They say that our personalities are pretty much formed by age 6 - so indulge me a moment as I ask you to remember your world when you were 6 years old. You lived somewhere. It may have been a home. Or not. You had to have adults who took care of you. Or not. You had lots of other children around you and they were your friends. Or not.
One day something that you did not understand happened. You did not know how to express what you were feeling. You weren't really sad or mad but you just felt bad. A lot. You were angry at all the adults around you for letting it happen. You hated all the other children around you because it did not happen to them.
Your world grew more unfriendly. You felt very alone. After what seemed like an eternity, something slowly started to change but the pain in your soul still did not know how to let the love in your heart come out. One afternoon, your grandmother took down her mixing bowl and covered the kitchen table with newspaper. She made you put your hand into the warm, squishy mixture. And she did the same. You felt like laughing but it did not happen. You just stared at her. You made a mess but no one yelled. You started to talk about stuff. You made something funny looking but everyone smiled and said that it was beautiful. You decided to put it in a safe place and that you would keep it forever.
Now imagine that you are "all grown up." You are 11 years of age and you are staring at the lopsided paper mache vase made by you and Nanna. Your brows are less furrowed and your heart has lightened a bit. The butterflies in your stomach go away for just a few moments as you think about the calming memory of that paper mache day. You are not quite as angry now and your lips start to turn upward. Slightly. You feel at peace and pray that Nanna is too.
This story is fictional but feels very real and could be very real. It is meant to show the power of creative expression and the ability of art to soothe the aching soul. But make no mistake, it is always God's hand that guides our paintbrush and chooses the strokes.
"Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers and never succeeding."
-Marc Chagall
"Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else."
-Marc Chagall
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