Just Scribbling on a Cave Wall

It was no coincidence when a Priest and young boy wandered through an un-discovered cave, and stumbled upon the oldest evidence of prehistoric “human” life. They found no bones or tools, no weapons or signs of conflict, no evidence of a wild pagan sacrificial worship. They found art. They found pictures of animals drawn on the walls of a cave. When the priest and the boy saw this, there was no doubt in their minds who could have done such a thing. Only human beings are self aware, aware of the beauty around them, and can express it. These ancient men were aware enough of this beauty to express it on the walls of their cave home (or maybe they just stumbled onto it like the priest and boy) for no other purpose than the need or desire of doing it. This is where we fit in all those categories that Wikipedia lists. Category 5. The Cave Painter. I believe that God creates artists. If someone were to ask me today- "Can you show me one simple thing that could distinguish us from the other living bipeds and quadrupeds?" I would go to my sister's fridge and show them a child’s drawing of Mommy, Daddy and Pouncer the wonder-cat. The fact that we can make “art” alone elevates our intelligence (because of our spirit) by a quantum leap from the rest of organized life.

This awareness and expression of beauty in us is an awareness and expression of the work of God, in us and around us. It must be expressed and we as created artists express it differently. We are singers, songwriters, painters, and writers. We are also Masons, Architects, Graphic Designers, Doctors, Engineers, Editors, Organizers, Pastors, Mothers, Fathers, and yes even Politicians, or public servants, as they should be called. All of us have a vision in our minds of something beautiful, and we want to do it. We not only WANT to do it we are DRIVEN passionately to do it. This is how the kingdom was created. Someday when the new Earth is recreated and heaven is ours, this will be all that we do. Even what we consider now as mundane tasks will become something like the pleasure an artist feels with each stroke across a canvas.

I know I have been created in this time as a songwriter. In my songs I express what I experience. At times I have to write about the great marvelous Mystery that is God, Almighty maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth. At times I need to write about the beauty that is my wife or express the beauty that two young lovers can see in each other. Shoot, I might just feel inclined to write a song when I see a greater truth expressed in the comic strip “Peanuts” and decide to write about Lucy from the prospective of her friend Charlie Brown. I could very likely turn around and add a few verses and a bridge to one of my favorite spirituals “Give me Jesus”. I do this because this is the Joy that God has put inside of me. This is freedom. In all of it there is a reflection of him because I am creating something, and he has put a little bit of His creative spirit in me. However, I cannot create as God creates. I do not create from nothing. I simply hope to express in a unique way, to express the world around me that He has made from nothing and express how it is seen through the filter of what is “me.” I always hope this vision will bring Joy to others, and I hope that ultimately others see and know the awe-inspiring God that gives this joy to me.

So that’s just me. Scribbling on a Cave wall. Doing what man has done since man has been man -and for the same reason.

It is a brilliant and marvelous irony that the Great Artist, in whose likeness we are formed, would ultimately express himself in a similar way thousands of years after our Cave artist ancestors except in this cave, would be real animals, real shepherds, a Mother and Father and God himself would use flesh and bone to express himself to the created universe and to mankind in a newborn child.