Rembrandt’s Secret
Rembrandt, The Artist In His Studio, 1628
I am scattered right now. My calendar gets filled with all kinds of things. Worthy though each one may be, when the whole picture is added up, something gets sucked out of my soul. I’ve been thinking anew how God wants to lay claim of my life over how many years left out ahead. This is called discernment. I’ve been there before. I’m sure you have too. If we don’t think through this kind of thing, periodically, we remain forever sputtering about not doing what we’re supposed to be doing.
The great Dutch painter Rembrandt lamented along the way
I can’t paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too. Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.
And so he painted, thank God, the way Rembrandt needed to paint. Blessed with gifts beyond belief, he painted and he painted. We are profoundly grateful each time we encounter the Prodigal Son, perhaps, or Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, or The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. Rembrandt understood his calling. He didn’t let the pressures from so many tell him what he should be doing. He just painted.
But what am I called to do? “What is your craft?” asks Paul Ramsey, in his marvelous book Rembrandt In The Wind: “What art or skill are you developing? Painting? Writing? Cooking? Raising children? Teaching? Leading a team? Organizing data?” He adds: “Don’t consider yourself to be someone who used to do something.” Just gather yourself together, find your time of day, and get on with it. Follow your calling.
Romans 12 is one of the great passages in all of scripture, for so many reasons, but in the middle of the chapter, Paul says we must engage in discernment, first to understand our gifts, but then wholly to commit to them.
Let us use the different gifts allotted to each of us by God’s grace: the gift of inspired utterance, for example, let us use in proportion to our faith; the gift of administration to administer, the gift of teaching to teach, the gift of counselling to counsel. If you give to charity, give without grudging; if you are a leader, lead with enthusiasm; if you help others in distress, do it cheerfully. Romans 12:6-8
What out of this list strikes your own sense of calling? Or perhaps there is another one that fits you even better. Whatever it is, grab it. Mull it over carefully. Do some reading. Pray about it often. Find your models. And get specific with yourself. If it’s painting, decide what time of day you will paint. When asked the question of how to become a writer, my friend Earl Palmer would say, “well, what did you write this morning?” Through prayer and holy reading and quiet reflection figure out what you should be doing. And then get started. Today. Or tomorrow morning.
I’m reading right now the influential fourth-century contemplative John Cassian. He’s big on discernment for the monks who followed him. He says we must be acutely attentive to “the spirits rising up against” discernment. There are many voices that may try to lead you astray. When we listen to those voices, we become “like someone in a dark night amid gruesome shadows.” We “stumble into dangerous pits and down steep slopes. . . .” So be careful. Don’t listen so much to those other voices about what you should be doing. You will end up in frustration, stumbling, filled with anxiety. Find what God is calling you to do, and then get on with it.
Just this morning, I heard repeated those familiar lines from Frederick Buechner: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” To start with, then, think about what gives you deep gladness? I know, for example, that my daily writing gives me deep gladness, deep joy. Some may scoff at my form of gladness—what in the world is all that writing for? And so I often struggle to ensure what I am writing, in whatever small way, meets “the world’s deep hunger.”
But I am trying, once again, to find what it means when these two come together, deep gladness and the world’s hunger. I think I’m getting closer. It’s time now to get on with it.