May 7, 2019

Weekly Reflection – Be the Conduit

We all need to be the conduit in people’s lives. Doug Walton is an accomplished watercolor artist. He lives in northern Louisiana but travels the world teaching “Watercolor Encounters.” These are typically one-week workshops during which he shares wisdom sayings as much as an art technique. His website can be found by searching for M. Douglas Walton, Watercolor Encounter. As a child, Doug suffered from a speech disorder that made him literally unable to speak until his late teenage years. As you can imagine this generated significant insight. He became an architect and in due course the renowned artist he is today.

You might like to listen to Walton in this video.

In it, Walton remarks that with watercolor (and indeed most other artistic mediums) one is simply the conduit through which the art flows onto the paper. His catchphrase is, “If you are thinking you are not painting!” Instead, the artist is always ready for the act of artistic creation, allowing the inspiration to flow through him or her. And, in the act of creation, the artist is certainly not worrying!

So what does that have to do with NationsUniversity and its Chaplain? It strikes me that there is a clear analogy to Christian prayer. The purest prayer is that in which, after perhaps reading a short passage of scripture, we simply sit quietly and allow God to speak to and guide us through His Spirit. Walton might as well have said, “If you are thinking you are not praying.” Or at least you are not listening. God cannot get a word in edgewise if we are doing all the talking!

It may be that in our daily lives we also need to be the conduit. A friend has a saying that she, “…wants everything I come in contact with to be affected by the presence of God in my life.” In that context, she is not doing the work, other than allowing the presence of God to flow through her. She is the conduit.

So, this week let us strive to be the conduit for God to use in reaching the world.

Blessings and peace,

Chaplain Allen
chaplain@nationsu.edu
chaplainscorner.org

Watercolor Artist Doug Walton

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