Keep On Painting

"You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwittingly giving you for a portrait — a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished." (Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees). We know so little about each other. We may try to form a mental image of what someone else may be like, but always our pictures will be crude and imperfect. But, though our first efforts to understand and paint a picture of our family and friends may be cartoonish or overly simplified, that does not mean we must stick with that first drawing. Sometimes we stick with that cartoonish first impression, and then we end up treating them as not as complex as we are, not as lifelike or real as we are, and therefore, not as worthy of compassion or consideration or the benefit of the doubt. But if we truly love that person, then we will not be satisfied with a “good enough” picture of them. We will be unflaggingly interested in them, insatiably curious to know and understand them better, always reaching for that clearer and more detailed and more subtle and more beautiful picture of them.The more accurate our picture gets, the greater we will grow to love them, as we become more and more fascinated with the tiny details of their lives. God has a perfect picture of us. He knows us utterly, from the deepest feelings of our heart, to the most obscure and random thoughts in our brain. When He wants us to love one another as He loves us, He is inviting us to always continue to work at and improve our picture of one another, and find new ways to bring out the best and the most beautiful in each other.