The vast openness, the misty mountains, and the glimmering ocean were the obvious candidates to revive my weary soul.
But it’s the little things that get you sometimes...
I had seen a fair portion of sizeable majesty on my three-month trip to South Africa. At one point, the glorious view from a dizzying height literally brought me to my knees. Then there were the giraffes I had seen wandering about on broad plains, rope bridges I had walked over dramatic canyons, and coastlines I had journeyed that stretched out so far into the distance that they faded into nothingness.
One day, as I was wandering along a golden beach, my head was weighed down with predictably heavy thoughts. The mountains book-ended me, as they had done for a few days, but their grandeur was lost on me. The roaring waves battered the shore I walked on, as they had done for many weeks, but their voice was no longer reaching me. Spacious, salty air, blew to me from the hazy horizon, but it was no longer refreshing.
It was on this journey that I felt a crunch underfoot.
I looked down. The soft sand I had been walking on was now colourful and rigid.
I squatted down and grabbed a handful of the stuff. I expected stones, but as I looked closer, I realised I was holding crushed shells.
I wonder if anyone on that beach had ever found those shells as beautiful as I found them in that moment.
Weathered by countless years of lapping water.
Crushed by thousands of thundering feet.
Repeatedly scraped and scattered and gathered by the never-ending tide.
The colours and textures of the shells – some shattered, some unbroken, some smoothed – were astounding.
Dark, moody blues faded to bright, breezy blues at the edges, and streaks of silver lined their ridges. Creamy yellows and speckled teals were less noticeable at first but just as appealing when you gave them the time. The full scale of grey – from the deepest blacks to the brightest whites, was also represented – and together, it was a shimmering, shelly work of the highest art.
Wow.
But the greatest realisation was still to come.
A man walked past me, stepping all over the shells with no regard for their beauty. That could have been me on another day; we’ve all got places to be, after all. But these beautiful shells, like works of art, belonged in a display cabinet, not wedged into the grooves of that guy’s rubber soles.
Works of art... cast about on the floor like they are worthless... trodden on day after day... bashed around by the waves... Hang on.
What kind of artist throws his best work across the ground and allows it to be trampled on?
That’s a reckless, abandoned artist right there. If Claude Monet has scattered hundreds of his original paintings across a beach at night, knowing full well that they would be discovered first by the tide, then seagulls and snotty children, we would call him crazy. The least we would say is that he is wealthy beyond imagination and does not guard his art well enough.
What about the one who created every beach, body and bug? Is he wealthy beyond imagination? Well, yes. And does he guard his best works of art well enough? Well, no.
We – his masterpieces – live our days in weak and mortal bodies.
Maybe The Abandoned Artist would be a highly appropriate name for this creator they talk about.
One who empties himself to bless others to bursting.
One who displays beauty as an open invitation to dance with the divine.
One who creates the most excellent art for it to be walked on, breathed in, and lived inside of.
And maybe we should ‘go and do likewise’.