warning: there may be something sharp ahead
art and broken glass
I started to type, “This year has been marked by beauty and heartache.” Then I realized what a redundant sentence that is since everybody’s year since the beginning of humanity has been marked by those two things.
Instead, I’ll say that this year has been marked by unfinished art and broken glass.
I’ve had a huge canvas sitting in my closet for a whole year. Half of it is slathered in yellow oil paint, the kind that hurts your eyes to look at, and the other half is covered in shades of blue. This was the result of having a free Saturday and the urge to reclaim a hobby I haven’t touched in about four years.
These are the reasons I gave up halfway through: I forgot how long it takes to finish a painting, my tiny wooden easel kept falling over at the slightest breeze, and I decided to paint a sun setting over the ocean (do you know how much blending it takes so that it doesn’t look like something your great aunt would hang up in her beach-themed vacation home?). So now all I have is an eyesore in my closet that reminds me of all the other unfinished goals I have in my life due to a lack of patience, persistence, and vision.
But life keeps going and maybe one day I’ll take that canvas out and finish what I started, but it won’t be anytime soon. That’s okay, because for now, all I know is there’s unfinished art waiting in my closet, and there’s a sort of beauty and expectance in what it might someday become.
Our lives are made up of unfinished artwork, most of it might be stored away because it hurts to look at or acknowledge, but some of it is constantly in action.
some unfinished art for your viewing
those who witness
One quote I haven’t been able to stop thinking about is by Hanya Yanagihara, “Why wasn't friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn't it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.”
This is not to say I don’t yearn for romantic love (especially now that the sun seems to set before it even rises), but sometimes we forget to stare in awe at the depth and vibrancy found in friendships. The new friendships I’ve made or deepened this year are constantly overlapping, blending together, creating new shades and meaning.
In a way, these are the people who we allow to be witnesses to our often hidden, messy, unfinished works.
a never-ending search
For many, the eye sore hiding in your closet is an unfinished understanding of what your calling or purpose is.
I bet most of you read that sentence and already want to close that door back up, but I want to encourage you to dust that thing off and take a good look at it. We often make the idea of purpose so lofty and unreachable. We think that maybe if we don’t answer the right phone, calling will pass right by us. But I tend to believe that if we seek that calling on purpose, we’ll end up in the middle of both.
So, stare at that wonky, confusing painting and notice the aspects that light up your nervous system. What colors bring serotonin running through you? What shapes inspire you? What lines sustain you? Which shades fulfill you?
This year I’ve learned to bring that lofty question down to where I can meet it eye-to-eye and carry it around in my pocket. I believe that through every experience, God will add a hue, every time I do something that inspires me a shape will appear, every time I find comfort a line will be drawn, and every time I create something I love a new blank space will be shaded in.
All I’m saying is that maybe, your purpose won’t magically appear fully developed on your doorstep. Maybe God doesn’t want to show you a masterpiece if you’re not ready to understand its depth and meaning. Maybe, your purpose and calling will be found in the cadence of examined authenticity, where each step you take becomes a signpost that will intersect with what the world desperately needs.
watch where you step
I have never broken more glass than I have this year. In fact, there are still shards of glass behind my TV stand from a vase I dropped five months ago (I’m noticing an ongoing persistence problem but that’s a self-improvement goal for another year & another newsletter).
In a lot of ways, broken glass is the perfect opposite of unfinished art. It’s the result of finished art that got destroyed into jagged edges; edges that can break skin if you’re not careful. When glass breaks, the first thing you do is check to see where each shard landed and watch every step on the way to the broom.
Broken glass means knowing that there’s danger ahead and not knowing if you picked up every piece until you step on it five months later.
a midnight call
There's nothing worse than getting a call late at night. That’s the only type of news that can’t wait. Watch your step.
When I answered that midnight call back in August, my mom let me know they had just found colon cancer in my grandma. Broken glass.
Two days later I flew to California when she got admitted to the SICU for Pneumonia. Shards everywhere.
One day later they could take the respirator off, her eyes sparkled, she asked about my dog. Picking up the pieces.
Seven days later I stood by her hospital bed as she took her last breath. The jagged edges break my skin.
There’s no pain like losing someone, especially when it comes out of nowhere. Even as time passes and you think you’ve picked up every single annoying, sharp piece, you unexpectedly find one behind the TV stand and it hits you like a wall again.
Ever since that first phone call, it’s been a process of glass breaking, and then its fragments shattering into smaller pieces throughout time.
But, in her last hours on this Earth, I saw a glimpse of a complete, breathtaking work of art in front of me. Surrounded by generations of life she created, by close friends who witnessed every small moment leading up to this one, by a husband who loved her until her very last breath.
Every person in that room had their head bowed, their hands stretched out to physically feel her. I’ve never heard such a deep silence before, and as I took a step back I saw the human instinct to have reverence toward death. There was so much dignity in her last breaths.
At that moment, for the first time in my life, I saw a finished masterpiece in the midst of broken glass. A mosaic of a life well lived. Of loving others well and being loved back. A new aspect of purpose and calling was revealed to me.
So, as we continue in this life full of unfinished art and broken glass, I pray God gives you the people who will witness it and help you through the mess of it. I pray He gives you the strength to face it, even when it hurts your eyes, and to carry those sharp pieces with you, even when it breaks the skin.
Even more importantly, I pray you get glimpses of beauty in both.