Liberated

One of the elderly art students in the class Asherel teaches at the Nursing Home, said, "I didn't come here to draw! Who wants to draw anyway?"
She crossed her arms and looked menacingly at me.
"Some people pay me to help them draw," I said, smiling at her.
"Well goodie for you!" she snapped.
"What *did* you come here for?" asked the Activities Director, in her gentle kind manner. It was the elderly woman's first day in the Home, and it didn't seem she was taking it well.
"Waiting for some good food!" she barked.
Meanwhile, the lady next to her said, "I am not an artist. My sister never even let me decorate the Christmas tree!"
"Well that wasn't nice of her," said sweet Josie.
The new lady grumbled some more about wanting nothing to do with this drawing business. However, the rest of the class seemed quite enamored with the daffodil Asherel was teaching them to draw.
"I'm not taking any part in this drawing stuff," said the new lady, slamming down her pencil.
"Mine looks like a sunflower. I'm not an artist. My sister never even let me decorate the Christmas tree!"

"Now," said Asherel, "This petal is sort of like a pointy oval."
I circulated among the class and the conversation circled as well, with the new lady grumbling, the insecure artist remembering her sister not even letting her decorate the Christmas tree, and the others complimenting her drawing and telling her her sister had not been very kind. The two gentlemen in the group were very careful with their drawing, choosing their colors thoughtfully, drawing and correcting their lines as precisely as they could. I helped show each person what to do when they struggled, and Asherel demonstrated step by step at the easel in front of the class. Soon, the new lady was quiet, watching the others, and a peaceful contentment settled over the room as the pencils scritched across the drawings, giving yellow life to the flowers.

"I vote we draw a panda next time!" said one resident.
"And I'd like to put in a vote for a camel," said another.
Asherel wrote the requests down.
"Any other requests?" she asked.
The elderly artists were quiet, looking at the daffodils they'd drawn.
"Did you ever draw before?" I asked.
"When I was a little girl!" answered a few, "But not as an adult."
"I guess we're like Grandma Moses," said one lady with a chuckle, smiling at her picture.

I thought of Mom K, who having rediscovered knitting, is inch by inch creating a scarf for me. Here, in the Home where she had lived until a month ago, her friends were rediscovering drawing and the peaceful joy of creating, that all children know instinctively but often lose as responsibilities crowd in. I found it hopeful that these people with diminishing strength, and eyesight, were enjoying the act of creation again. What a fitting picture of what one day will be, when we will all be released from the bondage of sin and death, and all creation will blossom with the Creator's original intent.

Romans 8:20-21 (NIV)
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope [21] that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

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