Thanks

There's nothing quite like reading inspirational words when you're curled up in bed with a runny nose and the distinct feeling that you've been run over by a bus. On one level you feel like you've had an epiphany of the highest kind, and you want to run shouting over the rooftops until you flop, breathless, onto your back to gaze up at the stars in silence. And at the same time you are brought crashing back to reality when you have to reach for a Kleenex to keep snot from dribbling down your face. A distinct paradox, but I've found that life is full of such things. 

And yet, despite the faucet of ooze that has apparently been turned on in my sinuses, the fact remains that I am constantly being reminded that life cannot be spent pining after what might have been. As the amazing Adam Young (of Owl City fame) put it, "I caught myself subconsciously wishing things were the way I wanted them rather than the way they were meant to be." 

This has been driven home over and over again in the past few weeks. Peace only comes when you say, "God whatever you want," not "God, fix the situation." I am finding as I walk unsteadily through this life that the more I say "God whatever you want," the more he makes it what I want, too. 

I am so blessed to have the life I live; I have so many things to be thankful for. I am surrounded by amazing people who are incredibly dear to me. I get to study full-time at a beautiful university. I have a family that is following God. What more do I need? I have no right to demand anything else. I have been truly blessed. 

The Important before the Urgent

It's the little things in life. The way the sun sets over the hills, the smile of a friend, or the crash of the waves. It's the little things that make this entire crazy ride enjoyable. Spontaneity makes me happy. So does a mug of peppermint tea. I think sometimes we need to slow down for a minute and actually take in the miracle that is life, soak it up like a beached sea-sponge, and return to being full and content. I know it's been said, "Stop and smell the roses", but I say, "Smell everything!" We get so busy running around doing what we think we "need" to do, that we forget to leave time for the things that are truly important. We run ourselves ragged, for what? I definitely believe in being responsible and doing your best, but sometimes the Important needs to come before the Urgent. This week I was able to spend some time rejuvenating, having dinner with friends, going antiquing, and mud-caving. It reinvigorated me, allowing me to attack the last month of the semester with renewed gusto and zeal. So here's to the adventure that is life. As the great poets once said, "Carpe Diem!"

The Art of Life

Henry David Thoreau keeps resonating with me in my current place. Life really is a canvas. I just don't know what to do with mine right now. I feel like I had a composition and beginning of a painting that I really liked, and then God said, "Ok, I need you to set that one aside for now. Here's a new canvas." And now that canvas is sitting in front of me, and I don't know what to put on it. Will I ever be able to finish the other painting? Should I just paint the canvas in front of me with my routine life? So I guess for now I keep obeying God in the small things in order to get direction. Or, I suppose, it could be argued that God is really the artist of my life, and I am just the paintbrush. So maybe I don't have to decide what goes on the canvas at all. Maybe I just trust and wait for God's hand to move.

Changes

Things change.

God doesn't.

In the midst of everything, I will cling to Him.

I may not understand the plan, but I will come to accept it.

I will follow Him, no matter what.

God give me peace.

Philippians 4:4-7

A Canvas to Imagination

I never thought I'd make a blog, but here I am. And it took me forever to think of a title. The perfectionist in me wanted it right. If this blog is going to be an honest affair, the title should be honest, too.
In trying to come up with a title, I found a lot of quotations that I LOVED. I may as well share them, since this is my blog, and if you don't want to read it, you can just go away. :D I'll be putting quotes in a lot, I have a feeling. *lurvs them*
Half of them are about art, and half of them are about poetry. Two of my great loves. :3

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.~Gilbert K. Chesterton

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.~Plutarch

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.~Michelangelo

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.~Carl Sandburg

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.~Carl Sandburg 

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.~George Santayana 

Artists don't make objects. Artists make mythologies.~Anish Kapoor

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.~Gilbert K. Chesterton

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.~Henry Ward Beecher 

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.~W. Somerset Maugham

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.~Jonathan Swift

and last, but not least, is the quote that partially (along with my sister's creativity) inspired the title of this blog:

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.~Henry David Thoreau

Imagination defines everything around us. The possibilities are only limited by the scope of options we perceive. (and by the laws of physics :P... otherwise I'd have been flying a LONG time ago). Unfortunately, we do live in the real world. I am a dreamer, but I consent to live in real life. I promise I’m not one of the crazies :P. But in this real life, I’d at least like to make a mark. I want to put myself out there and say “This is who I am. This is who God created me to be,” and marvel in the beauty of that. The expression of my soul’s adventures comes in many forms: art, language, music, prayer. But ultimately this life’s canvas (and what I say here) should point to God, because I have to draw the line somewhere. Without him, I would not exist.


I am not afraid to dream. I am not afraid to pursue things with passion. This is that chronicle.