Gray Areas

A dear friend of the family has graciously been trying to teach me how to paint and from day one she has been trying to get me to detach myself from an expected outcome, to stop forcing the process and to let it flow. Easier said than done. I'm just now learning and beginning to scratch the surface of letting go and trusting God to direct my hands and allowing Him the liberty of speaking to me through art without any pretense of subject and without an agenda.

What you see is what came out of one of these painting sessions. And totally unbeknownced to me as to why, I was completely and utterly drawn to it. It resonated with me on such a deep level and I had no idea what the hell it was about or what it could possibly mean. So I just listened.

I had started painting a picture of my Wonderland with pinks tones and trees and an ocean far off and myself in a spirit of freedom. Then I had this dark gray-navy color in my mind so I went over everything I had painting with it, still letting some pink show through. I put on the Narnia soundtrack (because it's deliciously mystical and haunting and I love it) and I painted. On my pallet was an array of colors, but it's amazing how all the colors I used made a gray when fully blended together. And as I reflected I began to see what it was all about.

Our gray areas are not void of color, they are simply beyond present distinction. There are hundreds of colors within the gray.

An excerpt from my journal: Perhaps this is a truer picture of Wonderland. Sometimes the colors are obvious and sometimes it's too hard to tell what it is, only the assurance that it is something and perhaps several somethings- that in the microscopic details of the gray there is color and life and communion of the two, too intimate perhaps to separate...the first attempt is what I can see. The second is what I feel. What I can see is limited, but what I feel in connection to Wonder is infinite...limitless.

Gray areas have such a negative connotation but it is a truer picture of where real life actually happens. And how beautiful to know that those areas are not denied color but that those areas are made up of color meant to be experienced and known beyond the surface.

Take heart. You're not lost.