I had Michelangelo on my mind as I marched to my garden, spade in one hand, a hoe in the other, determined to clear the weeds.
The week before our vacation had been a busy one: working fast and furious to get projects done so I wouldn’t be swamped when we returned, getting packed, and taking care of those incidentals that always take more time than I anticipate. It rained almost every day, giving me all the more excuse for ignoring the garden. Then, it rained while we were gone, and so our garden proliferated in our absence. As did the weeds. Looking at it the day we returned, all I could do was shake my head. “It’s a jungle,” I rued aloud to Lori, thinking of the hours it would take to clear it.
It was a moment of truth: should I give it up, gather what produce I could, and leave it be?
That’s when I thought of Michelangelo.
Supposedly, the story goes, at the unveiling of his masterpiece, the statue of David, everyone was congratulating him when a fan asked him, “How on earth did you create a masterpiece like this from a crude slab of marble?”
“It was easy,” Michelangelo is supposed to have said, “All I did was chip away everything that didn’t look like David.”
Michelangelo envisioned it, then created it.
“Well and good for Michelangelo,” you say, “but I’m no Michelangelo, not even close.” And you would be right. Apart from Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti is arguably the greatest artist of all time. You and I are not in the same artistic universe.
And yet, we are artists when we give our best efforts to God. What we have to offer may not be displayed in a renowned art museum or even the county fair; no one may recognize its value but you. But when you present your best to God, that is all that truly matters.
Esther (Ettie) Hillesum was a Dutch writer, a mystic whose diaries describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. In 1943, she was deported and murdered in Auschwitz. She was only 29. Here’s something she wrote: “I may never become the great artist I would really like to be, but I am already secure in You, God. Sometimes I try my hand at turning out small profundities and uncertain short stories, but I always end up with just one single word: God. And that says everything, and there is no need for anything more. And all my creative powers are translated into inner dialogues with You.”
Her words speak to those whose artistic lives were cut short, interrupted, detoured, or sidelined. We do the best we can in the circumstances in which we live. And we give it to the Master as our gift.
Another great artist, Johann Sebastian Bach, would pen the letters “JJ” at the beginning of his musical manuscripts. It was an abbreviation for the Latin, Jesu Juva (“Jesus help me”). And at the end of each piece, he would write “SDG” (Soli Deo Gloria), the abbreviation for “To God be the glory.”
Back to Michelangelo: that marble slab from which he carved the figure of David had been chipped and chiseled and rejected as too flawed by two other artists who had been offered the commission before Michelangelo accepted the challenge. The slab, known as “the Giant,” was part of an abandoned attempt to quarry marble for sculptures. It had sat in the quarry for 40 years before Michelangelo took it. He immersed himself in the project, often sleeping sporadically with his clothes and boots on. After more than two years of hard work, Michelangelo presented the massive sculpture of David, 17 feet tall, weighing 6 tons, a breathtaking masterpiece of gleaming white marble.
And so, glancing back at Lori on my way to my garden, I answered her question, “What are you going to do?
“There’s a garden hidden in those weeds,” I shot back over my shoulder, “I just have to chop down everything that isn’t the garden.”