PARADOX
Art galleries are full of interesting ideas, but how many ideas can a person handle in an hour or two? Art galleries are not places to breeze through, being sure to see everything on display and get your money’s worth. Art galleries are for stopping, sitting, standing at different angles and absorbing the content of a piece. Art is designed to impact the mind.
I am not very good at appreciating art in galleries. I find it difficult to concentrate on a piece of art with so many people around; people who themselves are pieces of art. Each of us is a piece of art created by God. I am distracted from the inanimate pieces by all the animated pieces around me. Also, I find many pieces of art in one location overwhelming and each piece becomes a blur.
Several years ago, I went to the Tate Modern Art Gallery beside the River Thames in London, England. One piece wormed its way into my memory. It was not a painting. I suppose it would be called a sculpture, but it was not made out of stone; it was soft. From the other side of the large room it grabbed my attention and I was drawn to go and take a closer look. A beautiful, heart-shaped pillow in deep crimson lay on a pedestal. It invited me to glory in its soft, plush fabric. Of course, I could not lay my head on it, but oh! I wanted to! Delighted to find a piece of art I could relate to and enjoy, I went right up to it and then recoiled in horror! I gasped at the glass shards, sprinkled over the surface and twinkling in the spotlight. I experienced pure joy, then shock and horror all in one second.
I did not understand this art at all. Two totally opposite thoughts cannot be contained in one brain at the same time. The juxtaposition of love and cruelty was wrong, untenable. I walked away disgusted and conflicted.
I remember experiencing similar conflicts as a young child. When I was five years old I helped bake a cake and I was instructed to sieve the flour to get the lumps out. I sifted the flour but some lumps remained in the bottom of the sieve. What should I do? My young brain found this an insoluble dilemma! It was wrong to waste any flour and it was wrong to have any unsifted flour. Now I know what to do: just squish the lumps through the wire mesh.
That same year, I was a Christmas elf in the school play. The boys were instructed to bow and the girls were instructed to curtsey when applause came at the end of the production. I was a girl, dressed in a boy’s costume. Another insoluble dilemma, but now I know what to do: just bow like a boy.
Some incongruities resolve themselves over time. Sometimes, and in some situations, I am just beginning to understand, it is necessary to hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts together in my mind.
We love and love deeply; our emotions are stirred; we give all of ourselves; we love unconditionally and this is good. But we know all too well that we will hurt the one we love and the one we love will hurt us. We are imperfect beings. We have to hold these two incompatible thoughts in our minds.
If we refuse to love because of the hurt, we are impoverished and less human. If we refuse to admit we are in pain, we damage ourselves so we cannot love.
In love, a space, a separation may be necessary. Love is not extinguished by distance. Time allows wounds to heal and brings understanding to light.
I will not lay my head on the splinters of glass, but, at a distance I will delight in the soft beauty of the pillow. As time goes by, the pain may diminish, the gap between us may close, and love may win.
