Words of Hope: Collecting the Pieces
I love art museums. They are one of my favorite places on the planet. I can spend hours there. I love the stories behind the works of art just as well. Recently, I read about two friends, Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Manet was outgoing, full of bravado, and Degas was silent, isolated, quiet. They struck up a friendship that was severely damaged one day. Manet and his wife invited Degas over for music. Degas, who had a photographic memory, painted the scene as a gift which he gave the next day. Manet returned the painting cut and mutilated. He took affront to how Degas painted his wife’s profile.
This event greatly altered their friendship as all disagreements and hurt feelings do. Later, Manet passed away, much earlier than Degas, though he was only two years older. Manet had painted a huge work of art depicting a French historical scene. Degas recognized his friend’s genius. Manet’s family had cut up this huge work and were selling the smaller scraps of the paintings to earn money. Degas tracked down each of the smaller pieces of the painting until he restored Manet’s work to the original.
This story has played repeatedly in my mind. How easy it is to be bitter for a lifetime toward a friend who cruelly destroyed my own work. How easy to claim victory on the irony of his friend’s great work being slashed to pieces and sold for pittance of the true value of the work. Degas’ generosity of spirit, his forgiving heart, and his show of real care to gather all these disparate pieces together to restore is a profound metaphor for my life.
What steps can we take to cultivate a more generous spirit? In what ways can we unify the disjointed aspects of our lives to achieve greater harmony? How can we elevate love above the influences of ego, revenge, and division? How might we present the fragments of our relationships to the Lord for mending?
“Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, [l]natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, free of hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” James 3: 13-18
