A Is For Artist: You Are Never Alone

A thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. ~Charles Dickens

Could there be art without an artist?

What price will you pay for a puddle of paint, a dried wad of clay, the recorded crash of pianos overturned, a photo of my errant thumb?

Could there be beauty without a creator?

Imagine molecules in meaningless motion–flash, stench, noise with no meaning, chaos with no aim.

Then take a walk in the cool autumn air, damp with rain’s promise. Breathe the earthy scent of yellow ochre leaves scattered beneath  burnt umber branches, in eye-pleasing harmony with the distant violet hills.

A true artist, a creator is in residence.

In the liar’s alphabet, A is for Alone, Abandoned, Accidental. We are well-acquainted with his dreary theme song–do you recognize the lyrics?

• No one cares.
• I’m on my own.
•  Some people may get lucky, I don’t.

Of all creation, humans alone are deaf and blind to the ambience of God.

Why?

Because life is broken, and so are we.  Bright dreams turn to ashes, the crowd walks away, the screen fades. With the ring of the phone, or the clearing of a throat, hope is doused, and we feel deserted.

I wonder if, in our darkest hour, the rest of creation holds its breath, waiting  for our re-illusionment, for grief-clouded sight to clear. “Look up, look around, look beneath, can’t you see?”

The Artist Decides

Genesis means “origin”, the story of how it began. The composer raised his arms, the painter filled the palette, deft fingers hovered over the keyboard, and in the last silence, in that hushed and holy moment, what was in the heart of the Maker?

• I love you.
• I am as close as your soon-beating heart.
• You are here by the artist’s design.

What seems to be lost never left you. What seems withheld has been always. What seems impossible will be anyway.

The Artist is here and he has only begun.

Welcome to our series, An Alphabet Adagio. We are savoring the story of the Bible, the story where we are found, alphabetically. You can subscribe to e-mail so you won’t miss a letter. Why not invite a friend to join us? Next time: B is for Beloved.

Have you listened to the wrong alphabet? 

Photo by Melanie Hunt