Mourn Like an Artist (Guest Post on Blessed Is She blog!)

Today I'm guest posting over at Blessed Is She! Below is the beginning of my article; you'll have to click through the link to read it in its entirety.

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Artists live with a stereotype of being moody and emotive, their heads in the clouds and their hearts perpetually broken. Something like the way most Catholics seem to be feeling in these recent months since scandal has attacked our Church. I’ve never felt more like that stereotype than one night when I lay awake until four in the morning, my chest aching as though it had been ripped apart and hastily patched back together in a World War I field hospital.

Pieta, by William Adolphe Bouguereau

What is one to do with pain like that? My faith was not shaken—I felt Christ suffering with me; I knew the pain was His first and His most deeply. I was confident He would stand with His Church. But the hurt was real. The betrayal was real. The confusion and apathy creeping into the corners of my consciousness were real.

Well, if I was going to feel like an artist stereotype, I figured I might as well tie that shoe on and wear it running. Because Christian artists have given us a pattern to follow when the world crumbles around our feet. They weep, yes, just as Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. But united with the same power that brought Lazarus back from the dead, artists turn mourning into beauty. Out of the ashes of misery, they bring this beauty to stunning, startling life...

To read the rest of the post, head on over to the Blessed Is She blog!