This afternoon, I had the opportunity to meet up with my old (long lost?) friend Reece at the Modern in Ft. Worth. 
I hadn’t been there since fall of 2005,
so it was really refreshing to visit this little part of my past with
new eyes and appreciation.
Me, Reece & Kalie after our summer at Sky. Don’t worry, he doesn’t look 15 anymore.
It was great to catch up and give him a half-made-up tour that consisted of some 5 year old, rusty info stored in my brain from high school. Just wanted to share a few thoughts from the day:
first, some favorites:
Erik Parker piece. pretty much in love with how clean & bright his pieces are. If you are in the DFW area, you NEED to go see his exhibit. plus he writes funny things on the sides of the canvas. (Reece & I counted the amount of cuss words that appeared….typical artist. haha)
Vernon Fisher’s “Private Africa”. Do you see Victoria Falls in the middle? He uses blackboard and oils in a way to make it look like random chalk drawings. And he always has a little color splash containing some unrelated image. (note the parasailor…). I’m a fan. Plus, I can check out the African geography that I’m about to experience for real 🙂
LOVE LOVE LOVE this piece! It’s called “Conjoined” by Roxy Paine, and looked especially cool against the dead grass and dreary sky today. Really cool to see up close, too.
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you may be thinking “Why are you writing about this…. are just trying to impress me?”
Maybe a little 🙂 but in all seriousness…
My point is, I want to make a commitment to beauty for these 11 months. A commitment not only to appreciate every sight, smell, sound, and taste of this crazy adventure but also to see EVERY SINGLE PERSON as a beautiful part of the Lord’s creation. Beauty from their soul—beauty in the prostitutes, the ladyboys of Thailand, the man in Swaziland dying from AIDS, my teammates (!!), frustrating ministry contacts, airport workers, the gypsies in Romania who may just steal my stuff.
Beautiful.
Each
and
every
ONE.
I pray with all that is in me that there will be no judgment, no racism, sexism, xenophobia, no FEAR coming from my mind.
I’m hope that in meeting all of these people I will have the excitement and intrigue as I did today slowly learning about each piece. I would learn as much as I could, wonder why, how, and still walk away not completely understanding it. I won’t have all the answers, solutions, or fix-it-quick advice for each person as I didn’t for each work of art. And that has to be okay!
This commitment is to be patient, discerning, and open to each person and their beautiful story.
Pray with me that I will have this fervor! Also you can remind me to take as many pictures as humanly possible.
3 days!
