Praying with a Painting: Capturing the real

I love this painting of my dad’s – it’s one where he paints on the back side of glass, so he has to create everything in reverse. I didn’t get a great photo of it, as you can see the reflection above the two women, but the photo gives you an idea of the picture.

What I especially love about this painting is how my dad captured the three sitting at the table on the left. I recognize them as my mom and Jan and Tom, who are a very close couple to my parents’ (they were part of our great neighborhood group when I was growing up). My dad really captured the pose of my mom in particular – that’s so her! She’s at rest but also probably pondering something. I’d love to know what she was thinking at that moment.

What strikes me in this painting is how artists can capture a slice of the ‘real’ in their art, even as writers labor to convey a thought or feeling in their words and sculptors similarly through the medium of clay (and video producers and graphic designers and so on).

What’s the ‘real’ in you that maybe only God sees? Or that you reveal to a select few? What might an artist capture in your pose today?

I invite you to spend some moments pondering and praying. You could ask God to show you how he would paint you or make a sculpture of you or a movie of you.