Just As I Am

I've been having a sort out over the past few days and have rediscovered lots of my GCSE and A Level Art work.

One project that I worked on was called 'Embellish' and I looked at the way that we embellish things in life, especially ourselves - our appearances and our stories.

My sketchbook is full of black and white images (both photos and sketches), which I have painted over in bold colours and adorned with beads and sequins and fabric to illustrate the way we hide our true selves.

There is one black and white image of a naked woman which I have painted over with a bright pink sequinned dress.

In the same way that I have embellished the images in my sketchbook, we can embellish ourselves. Sometimes we feel that the naked truth won't be enough. Or we feel embarrassed or ashamed of the truth.

And so we cover up the truth with layers of embellishment. We layer on colour and beads and fabric and hide our true selves.

But God sees the truth. He sees through the layers and the embellishments and He loves us just the same.

I am slowly realising that God's love for me is not at all related to what I do or don't do. It's not related to the layers that I put on to make myself 'presentable', or to embellish myself.

It's about Him.

"We love because he first loved us."

[1 John 4:19 NIV]

As Mark Darcy says to Bridget Jones, "I like you.  Just as you are."

We have no need for embellishment or disguise, we can simply come as we are before God. And He will love and accept us just as we are.

Creativity and Perfection

I love all creative things.  I love creating.

 

I have listened to a fascinating talk this evening by Julie Burstein about creativity and the tension in creativity between what we can control and what we have to let go of.

 

She describes how when we are creative, we can't control everything - we have to let go of some things.  If we have a strict idea of what we want to achieve and what we want our creativity to look like, we will restrict ourselves and our creativity.

 

Creativity and perfectionism are often enemies.

 

I remember in Art GCSE at school my Art teacher telling us how she had been at a workshop and each person had to paint something.  They were asked to pause after about 20 minutes and share with the rest of the group which part of their painting they liked the most.

 

They all proudly pointed out which bits they thought were best and explained why.

 

And then the tutor asked them to paint over those perfect parts - to wipe them away - and to continue painting.

 

You can imagine my teacher's feelings as she was asked to paint over what she perceived to be the best part of her work.

 

But she said that after wrestling with the idea, when she did finally paint over the 'perfect' bit, she was much freer in her painting.  She wasn't limited or restricted by trying to make the rest of the painting as 'perfect' as the small bit she was proud of.

 

If we hold on to the idea of doing something (anything) perfectly, it will stand in the way of real creativity.  We will tiptoe around the perfect bits, scared to disrupt or ruin them.

 

Scott Adams says,

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes."

 

Or perhaps we could say, Creativity is allowing yourself the freedom to be less than perfect.

 

As someone who has spent a long time trying (and obviously failing) to be perfect, this is so freeing.  I want to be creative, I want to be free to make mistakes.

 

Paul urged the Galatian church,

"Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand!  Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you."

 

[Galatians 5:1 MSG]

 

Even something as seemingly good as perfection can become a form of slavery.

 

Let's not let our drive for 'perfection' strip us of our God-given, messy, colouring-outside-the-lines creativity.

 

 

 

 

The Grey Familiarity

I read this in a magazine article about photography today,

 

"In order to see we must practise looking beyond the grey familiarity of our everyday world."

 

The article was about learning to see things differently and to open our eyes when looking for photo opportunities.  To be purposeful in the things that we look for, and to look beyond the obvious.  Sometimes we become so familiar with what is familiar, that we forget to look beyond the surface.  We think we know what we will see and so we stop really looking.

 

I remember in Art GCSE we discussed this idea.  How often we think we know what we are drawing, and so we draw our idea of things, rather than drawing the actual thing.  I remember we went outside and practised drawing trees without looking at the paper.  It took a while to get used to, but what we actually drew was far more tree-like than if we had just drawn what we thought we saw.

 

It made us look properly and to see things afresh.

 

We can become so used to 'seeing' things in our lives too, without looking properly.  We assume we know what we are seeing and that we are seeing things properly, so we forget to look beyond the surface.  We end up settling for the grey familiarity of our everyday world.

 

We think we 'know' what our futures look like.  We think we know what our skills and talents are.  We think we know what we are capable of.  We think we know what other people think of us.  We think we know what God thinks of us.

 

But so often our thinking is wrong - it is based on the way things appear, on the surface of things.

 

But the Bible reminds us not to live by what we see on the surface, but to look deeper - to look beyond the grey familiarity.

"We live by faith, not by sight."

 

[2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV] 

 

I think perhaps I was drawn to this quote so much because of the name of my blog: The Golden and The Grey.  I started writing  several months ago because I felt challenged to look through the grey familiarity of my everyday life and to look for evidence of God's grace and glory.  To look for the golden in amongst the grey.

 

In his song, 'When the Music Fades', Matt Redman reminds us that God looks beyond the surface too:

 

        You look much deeper within

        Through the way things appear

        You're looking into my heart.

 

God looks beyond the surface, and so should we. 

Look through the grey familiarity.  Look for the golden opportunity.

 

 

 

True Colours

Today I have been to the Edvard Munch exhibition at Tate Modern.

It was completely fascinating.

Although most famous for his work "The Scream", this exhibition focused on his other work: paintings and sketches and photographs which considered the themes of loneliness and loss, and the view of the artist through his own eyes and those of others.

One of the most fascinating things was that in 1930 he suffered a haemorrhage in his right eye. Given that his left eye was already damaged, he was unable to paint for several months until his sight gradually returned to his right eye.

However, during this period of recovery, Munch still sketched and painted. He painted what he could see through the pain and through his suffering and there was an entire room dedicated to these works called "The Averted Eye."

These paintings ranged from colourful concentric circles to 'ordinary' images - him in bed, the view of the room around him - dominated and distorted by smudges and circles: he literally drew what he could see.

It seems that even though his work was affected, he continued painting and made the most of his situation. He had learnt to see potential in his problems, hope in the middle of his hurting.

You could say his haemorrhage revealed his true colours.

"His notes around this time suggest that he understood that the damage to his eye had enabled him to experience new visual sensations that would not otherwise have been available to him." 

[My guidebook]

We have the same choice: so often when we face setbacks, we stop working. We focus on the smudges and blurs in our vision and are unable to see past them. But if we are like Munch, we will learn to see the potential in our own problems and the scope in our setbacks.

Life won't always be easy; sometimes the worst things we could imagine will happen. But in those times we can decide whether to give up, or to persevere in spite of difficulties.

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way." 

[James 1:0, 2-4 MSG]

When troubles and trials come your way, trust in God and look for the potential. Let them reveal your true colours.