April's Open Window

This painting (of another open window), is by the contemporary Russian artist, Sergey Ivanovich Smirnov (+2006) titled Warm April. Smirnov painted this window many times: different season, different time of day, slightly different angle, with a bowl or table or plant nearby, window open, window closed. But here, he has even told us it is a lovely day in April. The tree has yet to leaf-out. The last bit of snow on the church roof is receding.

An artist is an explorer. Am I? This may mean, "I am so looking forward to this summer's first-time trip to Italy." Or it may mean, I am not afraid of the struggle that comes with self-knowledge. Or it may mean, I read outside my comfort zone. Or it it may mean, I listen well in conversation - my interaction is not a collection of knee-jerked, partisan answers. 

Remember the 1969 Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel hit song, The Boxer: "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."  Think American politics these days!

Smirnov isn't bored with or afraid of the different angle. Indeed, he seems eager to look at something from this way, then that. The opened window lets in something new. Jesus was a master in this regard: Taking something ordinary and everyday he'd say, "The Kingdom of God is like..." then offer a new insight into God's rule, God's presence. Always with a twist and even some humor.

• I mean really: the gospel guy who works an hour gets the same pay as the  guy who worked in the sun for the entire day!?  
• I mean really: a well-off shepherd with one hundred sheep abandons the ninety nine and goes off recklessly searching for the foolish one that wandered off!?
• I mean really: a woman turns the house upside down and inside out looking for a penny!?

Jesus is an artist-explorer. I may sit by Smirnov's open window and ask, Am I? Or do I only hear what I want to hear and disregard the rest?

In the Lententime ~ Spring Is New Air

This painting is Edward Gordon's "Wind from the Sea." He is a master of light, isn't he? Notice the light and shadow in every curtain fold, the alternating light on the wood floor and rug, the light and shadow through the legs of the chair. 

But there is a second window, the window which appears in the framed picture on the wall, and that secondary room has its own light/shadow play going on. Light falls on the text in front of the person at the desk and on the globe.

But while we might pay attention to the light, there is the invisible aspect of the air. It is a particularly breezy day - there are whitecaps on the sea. And while there is light coming from a side window, is that a storm brewing out the front window looking towards the water and the horizon? For all its apparent simplicity, there's a lot going on in this picture.

The Lenten spring brings increased light, but also fresh air - air that's strong enough to lift curtains. People say, "I can't wait for a mild day so I can open the windows and get some fresh air into this house." Indeed, but there's also a  kind of  fresh air for our minds.

At an AA meeting someone might use the term, "Stinking Thinking". Nasty thinking. Negative, ungrateful thinking. Resentful thinking. Brooding, poor-me thinking.  Hateful thinking. Self-righteous thinking. Know-it-all thinking. Those inner rooms need a blast of fresh air. Look again at the sea beyond the window. Does the painting suggest that by allowing in fresh thinking, we might be giving entre to a storm? The inner chaos that can occur when what's old, stale and toxic gets blown away. Some people will run to shut and lock that window.

Thomas Merton writes in the introduction to one of his journals that after the Second World War the monasteries of this country were bursting at the seams as men returned from the Europe of flame, explosion, destruction and death; the Europe of refugees, the orphaned, the homeless, the starving; the Europe of camps and exterminations, rape and plunder. Some men "stuffed it all" and never spoke a word about it. Maybe these were men who hit their wives and children, who became alcoholics and haters of those who were "different". Some (Merton says many) went to monasteries to consider it all - to repent not only for themselves but for humankind - to examine what it means to be a human person as we stand before God.

There's hardly a television commercial I see that I don't think, "O God, we really don't get it." And our political scene....!?  Talk about needing fresh air.

The picture within a picture may be extending an invitation to go to a very deep inner place - a second inner room. A global inner room! The little figure in that second picture (book on desk and hand on globe) might be an explorer. Get it? We might land people on Mars and still never be real explorers. The real exploration is of soul and mind.

Edward Gordon has painted a room of air and light for us, and even kindly provided a chair where we might sit awhile.