Osler's Razor

I am the child of an artist. I don't mean someone who paints, and uses art supplies-- I mean that I am the child of a man who has an extraordinary gift for creation. I often watch in awe as a person or scene emerges from his canvas as he works on it. He paints, scrubs, steps back, ponders, and attacks it again. He knows there is a figure emerging, and it is as if he is getting to know it, understand it, and the relationship is intense.

Sadly, this is not a talent I have. Sure, I have my creative moments, but it is not art like what my dad creates, and I respect it all the more because his is a process I cannot replicate-- I am many things, but not an artist.

What of the larger creation? Is God an artist in what he has created and creates every day? Does he ponder what he is crafting, step back and admire it? I know that because God is God, the ways of his work are unimaginable to us; still I do wonder if there is some faint echo of God's creativity in what I see my own father doing-- perhaps as the creator's creation we replicate and love our own small versions of what the creator did, and thus good art can move us towards what is true and good and beautiful.