Big Picture
"Fiat Lux" by Hans Hofmann — The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Reagan took me to The Museum of Fine Arts on Thursday, which I am Not Cultured Enough to do on my own but loved doing with her. She knows so much about the pieces and the process behind their creation, and I love hearing her talk about them and learning about it from her. (I also found a book about tacos in the gift shop and bought it, to her grave disappointment.)
At one point, she stopped me and, in hushed tones, pointed out a Vincent van Gogh. The canvas, in his signature style, was impossibly thick with oil paint, swirled with layered color in impossible detail. We both stared at it, wordless, for a while.
"Imagine having enough of a big picture idea of what you were painting to know how to paint each of these brush strokes," she whispered, enraptured.
Reagan was talking about Van Gogh, but it made me think about God. And it made me cry, because me; but also because of what all God has been doing in my life lately, and how the more of the picture of my life He paints, the more amazed I am He could see it all and make something so good from something that seems so messy and random in the close-up. I love seeing the brush strokes start to make sense. He's so good and so generous and so much better than me.
Headed to Honduras today, so I'll be out of writing commission for a bit, but I couldn't shake the thought and had to share it. I don't know what your paint situation looks like right now, but it's going to be beautiful, okay? Don't trust me, trust the artist.
