How Beautiful

This old book by Brenda Euland jumped off the shelf in an old bookshop into my ready-for-it arms.  Why didn't I find it earlier?  10 years ago?   Why didn't it find me 15 years ago?  I just wasn't ready yet and wouldn't have understood most of it.  Life and experiences hadn't left tracks yet..... that could find corresponding grooves.  

  

My heart felt like her heart felt about Blake, Van Gogh and a few other 'greats' who did what they did because they couldn't help but create.  They were compelled.  

Of Van Gogh she says, ".... in his letters you can see what his creative impulse was.  It was just this:  He wanted to show human beings how beautiful the sky was.  So he painted it for them. And that was all there was to it."  

She goes on to explain that "she finally understood from his letters what art and the creative impulse was.  It is a feeling of love and passionate enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it."

She says that in his letter he says something like this.  "It is so beautiful I must show you how it looks!" 

"Van Gogh, a great genius, was simply loving what he saw and then wanting to share it with others, not for the purpose of showing off, but out of generosity......Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her."  

I copy and pasted the lyrics to U2's new album "No Line On The Horizon" into a word document, then ate every single track while reading the lyrics.  (This is sort of gourmet musical dining for me and my favorite way to experience new music.  Total immersion.  No sprinkling for me.....)  The lyrics blew me away with their naked truth standing straight, tall and unembarrassed.  Art.  Poetry. Poetry that met me.  Words that let me...... let me into someone else's heart, spirit, mind, thoughts and feelings until I felt like I recognized something familiar.....   So many times a new album or a new group someone else exposes me to has this same effect.  Or a new author, a must read......same thing!  

Standing in the National Gallery in London that same feeling blew over me and I stood quietly with tears dripping, wanting to lick those amazing colors right off the canvas, touch them or crawl inside the frame.  Most of the pictures I stood in front of longest weren't the most famous, they were the ones that met me and let me in....... invited because the creator had to have been enthusiastic creating it, which makes the painting, the song...... poetry.  

Scripture, especially the Psalms are like this for me.  Sometimes we can't help but want to share the intimacy of soul we have with our Maker....... 'He's so beautiful and wonderful, let me introduce you, show you, paint a picture, sing of him so you can know Him and be known.'