Instead of New Year’s resolutions, some of my friends have found a simpler way— asking God to help them choose just one word as a focal point for change and growth for the year. As the year turned, I pondered this, wondering if a single word would come to me without forcing it.
It did: Focus.
And so today I am focusing my attention on what God might have to say to me in this photo of a splendid sunrise.
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Some paintings are so big that they are best seen from a great distance.
In Rome I wanted nothing more than for the guards to just go away and leave us alone so that I could lie on my back and gaze up for hours at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Instead, craning my neck in the midst of a hot and sweaty crowd of hundreds of others, I had to grab what I could in the frustratingly short 15 minutes they allowed us to view the frescoes we’d crossed an ocean and waited hours to see.
Other paintings are smaller in size, but no less powerful. At the Louvre in Paris, we were in a similar herd of tourists filing past the Mona Lisa, which turned out to be not a commanding painting at all, if size were the measure. Little more than life size, the drably colored canvas could only be viewed by few people at once. There was an optimal viewing distance, and it was much closer than that of Michaelangelo’s frescoes.
Both are masterpieces.
Last Friday night, Jeff and I happened upon on art show in San Diego featuring a Spanish artist, Royo. His paintings were grand scale expressionistic works of young beauties with downcast eyes, clad in gauzy garments and holding baskets of
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After an hour of sorting through the overstuffed iPhoto folders clogging my computer, I accomplished some necessary deletion and some happy recollection of the wonderful places and people I’ve seen in the past year. And I will admit it freely— if I found a picture where my actual weight and/or age were undeniably obvious, I hit delete. If you were standing next to me and looked fabulous, I’m very sorry.
As the year draws to a close, it’s good to spend some time taking inward inventory, reflecting on goals attained and accomplishments that should be celebrated. Today as I perused a year’s worth of pictures, what took shape for me was a list of things you probably wouldn’t have guessed I’ve battled this year. Since I am a musician, a teacher, and a writer, you might assume I do these things with complete ease. Not so. I call them Little Giants, and I am naming them because I want to acknowledge that God has continued his work in my life this year, helping me win some small but significant victories over various forms of fear.
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Heart wide-open,
Shocked open.
Agony of empathy
made every beat a pulsation of pain.
But then,
the balm was laid in
to the place of the open wound,
with a surgeon’s skill- this surely brought us
a comfort of peace.
What is this gift of God?
How can something so ethereal simply enter the ear
And soothe the soul that stretches inside a man,
From the roots of his hair to the nails of his toes?
The cruelest piercings ran head to toe.
Not a halo, but cursed thorns surrounded and
spilled a series of scarlet rivulets
that ran over his shoulders
and continued
down
to the place they would meet the
bruised heel,
held fast against the splintered wood
by the coarsest of nails.
Arms that did not need to be forced open
revealed the heart laid bare,
laid open and broken.
Just to watch,
Weeping,
My eyes as wide open as I could force them to be.
This was the smallest part of sharing in Your sufferings.
But most memorable on that most memorable of nights?
It was the comfort of Your love,
expressed from each to each.
Comforts were
warmth of firelight,
heat of sweet tea,
a meal marinated in gratitude
from the making to the receiving.
Warm dog eyes, breath, and the press of his head,
The silence of a togetherness of solitude.
And ultimately the music
that entered and did its work of washing,
giving us the only way possible to express the
fullness of our worship and Your worth.
Again You poured out your gift to us through
The heart and head and hands
of Your child ;
A collecting pool midway
down
the cascade.
We stood under the waterfall and felt the splash of refreshment.
First, a time to listen ,
Then a time to join in
In the song of our love
for You.
Our passion.
Your passion.
Gail Bones June 21, 2004
