Chapter 31 Maybe It's All Art

I kick the dust off this slumber, and I lie awake. As I do, I wonder if this art of mine will persevere. Rubbing my eyes, I hear voices saying that really, what I do -- it's not art at all.

But then I argue. I think that it should be, because I like to toy with words and join them together in print, mixing this one with that, to paint something that I cannot speak. These words I choose have no access to my tongue, nor your ears, but somehow they find a way from my fingertips to your eyes. My brush, such as it is, dabs the color of black on white, with just a glimmer of hope that what's left will somehow color your imagination.

Well, alright. Maybe my particular art isn't obvious enough. True art is found in, uhh .. music. I listen to it and I wish I could make it.

Or in museums. I visit real art in museums. And I study it in history.

Maybe theater. I watch as a thespian reveals his art in a play. Or I watch another, as she dances hers in a ballet.

I reach out and touch art, because a sculptor fashions his hands just so.

A poet muses and finds achievement and accolades in the dawn of some tortured awakening. I read it and I know for sure that it's art.

But, what if art was never meant to be defined as some cultural appreciation of finer things or some pleasure to humanity and its senses? What if, instead, it was every good and noble effort rising out of the depth of mankind's ability to create? What if that which is subtle, or crying out -- that which is emanating from some collective passion and giftedness, becomes, well ... art to the eyes and ears of Another?

Like, maybe it’s all art?

An engineer offers his exactness, just as his wife's cleanliness and style splashes a canvas. Together their home is well designed and clean and very hip, and it hangs on the wall of their neighborhood like a priceless Monet.

Another artist paints comfort to the hurting and affirmation as he lifts a slumping shoulder. His mercy rises off the palette, and it pleases the Almighty.

An architect sets the stage, and a builder depicts the skyline.

A physician, immersed in a world of science and sequential practicality is perhaps unaware of the choreography of her healing, and a God who dances in the rhythm of it.

One man fancies himself a teacher, and rightfully so. A gifted orator, his words are perfect cadence, and they spill off his tongue like a melody. They form the greater sum of his intent so students can learn, and in so doing, they render a symphony to the ears of a Father.

So, my hunch is that God knows of this enduring masterpiece; of what hue we’ll paint to accent the whole, of what chord our instruments will play to delight Him, for He alone bequeathed each talent to us. We are artists, each in our own way, and we must find our fatted calf -- to express it and perform it on the stage of His choosing; yes, an altar to bring a sacrifice of who we are in the midst of the art we create.


I sit on the edge of the bed and for now, my arguing is over, because I think this is true.

That, maybe, just maybe .. it's all art.

Chapter 30 He's Relentless About It

In the thick and the thin of all that’s indefinite in the days to come, a moment should be taken to reflect on that which is certain and easily known to me and to you.

From where we sit right now, in a room or open sky, in our town and in our day.

I speak of the days that tumble backward into weeks and the months that cascade into years; the very ones that have led us to this exact point in time, with the view outside our windows. The events we’ve known and the decisions we’ve made have shaped us to become who we are. Or who we aren't. Each epoch of our lives until now can be read like a book, with absolute certainty, because they have been. They were real, not imagined.


I wrote that a few years ago, but I think of it often. It's just that ... well, I’m forever being pursued by a faithful God who is eager to show me what He’s been up to, in my life and the lives of those around me. He wants me to get a clue as to what His Kingdom is like. He's relentless about it, and He's after you too, just in case you're wondering.

He loves us that much.

For me, seven long years have passed since I set out to produce a play about Jesus. That’s old news to anyone who has followed this blog. Seven years of grappling with the reasons why I was set on this course. Seven years of stumbling around in the dark of a decrepit old porn theater; seven years spent discovering a Jesus who cares deeply for the poor and the disenfranchised. During that time, my eyes were also opened to a new view of Church (the very Bride we are), and to our Bridegroom (who by the way, looks nothing like the one I had created for my own convenience in the aforementioned play).

To Him, of course, seven years is as an instant, but it takes at least that long for new concepts to get through my thick head. Fast forward to today, and through no foresight of our own, the fledgling non-profit that rose from the ashes of a failed play is knocking on the door of potentially becoming a full-fledged refugee resettlement agency. From fledgling to full-fledged must be how He does it.

We've spent years establishing partnerships and cultivating volunteers, all with good intentions, but never quite knowing the full extent of what those relationships would mean. He knew why, of course. He knew in our un-knowing. So now, when a refugee arrives (the very foreigner His son calls us to love), we have a built-in network available to warmly welcome a stranger. A holistic approach to serving (aka “resettling”) a refugee has been His design and plan for some time, for He knows better than us the extent that someone is stinging from the unspeakable pain of leaving his or her homeland -- one of instability and war, from half-way around the world.

Oh yes, He knows. He always knows.

It is not our place to explain God and the fullness of His plans. It’s a fool’s folly. Certainly a glimpse is all we’re given, but I'm convinced that a glimpse is one of the best gifts He gives us. It's the roadmap He’s pointing us back to. Mine got pretty wrinkled, and the paper is soft from all of the unfolding and re-folding, but it marks a journey from my past to my present. A peek like that may just be the best chance I ever get to know what God's up to, at least in this time we know.

Sure, the roadmap will reveal the many diversions that we've all taken away from Him. It will expose our stubbornness and poor choices. It will surely disclose that we have far to go -- indeed, quite a distance to travel. But there’s a turning, a subtle but true convergence of this road and that, all merging together to ultimately point us due North, and back to His very presence. It's undeniable.

So, all of that to say, what about you? Will you unfold your map and spread it out on the table? Probably a lot of zig-zagging going on. If you're anything like me, you'll need to get out the highlighter and figure out where you've come from and what you've traveled through. And why you did.

What has God been trying to show you all of this time?


These are the decisions that I (and hopefully you) have made, the very choices that we need to find and re-read in the chapters that have been. Because for better or for worse, they brought my fingers to this keyboard, and your eyes to this page, from where we sit, with the view out our window.


And there are more chapters to be written.