Sleeping Artist Awakening

I

t takes only a subtle glimpse into the magic of life to take an artist from the utter grayness of the mundane, to the colorful world of sensation and spark. That glimpse is when I felt the infectious fire of the sleeping artist awakening within me. Suddenly I was alerted to everything. A myriad of stimuli came flooding my senses. Each new notice fed my fire; and all it took was noticing. It was more intoxicating than any substance. For in my right consciousness, I was totally aware. Oh, the ways in which I could appreciate everything afresh. I awoke from my slumber starving, and having tasted a bite of this delicious world of color, I quickly sought to gobble it all up. My senses feasted on the simple delicacies life had to offer:

The water and sky meeting in a dewy blue horizon.

The golden flare of the vanishing sun.

The quickly cooling air in the last few minutes of purple light.

The stillness on that quiet lonely hill.

The honey-drenched glow of a hundred garden lights.

The trees that looked so vivid in the darkness that any one of them could have been a picture featured in a gallery.

The sweet nuttiness harvested in a glorious bread recipe.

The dark, rich taste of a beer so smokey it was hardly still liquid.

And the caramel aftermath of it when I blew my nose much, much later!

The star speckled drive.

Sky as black as the beer in my glass, that was as woody as the trees I passed.

The heat at my feet and cold air on my hair.

The sighing coffee shop voices that sang my way home.

The warmth of sitting on my couch in the lowlight.

The feel of my cat’s small neck, as I stroked her gently and felt her purr.

My largest white t-shirt clinging coolly to my skin.

And the click-clack haptics of my keyboard as I wrote all this down.

I think God was speaking my love language. In the fervent momentum of changing seasons and new beginnings, His divine romance awakened the sleeping artist within me. His thoughtful gifts of taste, touch, sight, hearing, and smell delighted my soul. And it all has me thinking, the earth’s modesty is unwarranted, yet complimentary to its loveliness. And that life isn’t always gray. Maybe I’m just wearing the wrong pair of glasses. It also has me thinking, God didn’t have to give us senses at all. Just like our parents didn’t have to let us take bubble baths, or have cake at birthday parties, or pack our favorite lunch. But love flourishes, colorizes, and makes the mundane beautiful.