Art, Beauty and Life Part I - Lindsay, What Do You Want In Life?

Suggested Reading: "Simple Spirituality" by Christopher Heuertz

Quote of the Day: "As far as I am concerned, a painting speaks for itself. What is the use of giving explanations, when all is said and done? A painter has only one language." ~Pablo Picasso

A friend recently asked, “Lindsay, what do you want in life?”

The question caught me off guard. Not because I didn’t know how to answer, but because it was so forward, so real, so raw. It forced me to put my heart into words.

I took nearly two weeks to actually answer, thinking about it virtually every waking moment.

I recently finished “Simple Spirituality” by Christopher Heuertz, and it helped give voice to my soul and summarize my life.

I want my existence to be a creatively simple life of loving service.

This is what I know:

1. My daily life is creatively inspired. I deeply breathe creativity in and deeply breathe inspiration out. As a result, I want my photography to express beauty and for that beauty to be enough.

[Art, Beauty and Life Part II – “Is Beauty Enough?” will dive deeper into this reality]

2. I want to live a humble, community oriented, simply submitted life. I don't entirely know what that means and entails but I want to spend my life taking a journey there.

The Oxford American Dictionary defines simple as - easily understood or done, presenting no difficulty.

In saying this, I know the minute I label something simple it is no longer simple.

In his book, Heuertz focuses on five "simple stones of hope and promise": 1. Humility to counter pride and arrogance, 2. Community to counter individualism and independence, 3. Simplicity to counter intemperance and excess, 4. Submission to counter power and control, and 5. Brokenness to counter triumphalism and resistance.

3. I want to continually give my life away in loving service to humanity. Whether I stand before governments or work at the corner store I want to be a prophetic voice in the wilderness, calling people out of the centers of power and privilege to meet God on the margins of society [What Shane Claiborne says about Ash Baker, author of “Make Poverty Personal.”]