Saturday, October 27, 2012

All the World is a Canvass



The Canvass of the World

The other day, I went to a wedding and it poured rain before the ceremony.  I heard the old phrase, “Oh don’t worry.  It is good luck if it rains on your wedding!”  Then we emerged from the ceremony, there was not just one rainbow—but two complete rainbows, one higher than the other.  “Oh, that means good luck!”  I guess you can read anything you want into the weather.  


It is also called a pathetic fallacy (pitiful falsehood) --the belief that the natural world empathizes and predicts with our lives.  I want to say this with TLC.  I have also gone to funerals when people would say that the natural world is "crying" for the deceased and the loss of life. The natural world I love is no god, some separate power to take a stand in human affairs.  

The recurring motif (abiding theme)  is that we create a canvass of the world.  We paint our emotions and thoughts right into the natural world. We see in the world our heart's brokenness and and joy. At no time do I experience this more than at sunrise.  Everything suddenly bursts with light that is reflected by the natural world. I see in it our essential nature to be the canvass of God, wearing the colors of vibrant life that lives abundantly.  

Those two terms (pathetic fallacy, recurring motif) I learned in sophomore English.  They were not on the SAT.  But we should examine our lives and enhance our artistic nature to look into the world and allow it to draw our creative selves into being. 


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