The Secret Of Joy

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

My first thought when I read the above quote was "well, that's easy for him to say, he was Vincent Van Gogh! Seriously isn't that somewhat like a bird saying if you hear a voice saying you can't fly, fly and that voice will be silenced?" But then I realized something. Unless a bird has been wounded or is sick, it never occurs to him that he can not fly once he has flown. Van Gogh on the other hand was not a bird. He was a man, just like me. Not every painting he did was a masterpiece. We have no way to know how many pieces he threw away or burned in disgust that he could not produce what he saw within his mind. How many times did he stare at a blank canvas and have nothing come to mind to paint and wonder if his gift had fled him? How many times did he compare his work to the great masters of the past and feel he did not measure up and that he was a fraud because he could not or did not do what they had done in the way that they did it? I do not doubt that Vincent Van Gogh had his moments of doubt, moments where he heard the voice say you can not paint.

I have gifts and talents of my own. I have dreams. I have things that I would like to be able to do. And all too often I have that same voice that says I can't. Or even worse, the voice says go ahead and do it, but it won't be long before the whole world sees that you can't do it well. I believe those voices are part of the human makeup. We all have them. The thing that makes a difference between one person and the next, between success in my life and failure, between contentment and fear, is how these voices are responded to. I can paint and silence the voice, not caring if I am ever a master painter or if anyone besides myself enjoys my painting but finding contentment in doing something I love and want to do, or I can heed the warnings of the voices and not try. I can give up on my dreams, I can slip into relationships and careers and activities that are unfulfilling, meaningless and empty. I can be miserable.

There was a time when the latter of those options is exactly what I would have and did choose more often than not. Then when the pain and emptiness overwhelmed me I did anything and everything I could to kill it and change the way I felt, except simply paint. I drank. I drugged. I searched for the instant miracle. But I did not try. Today, I find that my life is better when I paint, even if only to enjoy painting. It doesn't matter if the result is nothing praiseworthy. I can throw the canvas away when I am done and start again. If I do this over and over, I may get better and start producing art worth looking at. Or I may not. The point is not I can someday learn to be a master painter. The point is rather that I learn to enjoy the moment. I spend time doing something that I love and enjoy.

It has been said that it is the journey and not the destination that matters. Of course the destination matters, but the point is well made. I am who God created me to be, and the gifts and callings on my life were placed there by Him. I can never be happy, joyous and free, I will never be content, until I surrender and accept myself as He made me. If I am filled with a drive to paint, then I am painter and will not be content without that in my life. I don't have to be Van Gogh. I don't have to be world renown. I simply have to paint and the voice will be silenced. Today I realize that life would be more fulfilling and satisfying to be a painter who loves to paint and enjoys the act while producing nothing of worldly value than to be a musician who paints the best and most sought after pieces in the world. But don't take my word for it. Ask a child who grabs a crayon and scribbles across the pages of a coloring book in all the wrong places and with all the wrong colors. They have lived during that moment of coloring. They know joy and peace with themselves and what they are doing. It is not until years later, after the the damage of living in this world and surrendering to the values and opinions of others that they lose the pleasure in that and decide if they can not do better they won't color at all. Is it growing up, or is it losing the secret of joy?