what are you looking at?
"To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.”
Henri Matisse
At first glance this quote really grabs my attention, but the more I think about it the more captured I am by its simplistic yet profound meaning. Here are some questions that I have wanted to ask:
What does it mean to be a family?
Why do we work?
Why do we laugh when it hurts?
Can I really let go of the fear of pain?
Are my children going to have to suffer through life?
Why can’t I find the movement of Jesus?
What are my children learning in school?
Why do some people hide from their shame?
Can AIDS be cured? What is church?
Why does violence run so rampant in some areas and not in others?
Why don’t people say what they mean?
What if the rules are broken? Who made the rules?
Why do children from age 5-8 ask so many questions?
What would it take to look at things as though I have never seen them before?
It is good to have space that one can explore the questions that haunt the soul. May those who read these words find a still place to humble themselves before the One who created all things in Heaven and on Earth and bring to the light that which has been in darkness.
5 comments:
It takes courage to have "your vision." It takes courage to say "you know what... I think different in so and so subject."
I think Matisse admired Cezanne, who before him had said:
"One must make a vision for oneself. One must see things like no one else has seen them."
It's powerful, but more than that, I think it's essential to feeling fullness and fullfilment.
hey Gaston, man you are right there with where I am. I love that quote from Cezanne. artist who are not afraid to truly express themselves, capture Ultimate Reality… a reality who surrounds, penetrates, and sustains us. it is dreamers like that who inspire me to let go of the need to conform and set sail on the seas of freedom.
Great list of questions--looks a lot like mine.
I'm really just tired of pretending I have all these answers. Seriously. That may be the single most frustrating thing about my experience with churches thus far--feeling pressured to know the correct answers.
In the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?!" they talk about how the Native Americans couldn't see the European ships sailing towards them because they had never seen anything like it before and their brain simply wouldn't process it.
I wonder if God is shedding light on so many things, yet our "eyes" just can't quite see His answers; we haven't adjusted to His reality which is so foreign to us.
Is it God that directly gives us the ability to do this?: "One must make a vision for oneself. One must see things like no one else has seen them." Maybe making a vision for oneself is a result of seeking God's reality?
David, listening to two of the greatest Mystical Rabbis alive speak about their method of reading the Torah, they say this:
"First you have to accept total submission to the letter. Surrender to it. This is the first step. Read it in total surrender and accepting it as absolute authority.
Second, you have to organize it mentaly. Make rational comparisons, organize blocks of text with other blocks of text. Create relationship between ideas. Create a map."
Third, take your living Torah (that is, your life), and join them... merge them... merge your life with the letter... what comes out is a NEW Torah itself."
So not having the answers is step one. ; ) It's in a sense like one big holy, mystical journey.
And I would dare to say that we have to in a sense "make our own Torah," our own religion, so to speak. Not in a "on my own terms" way, but rather based on the result of the mergin of the Sacred Text and your Sacred Life.
So go ahead and "make a vision for yourself... and see things like no one else has seen it."
what kingsjoy posted reminded me that i need to go rent that movie...my hair stylist, katie, recommended it months ago and i keep forgetting to rent it so i can discuss it with her during my next appt...it really stimulated her brain and we've had some great convo's since
Post a Comment