Pops Finds Art

 While we were off on our quick getaway trip together, we spent a day at a museum art market. Roaming musicians, dishes of local cuisine, and lots and lots of art booths. We looked with admiration and absolutely no personal expectation.

And then Pops found an artist that captivated him. He began describing his own evoked emotions in relation to the art. And they were deep.

This was a new experience. Pops doesn't normally talk art.

 I was more than a little surprised to find ourselves contemplating purchasing a piece of this art. "Maybe we should go have a bowl of soup and think this over," I suggested. I was having trouble seeing beyond the literal, beyond seeing, simply ... a wooden Moses.

But then Pops began elaborating on the form, the expression, the deep conotations.

We went back to look some more. And I realized. Why can I not support what Pops sees as beauty even if it is not what I initially would.

And suddenly. The art had life and beauty to me too. Was it the art? Was it choosing to delight in that which delighted him? I think, perhaps both.

This purchase was, for me, a moment of intentional grace. A choosing. I wanted to write it off as frivolous. Yet how often does my husband smile upon my own desire for "frivolity?" How often does the Lord? The answer to both, is frequently.

When I look at the piece, I am now absorbed by the expression of mercy, agony, weariness, devotion. A body bent with trial, yet strengthened by grace. A sense of rememberence past and hope in promise. I see beauty. I see art.

To give is to gain. To yield is to receive. To support is to be lifted up. A grafting together. A joy. Beauty.

 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” 

Romans 11:17-19