The Black Prince of Crecy

During this past summer, my family and I spent a few days in Savannah, Georgia. We love Savannah! With the tall oaks dripping with Spanish moss, square after square of restored mansions and homes, a sense of history and timelessness. While there, one of the many things we did was go to the Telfair Museum of Art. It is a wonderful art museum composed of three diverse sites - the original building, the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, a National Historic Landmark building; the Owens-Thomas House, also a National Historic Landmark; and the Jepson Center for the Arts, a contemporary building which houses 20th- and 21st-century art.

As you know, I am a lover of all things art (with the possible exception of most modern art-yuck) and do my utmost to visit an art museum in whatever city I happen to find myself in, should a window of opportunity open. I feel that I have passed this love onto my girls, who also love art museums, especially Lauren. There is such a wonderful feel to an art museum. It is cool and quiet and gives you lots of time to reflect, ponder and think. It smells of ancient things, of people and times long gone. The feeling of history is palatable. I feel a true sense of peace and well being.

We started in the original building, the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences. It had many older pieces, many of them pertaining to old Savannah and local artists. Marvelous! At the back of museum, there is a very large room, both in depth, height and breadth. There is a huge dome sitting atop the room. There is such a sense of space in this room. It's walls are filled with very large canvases from various artists and time periods. It was truly breathtaking in scope. But on one wall, hanging between heaven and earth, was a piece that made me stop in my tracks.

The Black Prince of Crecy.

I was absolutely captivated by it! It was huge- 11 feet high by 17 feet long! I was completely drawn into it. You can see for yourself the little picture at the top of the blog post but it in no way does it the justice it deserves. It was a visceral experience for me. I could feel the wind blowing the withers of the horse, the grass on the ground, the clouds in the air, the standard whipping. The blood seeping into the ground, the arrival of the carrion crows and vacant sheen of the horse's eye. It was as though I had just come upon this scene and stood there dumbstruck, unsure what to make of it.

In the middle stood the Black Price of Crecy. What was he thinking? Was he gloating over his vanquished foe, speaking words of victory and cursing the dead. Or was he silent on the field of victory, paying homage to a worthy king, a valiant foe in defeat. Maybe he, as the Black Prince, was just now feeling the weight of kingship slip onto his shoulders as he gazed down at his father, the White King. Feelings of loss, remorse for things unsaid, new-found authority pressing heavy on his breast. Oh, to be there and ask, "What are you thinking, my Liege?" I must have stood there for 20 minutes and gazed and thought and mused.

Sometimes I wish that I had been born in a different era, a time long past where there was a clearer demarcation between right and wrong, a greater sense of nobility and virtue, the greater cause to which we saddle up and march forth to battle. My lovely Lauren, sensing how much I enjoyed this piece and wanting to preserve the moment for posterity's sake, purchased a mouse pad and 2 foot by 3 foot print as a Fathers Day gift for me. I was very surprised and grateful. Deep love expressed in tangible ways. It hangs on the wall in my office. I see it almost every day. Not only does it remind me of that special day last summer but speaks to me of virtue, responsibility and cause. I carry it's spirit with me, one of victory and hope, at great cost.

It reminds me of other battles I fight, in other, higher realms. Spiritual and unseen, it is more real that real life.

A Black Prince in the army of the King of Kings.
Traveler

Walking in Circles

I had just started my daily devotional. I follow the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer and utilize the following website:
http://www.missionstclare.com/english/index.html.

The Opening Sentence was the following:
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

I did not even get started before I was stopped in my tracks. Sometimes a phrase or bit of Scripture has that unique ability to say volumes in just a few words. I read and re-read this sentence numerous times, chewing on it like a cow. This is the rabbit trail my thoughts took.

So many times in my life, I have found myself in the back side of the desert, sometimes because of self-exile and sometimes because I was led there. It seem that I have spent much time wandering in the wilderness, just like the people of Israel, wandering with no clear or discernible course. The above Scripture exhorts me to "prepare the way of the Lord."

Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness? What do you mean? I can't even seem to find my own way, let alone the "way of the Lord." Yet that is what I am told to do.

It goes on to say, "Make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
Straight! How can I make anything straight when all I seem to be doing is walking (and sometimes running) in circles? Lapping the mountain yet again! The straightest line between two points for me seems to include a few 90 and 180 degree angles and lots of back-tracking to see if I can find the point where I last lost the trail.

Yet scripture clearly gives me a path, so to speak, out of the desert. It happens when I prepare the way for the Lord by making a straight highway for God to get straight to me. I mean, isn't there a reason that I'm in the desert? Could it be that God has led me there to straighten out things in my life, things that make me crooked and bent? My cry is that I become more like Him. But when He takes me on a tour of the backside of the desert, I want off of the tour bus.
It is my job to prepare to meet my maker in the here and now.

Preparation takes lots of hard work.

Have you ever been to the desert? I have. Its hot as you know where, dry with not a drop of water and goes on for what seems like eternity. And most roads seem to go, well, you guessed it, straight. Why? To get across it as fast as you can! Virtually no one I know wants to spend any more time than necessary there. Yet I seem almost always take the longest route possible. Creating a road in the desert is dusty, hard, back-breaking work. Digging in unforgiving rock, the pick ax, heavy in my hand, causing blisters and gives me splinters.

But my heart is hard and it takes a long time to soften it up for use.

Since I have lots of time invested in the desert, I can speak as an experienced guide. I have learned that my time in the desert is not necessarily wasted. I have learned what plants I can get nourishment from, the location of the secret watering holes, greatly appreciating the occasional rain storm which bring refreshing and life-giving moisture. This moisture in turn causes the desert to bloom into valleys of gorgeous color and fragrance. I have become more attuned to the rhythm of the seasons, which have brought a restfulness and patience to my hurried and busy life, my bruised and battered soul. By slowing down, I can hear God more clearly.

Don't be too eager to find the escape route from your place in the desert. In your haste to leave, you may miss the best parts!

Glad I got past that Opening Sentence!
Traveler

Blogging: Thoughts on

Once again, I have found that out how hard being a faithful blogger is. A myriad of topics to choose from, a plethora of starts and stops and finally.....

Aw, maybe tomorrow.

Sometimes I feel that I have so many vital and noteworthy comments and witty observations. These usually hit me as I am driving in my car or just minutes from falling asleep, neither situation lending itself to pounding on my keyboard. And when inspiration and time coalesce to create a riff in the time-space continuum, I just sit and stare at the screen, willing myself to put the first keystroke on a masterpiece of creativity and expenditure of gray matter.

This is what Van Gogh or Renoir or Toulouse-Latrec must have felt like as they stared at blank canvas and tried to decide on which type of brush, what kind of paint, what medium to create in, what object to immortalize on the texture of canvas. I'm sure that what they envisioned did not always materialize when they put the brush down.

That is how I feel sometimes.......lost in the translation from my brain to the blog.

Once in a while, lighting strikes! And in moments, a lucid, coherent stream of intelligent, meaningful, articulated thought becomes immortalized on my blog site, to be read and re-read and forwarded onto others who we think will both enjoy and gain benefit from it.

Oh, why can't I be diligent and faithful to myself and you and post on a regular basis!

The encroachment of time, sickness, tiredness, laziness, children, work, my wife, hunger and football. All conspires against me, preventing me from bursts of productiveness. I allow myself to be swept up in the "Now"ness of the moment. The "Tyranny of the Urgent" saps the energy from the stream of thoughts out of my head on its way to my keyboard.

Are we talking about my blog or my life?

Sometimes, I'm not sure I can tell the difference.

The way I see myself is not always what others see. Sometimes they see the best in me, but many times, the ugly is more prevalent. The image I think I am projecting is many times lost and distorted by my words and actions. What I am trying to say on the canvas of my life is not always what others perceive.

I feel like a canvas, on display for all to see, unable to shape the ideas others have about me. Some of those ideas please me, some make me want to be taken off the display wall and hidden in the basement vault.

Or maybe a better analogy is me as a 1080 dpi Sony Flat Screen TV. I project whatever I want to others so that they will like me, think well of me and want to befriend me. I wish I could control what others see but I have surrendered the remote control. So my channel can't be changed, no matter how hard I try.

I am seen for who I am.

Sometimes a hero, saint and friend, sometimes a villain, sinner and a traitor.

Thank be to God that I have hope! While I will never be all that I want to be, in Christ I will never be less than a son of the Most High, forgiven and ever in a process of change. I do not hold the brushes which paint on the canvas of my life and I know who holds the remote control.

Thank God it's not me!

A Work in Progress!
Traveler