Slinging Finger Paint
I can sit and stare out a window for hours on end. Windows to gaze out of, paned sheets of glass to contemplate through, to survey the rest of the world moving to and fro, mere phantoms heaping up wealth, attempting happiness, usually falling short, clamoring for something more. I find it hard to hide behind a window. Its transparency makes it a difficult medium to hide my shortcomings and procrastinating mind behind. I suggest a computer screen, thick book or closed door, instead.
The world is, or may very well be, much more transparent than I would have imagined. Someone’s always watching. My Sunday school teachers used to tell me, “Someone is always watching.” They’d give me the you-know-what-I’m-talking-about look and a quick nod of the head and eyebrow lift upward as if to remind me that that someone was God, and I should do my best to keep in line with where his gaze was apparently guiding. I’ll never forget their God-gaze-reminders. I wondered how God could possibly keep watch over all of us at the same time. There must have been at least 30 other kids in my class every Sunday morning. All the guys were clad in tan Dockers and white, collared dress shirts while the girls wore flowery dresses, the hem of them bordered with fluffy, embroidered lace. Some of us were lucky enough to sport the occasional bow tie or blue sport jacket. The girls wore white socks under their shiny white shoes that strapped over the top of their feet and clapped like tap-dancing shoes even as they ran across the carpet. I was glad to have been born a boy. Even at that age the frilly dresses and curly, hair spray infatuated hairdos were too much for me.
Sunday school was how I image college Greek life must be; each kid dressed in their finest suits and dresses, gathering once a week to collaborate and have fun with all the other good looking kids from around town. We didn’t have to pay to hang out with each other, but then again I had seen the offering plate, and I knew everyone was paying for something. A few years later I realized the money was for a bigger, cleaner building and repaved parking lot. God surely didn’t have time to watch over all of us. Compared to little Mikey painting his self-portrait on one of the white walls of our classroom, I was the least of God’s concerns. God paid attention to the trouble makers just like my Sunday school teachers did. It wasn’t the little girl sitting by herself, behaving and enjoying her “in-between-the-lines” coloring that received the most attention. It was the kid who threw his 95%-high-fructose-corn-syrup-orangeade at one of the white dresses, coating her with a chemical smear even BP would be ashamed of that did. The kid proceeded to kick the orange and infuriated white dress in the gut, take his shirt off and run around the room like a mad man, turning over tables and knocking over the future-engineers-of-America’s cardboard blocks. The good kids never got the attention. The criers and instigators did. As I watched the wild boy—shirtless and smeared in crayon war paint—run around the room, evading his authorities, I convinced myself that God only had time for the troublemakers.
Gazing out windows, as transparent as it may be, never really beckons much of a response. People on the outside expect you to watch, but even if you don’t they really couldn’t care less. They’ve been where you are. They’ve been the gawker. They’ve been the one behind the glass gazing outward. They understand you’re just mesmerized by the outside.
I easily lose track of the beauty of life. I think there’s a reason why King David wanted God to show him his “life’s end and the number of his days.” I think he wanted to know how fleeting his life was for many of the same reasons I want to. When you think you’ll live forever, you lose sight of just how beautiful today is. Displace the number of your days, and you forget to count them. Instead, you rely on the assuredness of another one happening tomorrow just as it did today. If my days are not numbered, it’s easy to think of each one as the same, as valuable but nothing to treasure too highly for fear that tomorrow won’t hold as much. But the truth is that we can’t actually value our days without putting a limit on them. It’s supply and demand, of course. If we have an unlimited amount of days to live, then each individual day is nothing special. The higher the supply, the lower the demand; the lower each day’s intrinsic value becomes. David longed to see his life as but a breathe. He wanted to experience that “phantom of a life” so he wouldn’t lose sight of just how precious each moment is; so he wouldn’t base the value of his life on mere things, wealth heaped up in vain, or bustling about for nothing.
What if someone were to stare back through the window you’re currently looking through? What if there was someone on the other side that was fully aware of your gaze, who longed to catch your attention for longer than a moment? In reality, maybe we’re all the kids standing in front of a white wall, painting our self-portraits on canvases never meant to contain them. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s okay if we sling a little orangeade. Maybe someone is on their way to pay us some attention; standing behind us as we smear finger paint, crayons, sweat, blood, and tears onto the walls of life, waiting for us to turn around and embrace the love of a Teacher who only wants us to stop trying to paint our own stories all by ourselves.
{Thoughts on David based on Psalm 39:4-7}
