Day 22 of Lent - A Tired and Cranky Post

I have spent all day working on this large 24x36” painting:

this process photo was shot at about 2/3 of the way into the painting…a bit more to be done.

To me, this speaks of these children’s confidence in their mother’s love for them. She looks a bit disheveled, she looks even tired - with two little ones climbing all over her for a story. The airy brush strokes and the splashes in that atmospheric back ground speak volumes. Motherhood is messy. There are tears, baths, and hearts held as gently as possible. All of it, building confidence into those two little ones.

But that kind of confidence can help grow loving, hopeful humans. Children who live with assurance and imagination are able to calm their insides enough to notice beauty.

Fear makes us supremely self centered. Scarcity makes cowards of us all. But these little ones are hopeful and whimsical - and a whimsical hope lets us notice others, care for them, and hold space in our imagination to conceive of a creative way we can act for their benefit.

All lovely thoughts, these.

But at the moment, I am exhausted and cranky. My hands are fumbling all over the keyboard, fingers splotched with gesso and soft pastel. Wave after wave of hot flashes are rolling over me, and I’m going on about 5 hours of sleep last night.

So stick a fork in me, I’m done. All the lovely thoughts that began this painting have leaked out of me.

And it is time to say goodnight.

(much, much earlier in the day….)

Day 21 of Lent - Thoughts on Pantheism, Mystery, and Asparagus

There’s nothing common about you. There is a great mystery at work behind the events of your everyday life. There’s invisible threads stitched through your soul, fastening you to divine purpose.

This thread is not a suture; it is no mere baste-stitch. Your original design is not in need of repair, and this tethering of your design to the person of Christ is no temporary fix.

It also does not mean that you become God or God becomes you - because that would be a farce and a mockery of the eternal intent that lies behind the conception of you. If you become so absorbed into God as to “become energy” in a “friendly universe”, there is no YOU left for the Living God to walk and talk with.

This is a case of the clear-cut mystery of you, as you, in a meaningful, highly consequential relationship with God, as God.

Humanism is reductionist and boring at first, and then it gets ominous and frightening. Look around at the general condition of humanity, if you doubt me.

Pantheism blends God and creation to the point that both lose their distinctiveness.

Deism separates God and creation to the point that there is no essential connection.

So let’s go back to the mystery. In Christ Jesus, the Triune God has forever safeguarded your genuine participation in the warmest, wittiest, wisest circle of fellowship that has ever been and ever will be. Everything good and noble about you exists because of Jesus; all the affections of your unique soul, the creativity, the personality, all of it is preserved…and cherished. Without the God-man, you as “you” would be forever excluded from the plans of God.

That scarlet thread of redemption is why I love my life so much. It is why I love grilled asparagus, Wendell Berry, Snicker’s bars, and abstract art (the scribblier the better). That thread tethering me to Christ is why I have green eyes, why I am left-handed, why I read too much and laugh too loud. Christ experienced life as a human being, forever sanctifying my human experience. He left His place in glory to walk in sandals, grill fish over an open flame, forgive sinners, and weep with His friends.

Far from being abstract, these thoughts charm the living daylights out of me, and insert themselves into my ordinary day, changing it for the better and the sweeter.