…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.
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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.
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