On Outrageously Priced Paintings And the Impractical Necessity of Art

…How do I start again?

It’s been over a year since I’ve written anything on this blog. Sitting down in front of my computer to write feels a bit like sitting down to catch up with an old friend whom you haven’t seen in a while. So much time has passed. You both grow and change. It can feel a little awkward with more silences than sentences filling the air and you both scramble for what to say. But eventually—with a bit of time, tea, and effort—you get familiar with each other’s hearts once again. 

—

Several months ago a friend and I visited Banff, Alberta. While walking around town, we decided to take a peek inside a local art gallery. As we made our way from piece to piece, my eyes took in each painting. I honestly don’t remember what they looked like now. I’m sure they were actually beautiful. But I do remember looking at the price tags and feeling a tidal wave of shock wash over me, the kind of shock I feel when I come home from work to find our dog has pooped on the floor (minus my volcanic rage). 

For example, they could have hung on the wall a two-foot by three-foot mountainous landscape scene filled with beavers, moose, bison, mounties, poutine, and what not. 

And the price—$2,500. 

Oh, this will look great up above my toilet! I’ll take two!

I can’t remember the exact figures, folks, and this could be slightly exaggerating, but not by much, I assure you. 

I love art, but I tend to see it as more luxury than necessity. In some ways, it’s about as practical as taking a bikini on an Alaskan cruise. Most people don’t have the means to amble through the above-mentioned art gallery with a latte machiatto in hand, fall in love with the aforementioned beaver-poutine-and-mountie-infested painting, and plunk down enough dough to purchase it. And who has time to invest in creating a piece like that anyway? Not many of us.  

But people who have the artsy-fartsy streak running in their veins know how satisfying it is to create beautiful things. I say “things” because art takes on infinite forms. There’s just something inside you that has to come out, and it does, whether the medium is paper, wood, words, a ball of yarn, canvas, a musical instrument, clay, or just a pen and ink. 

And it’s what makes our hearts beat. 

But I’ve been a bit frustrated lately. Why did God give me a passion for something that is so impractical and seems so unnecessary? Why do I love doing things that often are seen as only fit for those who sit in the lap of luxury, a lap not usually large enough for college-age girls?

I’ve asked myself those questions several times, and I think I’m starting to get the answers.

Someone recently told me that it’s the Taylor Swifts and the Kanye Wests that change the world. Or something like that. Though not a revolutionary thought for most people, it was sort of a “Duh,” light-bulb moment for me. Creative expression itself influences people. We could all simply talk at each other, desperately hoping to communicate what we believe and think and feel and cry over and laugh about, but it wouldn’t be near as effective as giving ourselves the freedom to express our thoughts artistically. Why? Because the way we express ourselves has just as much influence as what we’re expressing. We are individuals. God doesn’t own any cookie cutters. We absorb and communicate differently. So art makes it possible for truth to find its way into hearts that are as different as my sister’s anxiety-stricken dog and a pregnant narwhal. Truth molded into beautiful art can fit into each unique heart.

I’ve recently seen this happen in my own life.

A dear friend of mine was talking with me about something that was weighing on her. It was a burden I’d carried before. Because I could empathize, I pulled up something I’d written on the subject a couple of years before, hoping it might be of some comfort. When I’d finished reading, she looked at me through tears and said, “Allie, I think when you wrote that a couple years ago, you wrote it for me. You just didn’t know it yet.” I wish I had better words to explain how encouraging and relieving it was to see the words I'd strung together reach forward in time and touch my friend when she needed it. An art form that I'd labeled "useless" found its use.

I’m just beginning to learn that my voice matters. The way we express ourselves has power to change the way we as humans think, and if we can change the way we think, we can change the way we act. And any time you can affect someone's thoughts and actions, you're doing something that matters. It might seem small or insignificant, but your expression could just be the vehicle that makes someone decide to start his or her journey to the Truth. So I encourage you to speak up and let your voice be heard in the way God made you too share it. He gives you the passions you have because you can use them to express truth in a way that no one else can. Someday your art will resonate with someone else, and the truth you share will find a home in that person’s heart and make a change for good. And that change will be worth way more than any painting of bison, beavers, or poutine.  

Until the Glimmers Are Gone

He flopped around in the blasting wind tunnel, like a spaghetti noodle in a pot of boiling water. The instructor struggled to stretch out the small boy’s contorting limbs to achieve a neutral posture, but soon his time was up and the boy stepped out of the tunnel. One by one I watched the others in my group take their turn leaning into the twelve-foot wide tunnel of the indoor skydiving center. After about sixty seconds of a suspended belly flop onto winds up to 170 mph, complete with cheeks flapping in the breeze like flags on a pole, each person stepped out with huge grins smeared across their faces.

I was a little nervous myself. I only knew a few people in my group, and who wants to flop around like a hiccupping walrus in front of a bunch of strangers? But as I took my turn and stretched out my legs and arms, all I could do was grin. There was literally nothing but gushing air to hold me up. Then the wind speed increased and I was skyrocketed into the tunnel and then let down, high, then low, high, and then low, like a leaf tossed around in a storm. I was falling without actually falling. The feeling was sensational in every sense of the word and after stepping out of the tunnel and high-fiving my friends, I found myself thinking, I kind of want to do real skydiving now.

It happens often in life that we get a taste for something, but instead of satisfying us, it only increases our thirst. We crave real peace and joy and we catch glimmers of it all the time, but only glimmers. It blazes into our lives at certain beautiful moments, but it quickly fades away, like the last flashes of fireworks on the Fourth of July. And we feel the hole. We feel it when we close the cover of our book and wish the story wasn’t over. We feel it anytime we say goodbye to a friend or loved one. We grasp and claw at the bits and pieces, but can never sink our teeth into the real thing.

The Lord doesn’t give us these desires to taunt or tease us. C.S. Lewis said in his book The Problem of Pain, “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.” If God gave us these longings, it is because He will someday fulfill them. So, when you feel inside you the dichotomy of joy and sorrow, pleasure and aching, fullness and vacancy, and longing echoes through your hollow soul, pray to the Father that He will keep your heart strong until He comes to fill it with everlasting life and the glimmers are replaced with the real thing. 

Something I wrote recently

I can see your frustration is growing

Cause things haven't been going as planned

Doors you want open are closing

This is not your life; you don't understand

Why all the detours? This wasn't in the script

Could it be there's something better than this?

Sometimes you find your life on the side roads

There's beauty off the beaten path

It's amazing what you learn when you let go

You'll find true joy where it’s at

God'll take you to the unexpected

You'll find love, purpose and glory

So relax, and let Him write your story

Remember life is a journey

It's not a race to get to the end

Life's all about what you're learning

Not when you arrive, but how it's been spent

So embrace all the detours that aren't in the script

Enjoy each adventure and every plot twist

Sometimes you’ll find your life on the side roads

There's beauty off the beaten path

It's amazing what you learn when you let go

You'll find true joy where it's at

God'll take you to the unexpected

You'll find love, purpose and glory

So relax, and let Him write your story

His ways are higher than your ways

His thoughts are higher than yours too

His plans for you are good and true

So enjoy the ride, enjoy the view

Jesus, the Family Heirloom

When I was about five or so, my mom made me a cloth doll. She didn't have jointed legs, an hourglass figure, or seductive makeup like some of the Barbies I later owned. She was actually quite simple. She had tan cloth skin, black yarn hair twisted into two braids, tiny sewn eyes, and a small pink mouth. Her body wasn't very properly proportioned either. She had a round belly and her arms were about as large as her thighs (and they were quite large; think sausages). She was soft, huggable, and wholesome, and I had a ball sewing clothes for her out of hideous fabrics my mom let me have. When it came time to name her, I dubbed her with the eloquent title: Adra (any resemblance to religious humanitarian organizations is entirely coincidental).

I liked Adra and I still do. She's been around now for...15 or 16 years, longer than most of our family pets. She's survived three or four moves all over the United States too. But I've slowly grown up, my hands stretching, grasping, letting go of childhood toys and games and reaching out for education and jobs. At 21, I can't spend my time making miniature aprons and dresses for dolls with fat arms. So I've left Adra boxed up in a closet or shed somewhere at my mom's house in Colorado. She's most likely folded up like origami next to my old story books or scrunched up with the wooden music box my uncle gave me, the one with the hummingbird engraved on it. I've left her to collect dust in a cardboard coffin. I don't keep her near me when I sleep or prop her up on my pillow during the day either. Those days are gone.

But don't get me wrong. There's no way I could ever get rid of her. She's stuffed with much more than fluffy wool. She's full of sentimental value and the rich memory of my mother making a special gift just for me.

I know of another Parent who gave a very personal gift to His kids. Many of us accepted this treasure when we were little. God entrusted us with a simple, raw faith in the gift of Jesus. But as we've slowly grown up, life started getting more complicated and it was harder to take Jesus everywhere. He might've survived a few moves, but slowly, little by little, He was crowded out of our lives as we reached out for more "grown-up" things. For many young people, Jesus has been left in the dust as they blasted their way into adulthood. He now sits in a closet, collecting dust somewhere.

But don't be confused. He's is well liked for sure. We usually pull Him out once in a while during church, for memory's sake. We couldn't bear to get rid of Him entirely because He's too full of sentimental value and rich childhood memories. But we can't stand to let Him live fully in our lives either.

For most of my peers who grew up in Christian homes, Jesus is liked well enough to be spared a Goodwill fate, but not well enough to be brought out of the packing box and made real and personal in our everyday lives. We can't sell Him at the yard sale just yet because He's a part of our history. Sabbath school lessons, potlucks, and pathfinders weakly string our past to our present, but Jesus isn't in control of the reins that guide us in the moment, in the here and now. When we do crack open a Bible, all we see are black and white sterile words on a page, tellings stories that aren't near as flashy or fascinating as Disney.

We've "become wealthy, and have need of nothing" (Revelation 3:17 NKJV).

But the problem is keeping Jesus packed in the shed is really like having no Jesus at all. Either He is the Life "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled," or He is nothing at all (1 John 1:1 NKJV). We have to decide what He will be to us. Alive or dead. Everything or nothing. We're all in or all out. Either we're burning hot, consumed by His love or we'll be vomited out of His mouth (see Revelation 3:16). You can't have a sentimental relationship with Christ based on the whims of nostalgia any more than you can have a sporadic, sentimental, pull-out-of-the-box-when-I-feel-like-it spouse. It's that simple.

It's time we quit treating Jesus like a family heirloom.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock..." (Revelation 3:20 NKJV).

Life is...

Life is not a formula where you plug in the factors and get exactly what you want.

Life isn't a game where you can pass go and collect two-hundred dollars.

Life isn't a fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after.

Life isn't a movie you can replay over and over. It can only be lived once.

Life is not a bread and breakfast where you get Captain Crunch served on a silver platter.

Life isn't a car-camping trip with paved walk ways and wi-fi access.

Life is a rugged endeavor where you make incredible friends and meet annoying trolls that later transform into incredible friends.

Life is an experiment where you put baking soda and vinegar together and find that it doesn't go over very well.

Life is a wild beast and a sometimes you have to grab the whip and tame the lion.

Life is a roller coaster with lots of ups and downs and lots of screaming.

Life is a play you perform, but most of the time you don't understand your role or the lines until afterwards.

Life is a fight to treasure the diamonds you've been given.

Life is realizing that the Son of Man doesn't have a hole like a fox or a nest like a bird and neither do I have a place in this world.

A Fancy List of Blogs I Like

I’m thankful that people enjoyed reading my last post. But now I have a problem: I have nothing intelligent or profound left to say. Seriously, it was all funneled into that 1,700ish word post. I thought about writing a series of posts covering all the other emotional problems I have, but decided against it.

I thought about telling you all about the time my older sister gave her hamster a bath in the humidifier and then blow-dried it to a parched perfection (needless to mention, he passed away in the process). I guess that would make people laugh and that can be good, and maybe someday I’ll write out a whole swath of humorous family anecdotes, but not today.

I wish I had something grand and clever and to say. I wish I had great gobs of intelligence and humorous sarcasm from which I could write scathing rebukes on controversial issues to our morally bankrupt, do-what-you-feel-like society. I wish I could stir people up and resurrect a “stand for the truth!” spirit and let it burn like a bon fire, like my latest and greatest blogging hero, Matt Walsh of the www.themattwalshblog.com. (Really, he is, like, my top favorite blog right now. I highly recommend you check out his stuff. Read, like, everything.)

On the other end of things, I’m not super amazing when it comes to sewing or DIY home décor projects so I can’t show you how to create the cutest handmade clutches in all creation (but if you do want to see them, a really adorable baby boy, read book reviews, or just hear about a wonderful Christian woman’s life and find out why she’s gluten free, check out one of my other favorite blogs: www.elmstreetlife.com).

Sometimes I get frustrated because I like words a lot and at random moments in the day I’ll think of an artistic way to string a few together. But then I usually don’t have a larger frame to place them in for display or I’m not really in a place/time where I can flesh out my thoughts and do them justice. And by the time I actually do have a space for thinking, often the fancy has passed and I’m stuck again.

I’m also not a mom who does cool stuff like mission trips and talks about her kids and yummy recipes like this awesome lady at www.peteandbuzz.com (I haven’t kept up with her blog for a while, but it is still a pretty good one).

I’m also not an uber spiritual, inspirational, super author like this incredible woman at www.aholyexperience.com or this one at www.lookforsonshine.wordpress.com (I highly recommend you read both blogs. The profound thoughts and down-to-earth attitudes are so uplifting.)

I’m not like any of these bigwig bloggers. I’m more like a…toupee blogger. And if you’re bored, you now have several new reasons (the above websites) to procrastinate and waste time. J You’re welcome.

So, I guess you can expect my next lightening bolt of inspiration to arrive in about five years and a half years. In between you’ll be entertained with senior photo shoots (or junior or sophomore shoots), occasional intelligent epiphanies, and short, sweet devotionals about things like nature and leaves.

OK, just kidding. Hopefully it won’t be that bad. But it’s nice sometimes to write for the sake of writing, which is kind of what this was. Thanks for reading my rambles.

A Link to More Insight

I noted at the beginning of my last post that I couldn't provide all the answers when it comes to the struggle of feelings. So I wanted to share another post written by one of my favorite teachers from ARISE because I think it gives more insight on the subject. You can find it here. Enjoy!