Always New

There once was a woman who would go to the art museum every single Saturday. And while the art museum had so many wings each one filled with countless artifacts, statues, paintings, photography, and sculptures, the woman would quietly sit looking at a single painting. She would come in each Saturday walk around for a bit, but then settle into one of the benches placed in front of this certain painting. The employees all knew about the woman, but didn’t ask questions. Then one day a younger employee asked the woman why she came back each day, if all she was going to do was look at a single painting for hours.


The woman quietly responded with a sigh, “sit and look.” After a few moments the employee grew impatient and thought, “I know this painting, it was my favorite, but there is so much more to look at!” His eyes began to wander. She spoke still looking at the painting, “It doesn’t matter how often I look at this painting, I always find something new. A difference in color that I hadn’t noticed before, a new way of understanding the artist’s point, an angle that once looked out of place can suddenly fit right in. Nothing changes from week to week, from month to month. But there is always something new, sometimes you just have to wait in the stillness, and it will then be revealed.”


God is an infinite being. Our creator and the beloved one of our lives. We will never understand him fully. This does not mean we are supposed to give up. Out of love and curiosity we need to constantly be growing deeper and deeper in our faith. Like the woman and the painting, we are supposed to be patient. As we sit in the silence, as we meditate on His love, grace rains down and we are able to see more clearly. We are able to take a step further in our relationship with Him. We begin to know our Lord as a person not a distant being. We begin to grasp the greatness of His love and power, and begin to understand our inability to ever know fully who He is. Those who are humble will be able to receive the grace. Before we can learn anything, we must know that there is something to learn.


We must not be distracted, stolen away by what is easy to understand. We are called to sit and think and grapple with what we cannot explain and do not fully understand. Sit at the painting and when you think you know what it is all about, look again from a different angle and then rediscover what was there, but you could not see it. In prayer, in contemplation, never be tepid in your want or thirst to know God deeper. Love should be what pushes us, what drives us to know him. Never stop growing, God will be there, always new, but never changing.