feet of Jesus while she also sketches, or writes haikus, or paints her interpretation of what He is saying to her life. And if it is true that she has chosen that good part, and it shall not be taken away from her - she is the person who hurting people are going to need to hear from in days ahead.