On Renoir et al

I belong to an artists' group of painters who regularly discuss topics of interest in plein air painting and other forms. That's correctly spelled. Plein-air refers to open air painting in which the painter attempts to catch the essence of a landscape in one sitting. Our group's moderator, Carole Huber, posed a question around an upcoming showing of landscapes by Pierre-Auguste Renoir at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Her question had to do with a quote from Renoir, who wrote, "There isn't a single person or landscape or subject which doesn't possess some interest.... When a painter discovers this hidden treasure, other people are immediately struck by its beauty." Carole was discussing the difference between the sublime and the ordinary in a painter's expression on canvas. She asked if any of us had thoughts on this matter.

Oh, good subject! I think what Renoir meant was that a perceptive painter could find the sublime in the ordinary. Photographers have this same problem. A hundred people can take pictures of the same scene or a portrait of one person. Within the hundred photographs you will find that 80% or so are just photographs, nothing special. Of the remaining which appear somehow interesting, perhaps only two or three will stand out. In those, the photographers have seen and captured something unique about the scene or person being photographed. We might conclude these are professional photographers, but then upon investigation we're likely to find in our sample that only one of them makes a living directly from recording pictures; the other one or two are "talented" amateurs showing an unusually high degree of passion. They've gotten good because they've taken thousands of pictures and like the professional, they continue to do so.

In my experience, it is like that for any of the arts. The more you do your thing, the more you understand. The more you paint, the more you perceive. There comes a time when you cross an invisible threshold. Something inside you opens to something new. You suddenly see differently, more perceptively than when you first set out. Masters, like Renoir, have kept their passion and nurtured it, studying introspectively to reason and to understand what it is they see and what it is that defines the beauty in an ordinary scene or person.

In my home town, I can step out the door, walk a block and look down a long street toward Lake Pend d' Oreille (the original French spelling). It's the home of Bookcrossings.com, Coldwater Creek and Litehouse Dressings. I can look down more than a mile and a half to the edge of the lake. Proficiency in any form of art--I'll use painting as the example--requires that I paint my way all the way to the lake, one canvas at a time, end on end. Along the arduous path, so long as I don't quit, I will grow in technique, understanding and perception. I will experience plateaus, yes; valleys, certainly; bumps and disappointments, of course. But I will experience moments of elation and inspiration as well. First, I must, as Picasso said, paint a single line across the white canvas. I must start. If I never risk, I will never achieve. If I don't stumble I will stay on the level of stick drawings and believe forever that's all God gave me for talent. But if I trudge on, if I find some level of interest and passion, the One who created me will give me more. I will grow and if someday I have been sufficiently diligent, I will reach a level some might consider mastery.

~Dwayne K. Parsons

In Search of Others

(Continued from Like No Other Courage)

Who can say how long the fight lasted? I stood my place on the Dark Plain swinging the sword as best I could. Arrows flew out of nowhere, some flaming. They couldn't penetrate my armor, but broke or glanced off, deflected. Yet I had no one to slay. I saw no foe. I swung anyway, lancing the air with joy as best I could.

I saw another warrior who'd fallen not far from me. His light was dim and he lay on the ground as if mortally wounded. The distance was not great. I ran to him. He looked up at me as I approached.

"Brother," he said weakly, "how can we win?"

"Rise up," I commanded. "Rise up and shine. You must rise up."

"I don't see how--"

"It doesn't matter. Listen. Can you hear it? Can you hear the song?"

"What song? I don't hear it."

"The joyous song...the song of praise, can you hear it? Rise up and shine. You must believe! Don't lie down. Don't quit. Our call is to fight. You must have faith. Wield your sword. Rise up, man."

I put my shield-bearing hand under his shoulder to help him up, but just as he gained his feet, he took a blow in his gut. He crumpled in front of me.

I sliced the air with my sword, yelling, "No! Get away!" I heard a scream. "Be gone from me! I am God's child! The victory belongs to Him!"

Whatever it was, it left; but the man at my heels lay lifeless. His light had gone out completely. His sword faded in the dust and the armor he'd worn fell away from his body. He was dead.

I looked out across the plain. In the distance I saw many warriors fighting the unseen foe. Some were falling; but some stood valiently. We were spread so thin, I thought, so far from each other. "Why must we fight alone? O God!" I cried out. "Why must we fight alone? We are so far apart! How can we sustain the fight in this way?"

Then I was hit by a hard blow from behind. It took me to the ground in a daze. I saw light in my mind's eye. I tried to shake it off. I struggled to gain my feet, but I was too dizzy and fell prostrate, my head turned to the side. Through half-open eyes, I saw feet standing by my face, feet with clawed toes. My eyesight faded into listless black.

I awoke lying on soft green grass. It felt cool to my face. I found my hands and pushed myself up. I was sitting in a garden, a beautiful garden like none I had ever seen. My sword lay beside me and I was still wearing the armor. I picked the blade up and rose to my feet. With the shield on my arm, I put my free hand to the back of my helmet and felt a dent in the metal plate.

I looked about the garden: unspeakably beautiful, serene and peaceful beyond description. I saw flowers of a hundred kind amidst rich, lush foliage intricately arranged. Trees of all sorts grew everywhere but not too thick. I drew a deep, rich breath of clean, refreshing air. I was not dead but incredibly alive. I remembered the fight, however.

I looked to the ground for the fallen warrior but could not see him. It didn't matter. I found nothing about which to be alarmed. Beams of sunlight sprayed through the canopy of leaves and bows of evergreen. I heard a song, too, in the air. It was the same song I'd heard before, but with many more voices singing words I did not understand. But they were surely the most joyous, precious expressions of worship I'd ever heard. There must have been a thousand voices singing praises in harmonious melodies of the sweetest kind. Yet I saw no one, just the beautiful garden.

Suddenly I felt dizzy again. I could not keep my eyes focused. I laid down on the grass unable to stay awake and fell asleep. When I awoke I lay again on the Dark Plain next to the man who had died. My sword was still in my hand and my head hurt, but I was awake. Yet I saw the vivid memory of the garden.

I sat up instantly, gathering my feet beneath me in a crouch. I brought my sword to bear and held the shield just below my eyes as I looked out across the flat ground of war. I turned in a full circle, but nothing came at me.

"I understand, Lord." I said to the air. "I understand this temporal place." I stood up with renewed strength. Courage came flooding back into me like hot blood. "I understand, Lord. Let joy shine in me. I know where I'm going and oh, what joy awaits me there! Don't ever let me forget what I saw."

I started walking, then soon broke into an easy run moving swiftly across the Plain of Darkness in search of others I might help.
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Spring's Around the Corner

Dover Slough early spring 4x5

Something Amiss

(Continued from I Am Fed)

Yet there was something amiss in the air. An unsettled disappointment settled over me like a cloud. I swung my sword at the sky and, drawing cuts in the air about me, changed directions suddenly with the hope of dissuading any dark spirits hovering about. After a time, I stopped and let the sword rest point down. I leaned on it putting my weight on the handle and stood there. I was unhappy. All the song and dancing and praise and joy expressed had somehow gone away from me.

“What is this, God? Why am I losing what was given to me?” I looked at the sword and sure enough the iridescent colors of the jewels had diminished. They looked like some cheap imitation.

“I don’t understand," I bemoned. "Just awhile back you fed me. You gave me a song and now it's gone. You let me walk in the light of Your Glory and you even sent angels to encourage me. But now in the heat of this day, I stand fed and yet not at peace. I have someone close to me for whom I care greatly. I want the best for this one, but she seems lost. She walks about thinking that the center of everything is her mind and that knowledge is everything. I fear, she’s caught up in the war of vanity. Lord, what can I do from where I stand? My sword is ineffective in reaching her world. The battle for her life is not here, but over there.” I pointed to the west with my plea.

I was very sad and quite earnest in my appeal to God. “Why don’t you help me in this? It’s as if they attack her to get at me. Is my praise not enough? Is my lack of joy in this very moment considered...sin?” It was a shocking sudden thought.

Could I be in sin because of my love for someone so close to me? Was I indeed losing faith because I held my thoughts on someone still in the world? I staggered away from the moment of realization. I nearly threw the sword away thinking it must be useless, and that if it was useful, I wasn’t worthy to carry it.

I realized my folly, “O God, forgive me. Can we not pray for those we love with the same faith and joy you’ve given me here? To think I've fallen away out of love for someone, how wrong of me. I want her to wake up. I want her to awaken to the truth, to find her way to the edge where she can see what you have waiting. I don't want her to be lost."

I walked westward dragging the sword in the dust. My head hung low on my shoulders as I watched the ground with aimless walk. Eventually I came to an outcropping some distance from the abyss. At the top of it, I was high enough to see back into the world from which I'd come.

I could see the turmoil and the chaos. I could see the fighting and the wars. I could see the hungry and the starving. I could see injustice and filth. I saw vice and sickness and all the bad things I had ever known. I took a breath of despair and let it out with the huff of disappointment. “Look at them, Lord. Look at the world from which I’ve come. It is full of lost people who have no idea who You are. What does my joy matter if they have no knowledge of You? When are you returning? Can’t you come now, Lord? Can’t you at least send someone to help her? Can’t you send your warring angels to fight on her behalf. She is caught in the grapple of a powerful spirit. I can’t help her from here! I’m asking You O God of Creation, to come down out of heaven with Your Command and rescue this girl.” I fell down on my knees. Tears welled up in my eyes.

The sword lay parallel to the ground, loose in my hand.

###

Like No Other Courage

(Continued from Something Amiss)

I looked out across the span of the world for some time feeling both remorse and pain over the chaotic display of humanity. Was I some part of this mess that man had gotten himself into? How could I help? What could I do? These were the questions that moved through my brain. Then suddenly I felt a heavy weight come down on the blade of my sword, so that it was almost thrust from my hand.

I turned to see what it was and behind me stood a terrifying being with cold eyes, spit oozing from its mouth. I shrieked and let go of the sword. I stumbled back, lost my footing and fell over the edge of the outcrop. I rolled a short distance then plummeted heavily to a shelf some several feet below. Still frightened by what I had seen, I looked up but it had not followed. I felt almost ill, nauseated by the memory of it. It was Pestilence I had seen and Pestilence that stepped on my joy.

I sat up and put my back against the rock wall rubbing my bruised leg. I looked again out over the valley of a world caught in turmoil. I saw a great darkness rising over the valley, coming from the direction I knew was west. The darkness was overwhelming, filling the sky and moving like a gigantic cloud toward me and over me. It was not rapid, but gradual and constant.

I stood on the shelf and turned into the wall, grappling for a way up. I was desperate to find my sword, desperate to get back to the rim. But the rock was crumbling at my grip and I could not climb it. Suddenly a quake shook the whole earth. I was thrown to my breast and struggled just to hold onto the shelf. Fortunate I was not to fall. I looked out across the world to see the effects of the quake and saw that a yellow-amber glow emanated from a crack through the earth below. The glow of molten lava lit the underside of the darkness like the roof of a cavern by torch.

I cried out to God. I wanted my joy back. I repented. I was sorry. Please, I begged. “Let me return!” I struggled to my feet, grappling for hand-holds. My right hand fell upon a sinuous cord that, when I pulled it toward me, glowed in soft white light. It felt warm to my touch, like the sword. I pulled it down and saw that it was a belt, for it had a buckle of jewels similar to that of my weapon now lost. I wrapped this belt around my waist to gird up the cloth of my robe so that I could climb more easily and immediately upon cinching it—I grew calm.

I knew my place. I knew I was a child of the living God. I knew I had nothing to fear. Though all the world around me had fallen in chaos and storm, I had nothing to fear for about my waist was the belt of truth: God had won this war since before time began. I knew it was so, and I knew that by Christ I had an eternal inheritance, that I was one of God’s children and no longer man’s.

I found a solid hold on the rock above me. I grasped with both hands and pulled my feet up to a secure place. I crawled in this manner up the wall without falling and pulled myself onto the upper bench. The beast Pestilence was still there. I rolled to my feet and stood before him, secure in my belt of Truth. “I command you, in the Name of Jesus, be gone. You have no hold on me. And it left at once, as a rat scurries away from the broom. I picked up the sword which still lay in the dust. In my hand, the jewels took light and the sword glowed again as before. I swung it in the air and ran away from the fallen rim of that outcropping toward the cliffs of the abyss.

But they were not there.

The sky had grown black above all the way to the horizons north and south. Perhaps I was lost. Perhaps I had gotten turned around. But the abyss and the sweet light of dawn were nowhere to be seen. Far off in the eastern sky was the faint light of a morning clouded by darkness. I ran across a plain hoping somehow to get ahead of the dark cloud, but it had already surpassed and now encompassed the whole of the earth I had known. I ran some great distance across the flat ground until I realized the darkness had settled over all existence and there was no further reason to run. As I looked out across the plain, I saw the glow of another blade. I could even see the faint reflection of the person who held it up swinging. Then I saw yet another more distant, and another. Where the chasm had gone, I did not know nor did I try to reason. I knew we were to stand and fight: with Joy and Praise and Song and Dance, with Glad Hearts we were to fight all darkness and evil that would come our way.

About my waist was Truth itself. And in my hand the sword of the Spirit of God bejeweled by the Joys of the Saints and Martyrs of Old. I would proclaim my stance and fight with the Heavenly Host on my side. I was filled with insight, filled with faith. I knew the darkness was all that which had ever been contrary to God. And I knew also that in my hand, and in the hands of others like me, was a fragment of His Light: the Second Coming of His Almighty Joy.

Then arrows flaming shot by and stuck in the dirt behind me. I raised the sword in one hand and shielded myself with my left arm. Immediately a shield of brilliant light formed on my arm and the next array of arrows bounced off it or broke as they hit. I stood firm. Courage, like no courage I had ever known, filled my breast and a plate of armor came over me, over my chest and shoulders with a pleat for my loins.

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Our Haven

Some places on earth are serenely kept for the few lucky enough to happen upon.

We walk about our paths hoping for such scenes as this.

Hoping, yes, praying sometimes for the peaceful repose, the place of respite ease.

When we spy its recognition, instant peace courses through our being.

It's our haven, only one letter short of God's.

~Dwayne K. Parsons