It’s fun to celebrate accomplishments. People are made in the image of God, which means they are creative, productive, caring, and observant of everything which is going on around us.
Yesterday my husband and I took at walk in the Melbourne Mall. We weren’t exercising, though my arthritic hip joint felt every jarring step on those tiled floors. We weren’t shopping. We were going to see the artwork produced by Brevard County school children, and one in particular, our granddaughter Kaley’s piece chosen by the art teacher for display.
We saw three similar pencil sketches. The title was: The House Where No One Lives.” I’ve always thought empty houses look sad. They deserve vibrant families giving them meaning. These were obviously exercises in perspective, lots of straight lines, odd angles, as seen perhaps from a bird’s eye view. I haven’t talked to Kaley to understand how the lesson was presented. But this is what I observed from her “empty house” drawing.
She captured the angles and perspective a whole lot better than I could ever do. Her rooflines were parallel, her chimney was angled just right and one side was in shadow, her steps were just a little wonky, but let to the porch, also accurately presented with straight lines. But it was the details that I thought made her house look lonely.
Stuff was piled on the porch. Fruits and flowers in the trees were left, not used by the owner. But, she portrayed a place where the stucco was peeled away, obviously not maintained well, and in the corner of the front porch was a detail her grandma would notice first.
Kaley hates spiders. But in the corner of the front porch, she had a perfectly shaped web with a spider doing its thing.
I thought she captured the empty house in that little detail.
There’s a lesson here, I think. We live our lives, hoping to bring order out of chaos, looking for times when we can share our talents with others. Yes, there are little details that can derail us sometimes, but in the big picture, those little hurts, disappointments, and even the scary things are mere details which in the longterm, are mere little things.
How can we keep our day in perspective today and sow peace and grace, even if little things bring us moments of angst?
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