Are you watching carefully...

"I have found that I can tolerate being judged far better than
I can being of no consequence".

Spock (played by Jeffery Quinn) in ST: New Voyages 3.

I have been deeply involved in a local arts festival this past week.
Aside from displaying some of my own work, this entailed assisting another artist to document their work, and providing a record for the event itself of some of the highlights of the opening evening.

It's always interesting working in this realm, because amidst the buzz and the lights, you often glimpse aspects of our search for meaning and moments of valid, sobering observation into the human soul.

One moment will particularly remain with me. I had just finished working for around three and a half hours on a very reflective work entitled 'Define Me', photographing this for another performer. Allowing people to write single words on his naked form, the artist was really asking people to consider 'what am I?' - how do you define a person?
I had just emerged from a dark, silent room used for this into the noise of the theatre box office, when I found myself confronted by a young man who was very keen to tell me who he was ( a performer) and to discover why I hadn't seen his work that afternoon. When I explained that I too was an artist and that I had been working, he was clearly slighted, and quickly rushed off to introduce himself to someone else...

Times like these remind me why the arts are so important. They can provide another avenue in which the mask we usually wear is allowed to slip and the reality of the human condition appears.
Of course, the natural tendency is for people to rush from this quickly, but that is exactly why Christians need to be there - to highlight the deep significance of that reality.

I personally find it hard to touch at length on the darker aspects of truth without becoming overwhelmed by such, but I have discovered that placing people before a display of beauty works just as well in touching the deep chord. Looking upon something that profoundly resonates in the soul will often remind us there are deeper truths we so often ignore, which we so need to embrace.

I'm amazed to have such an opportunity to place such work before others.

The world is always in need of a richer savouring and redeeming light.