The Artist

061409

There's a spray artist on the streets of Waikiki. He's a big, built, white guy, who wears a gas mask, probably attempting to protect his body from the toxic sprays he could potentially breathe in for the hours he is sharing his talent.

After the B-Boys, the hilarious Popolo comedic/basketball act, Tabol, Lynn and I just happened to catch the artist spraying his last painting of the night. We watched with our mouths open as he sprayed, newspapered, sprayed, stenciled, sprayed, exacto-knifed, sprayed...

and I was lost. I never knew what exactly he was doing with one shape or shade of paint until maybe two or three more things were added to it. As things he kept spraying in more things, the picture became more and more alive: the circle he rubbed with newspaper was now a moon with defined craters and shadows; the white things he spread with his knife were now little mountains harboring the huge window into his black and white galaxy, accented with a rainbow. It was mesmerizing.

I started drawing the obvious analogy that "God is the Ultimate Artist". I wanted to be beautifully crafted like this man's artwork. I wanted someone to look at me, at the end of His work and have the same look on their faces, gaping in awe of what beauty His creation holds.

Why couldn't I? Why couldn't I be this beautiful? Why couldn't I look like these paintings?

And then I got it: the painting never fights back.

This artist lays his paper down and starts his work. The paper doesn't fight back. The paper doesn't protest being his canvas, and this is why the painting comes out the way it does.

But I, I fight back. I lift my corners from the edges of the piece of wood I'm laid on. I attempt to flip myself off of the work area, because I don't like being worked on. I have the greatest Worker of Masterpieces ready and willing and WANTING to create more beauty in me, but I move. I protest. I don't stay still long enough for Him to finish what He started.

All in all, most of the time, I don't trust my Creator.

But I still wanna be that beautiful. So I'm gonna try my hardest to not try my hardest anymore. To lay on my Creator's canvas in total, utter submission, and let Him make me beautiful. Let Him mold, and make me beautiful. Let Him press and knead, and make me beautiful. Let Him refine, heal, love, carve, crucify, ressurect

and make

me

beautiful.