Cornfield – Renoir
One of the most memorable lines from my trip to Madrid last weekend came from Miss Flannery Kearney, who at one point was one of my greatest acquaintances/friend-crushes [friend-crush: noun – someone you know at least by recognition, often by name, with whom you have you yet to establish a friendship; not to be confused with Kindergarten or High-school crushes, both of which carry romantic implications] at Notre Dame, and now I am pleased to say, a friend! A group of us were visiting some of Madrid’s fantastic art museums, everyone perusing at their own pace yet somehow all meeting up at the end…crazy how Providence works. Anyway, the story begins in one of the Impressionist rooms at the Museo de Arte Thyssen-Bornemisza, which is actually the holdings (Medieval to Modern!) of one woman, the Baroness Francesca Thyssen Bornemisza. I crossed paths with Miss Kearney and began to chat about this and that. In the midst of our small talk she decided impart her wisdom, “I just love how Impressionist painters stop time and soften it.”
Don’t you love it when people articulate your thoughts for you, and with such greater depth and simplicity than you thought possible? I do. Stop time and soften it…Not only is it a telling description of a particular school of painting; but moreover, it seems to be the very message of each work. A lot of times, not only in art, but in all facets of life, we attempt to understand experience with a clarity that is wholly impossible. “A single second of lived time contains more than can be recorded,” says Mr. Lewis in one of the Weight of Glory essays (I think…read them either way. If you live in the 203, there’s an idle copy in my collection of books. You can borrow as long as I get it back). As you are staring at your computer screen, there is but a fraction of your plane of vision that’s actually in focus. Looking at the word focus I can barely make out its neighbors without cheating. This is the fallacy of digital cameras and realistic painting; it is the virtue of Impressionism.
Most of life is blurred (I’ve already been here 2.5 weeks!), to recount any experience justly requires us to relive it, which if I’m not mistaken is forbidden by that strict moralist we call Time. However, that we long to relive, recount, or at least understand our own lives suggests their possibility. It is clear that we can do this of no power our own, for who can double the span of their life in order to relive every experience? Can we hit a certain point and then pull a Benjamin Button? Sadly no. There is hope though. God “knows the secrets of the heart,” our hearts, every experience we withhold from ourselves and thus from others, every subconscious longing we cannot explain or predict. Outside of time He sees and understands everything.
Not only does God understand, but He also longs to share His vision. Much as Flannery funneled my thoughts into one simple, telling sentence, so too does God employ brevity. John records in his Revelation, “I shall also give a white amulet upon which is inscribed a new name, which no one knows except the one who receives it,” (2:17). All we need to understand our lives is but a simple word. Just as the one word friend-crush signifies the type of person we know by sight, and often by name, but have yet to establish a (Platonic) friendship with, so too does our true name sum up our life in but a single word. It will be the ultimate “Ah-ha!” moment. Everything summed in one word. I imagine these moments are a great source of Heavenly laughter…everything embarrassing I’ve done subsumed in one word. It might actually be a funnier word than elbow or pudding (If you don’t get this just move on and forget).
But what an amazing experience it will be. We will no longer be identified by things we do, but rather as who we truly are. I know, especially when recently introduced to someone, it is impossible for me to detach a person from the context in which I met them, or facts about their life. “Oh, Beatrice, she’s the model who gave me her number at the party the other night.” I cannot say, “She is Beatrice,” which ideally ought to be enough. Rather, I limit her existence to what I know, because it is all I’m capable of. That’s why God is so awesome! He knows us as we truly are. Jesus, “calls his own sheep by name…and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice” (John 10: 3, 4).
So meditate on your identity today, on being a person created in God’s image and likeness, a child of God—not a doer of things. Remember the limitations that Time constrains us with, but do not fret about them. A life of perfect clarity is out of reach, and what remains, though a bit of a blur, is to follow the Shepherd’s gentle pace through life’s cornfields.
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