The Art Fair

This afternoon my wife and I went a few miles to the west to join in the festivities at the Lake Country Art Festival in Delafield, WI. I have to say the one thing that stood out to me the most was the collection of people that make up the artist community. It was somewhat humorous for someone like me who sees things through a cartoon imagination most of the time.

It was probably just me, but I could have sworn that the artists and the art that they were displaying started to look like one another. Sort of like the old notion that people and their pets begin looking like one another after a time.

As I turned my attention from the artist community, I began noticing the other people around the festival grounds - the people who were there just like me, simply to see the show. I couldn't help but notice how the faces of the people passing by so clearly reflected the affect of their body language and the conversation or lack thereof with the people in their company.

The entire exercise in observation was entirely unscientific and purely subjective, but even an untrained eye can tell the difference between overt joy and barley able to hang-on to the day.

The sad summation of this whole experience is that even within a festive event, there are so many people that look like the last thing they really want to do is to cope with another day of what it is that life keeps bringing their way.

So herein is my question to the church. How many people walk through our churches with the same look of desperation that I saw today at the art fair? What do we do to speak life and hope into their lives? Or, do we let them walk through the church just like the fair goers walked through the festival grounds - they came and they left with same feeling of discouragement and despondency that they have been carrying around for . . . who knows how long.

I just know that there is something wrong with me when I see someone that needs a friend and I make no attempt whatsoever to become that friend. I guess I have a long way to go in the quest to be like Jesus.