A Life Lesson from Monet

Tony and I went to Atlanta this past weekend to see several Braves games. We had Saturday free and found that from our downtown hotel we were within walking distance to the High Museum of Art. We decided to take the walk and visit the museum.

We were pleasantly surprised when the museum was in its last weekend of the travelling “Monet: Water Lillies” exhibit. Monet is my all time favorite artist. Tony would have been happier if it were next month when a Leonardo DaVinci exhibit will be showing. Anyway, we were both thrilled to see some of the magnificent works of Monet on display. Claude Monet is known as the father of Impressionism and a master at using quick brushstrokes to record light and color. In some paintings he used 15 layers of paint to create textures that look like a load of goop when viewed up close. But as you take step by step back you see that the various loads of goop transform into magnificent paintings whose details are both obvious and beautifully displayed.

I think we are all made up of different loads of goop. Our loads of goop come from our different life experiences. We have loads of hurts, loads of joys, loads of endings and loads of beginnings. We have loads of responsibilities, achievements and the list goes on and on. It’s exhausting to think about all my loads of goop.

But, in contrast to a Monet painting where you need to step back, we must move step by step closer to one another to understand the loads of goop we each carry. We must uncover the layers of goop of those we encounter throughout our life to see that we are all the same, no one of us better than another. We are all created by the same maker with the same ingredients, the only difference being that our ingredients have been stirred at varying speeds. Shrek knew this when he explained that ogres were like onions, with many layers. We are all like onions (only the sweet Vidalia kind) and need to allow others to peel back our layers to find that we are the same regardless of the packaging. The only differences stem from our individual experiences and opportunities.

Step back to see the wonderful works of Monet, but step forward to see the wonderful works God has created in each of us. It’s worth both the time and effort, and in the end we experience masterpieces we may not have seen otherwise.