in the fury of the moment

the power of a library card

Just came back from the library, with some good findings:

-- A Search for Solitude, The Journals of Thomas Merton
-- Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott (I got this out a few weeks back and started it but had to return it before I finished it)
-- CD's!!!! Nina Simone (inspired by a recent viewing of Before Sunset), EmmyLou Harris, and Ron Sexsmith
-- a new appreciation for my elders

And the best part is--all of these things were FREE.

You may be wondering about the last item on the list. Well, I was walking over to one building from the other (the downtown library here is two different buildings, and they're connected underground), and in that hallway they sometimes have displays of artwork from different elementary schools or daycares or whatever. Today I was walking through, skimming through the Merton book, not really paying attention to what was around me. But for some reason I looked up from my book and over at the wall, just as I was walking by a beautiful painting of pine trees in front of a mountain range. The clarity of the painting was amazing. The artist had used texture and dimensions to create a very realistic depiction of the scenery. It seriously made me stop in my tracks (the floor was slippery, but luckily I wasn't walking too fast).

I backed up and looked at some of the other paintings, and they were ALL good. There were several different landscape paintings -- one of the Maine coast, a couple of lake scenes, all very realistic. I looked at the various names underneath the paintings and noticed that the actual locations (Maine coast, Rocky Mountains, Spain) were all painted by the same artist. When I got to the end of the display, there was a sheet with information about the artists. As it turns out, all of the paintings were done by senior citizens who are part of an art program at the senior center downtown. There was a special note about the one individual artist I had noticed (Edna). She is apparently LEGALLY BLIND. I read that, and just sort of stood there feeling like a big dope.

I am going to take a guess that Edna has not always been blind. Maybe she has a very lucid memory bank from which to draw when she paints. But still! I know I could not paint or even describe with words the way she did, even if I was standing right at the foot of those mountains or on the coast of the ocean. But seeing that beauty inspired me. I think my senses have been on overload lately, and I have been taking too much in. I end up distracted and unable to process things clearly. If I focus on where I am at that moment, I will have a much clearer image to return to later. And when my image is clearer, my remembrance will be clearer. Obviously it follows that then I will be able to process all of it more clearly.

Most of all, I want to be able to give that kind of clear representation of my faith and what God is doing inside of me. What if Edna has always been blind? Maybe her paintings are that clear because of the extreme detail that someone else has given her. Can you imagine being able to take descriptions from someone else and so accurately represent them so that others immediately recognize them when they see them? Wouldn't it be amazing if someone was able to paint a perfect picture of Jesus because we did such an accurate job of describing him, through our words, our actions, and our lives? Or better yet, if by following the details of Christ's life, our lives were a painting which people could look at and immediately see Christ?

I wish I were going to be in town on February 13, when the library is holding a reception for the artists. I need to thank Edna for challenging me to live a bit more clearly.

posted by Krista @ 1:21 PM