No doubt the world has changed since then and sometimes it feels as if it’s leaning from its axis making the gravitational pull on my heart enormous.

The world is more global and our lives more interconnected than ever before, but have our lives and what we choose to do and choose not to do really changed that much?  Perhaps – or maybe we’re content with simply being content.

But what if you really wanted to change the world or at least the world around you?  Stop this very moment, breathe deeply, exhale and take an intentional 360-degree view of your world.  What do you see that needs to change?

What difference can you make in your life or in others?  If only you’d take the first step of faith and see that nothing really is impossible.  This doesn’t involve writing a business plan or being clever, but it does involve your heart and passion – unless you only want to live a passionless life.

Changing the world could simply mean being there for someone who needs you not to give advice and just listen with your ears – and your heart.  Or gathering a group of like-minded people to work together on a project, something that could have a ripple effect in your community carrying itself to the other side of your country – or even around the world impacting others lives.

Feel the gravitational pull on your heart?  Then, I dare you to step forward and change the world.

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Brennan Manning once said, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door, and deny him with their lifestyle.  That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

How can this be?  My personal opinion isn’t prophetic or theological, two things I’ll never likely be accused of in my lifetime.  I think it’s simply that we’re fallen people in need of some emergency care.  Okay, probably loads of emergency care.  In fact, churches remind me more of emergency rooms (i.e., “casualty” as is said in Europe) and that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all – actually, that’s a good thing, if not a great thing.

If we come to understand this, even embrace and let others see it – I think the more they will relate to us, because after all, we’re really more like them than we may care to admit.  Hey – each of us can be counted among the walking wounded, limping side by side on this journey; maybe we should consider locking arms together.  Imagine that.

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What a disturbing yet beautiful quote, “Silence is the real crime against humanity,” from Nadezhda Mandelstam. I’ve found that it’s difficult enough being open to life itself but retreating from it brings its own dangers.

The answer isn’t surrounding ourselves with people who are nice and clean while we ignore the pain around us.  That only helps us to lose sight that we actually live in a lost and dying world, among people who have no real idea how much their Creator loves them.

What’s the easy shortcut to remedy this?  Ah – there is none.  But a good starting point is when those around us know that we as Christians truly understand them; then they may well conclude that perhaps God understands them too.

Maybe our silence, inability or unwillingness to act should be considered a crime against humanity.  Or possibly we should endeavor to practice the art of helping others, which in essence is living out the gospel.

That could mean reaching out to someone across the world, or to a neighbor in their time of need and perhaps – even your own time of need.  Giving sacrificially if not from your own resources, but of your time – because that is just as meaningful and worth more than what you may believe.

What legacy will each of us choose to leave behind?  Have we mindlessly bought into a culture more interested in making headlines than history, or one that’s content to do nothing at all?

To support the charitable work of The Art of Helping Others, please visit our Artist Gallery Pages to order art products.  Or you can visit The Art of Helping Others merchandise store for T-shirts and more.   Thanks for practicing the art of helping others.

I find it interesting and at the same time disturbing that in our culture we seem to have concluded that God chooses to only use spiritual giants; the high gifted, multi-talented, richly diverse, faith-filled people of this world and not the spiritual pygmies. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, God has a well-documented history of working through the broken vessels of this world, “the scalawags and ragamuffins” as Brennan Manning puts it, or as a friend in Ireland says, “the cracked pots.” He has used questionable characters that are of little social standing, ill tempered, liars, adulterers, and murderers to accomplish His good purposes – and He continues to do so to this day.

We find it far more pleasant to be known for and seen for our strengths, and not for our weaknesses. But in His infinite wisdom, God chooses to use ordinary people like you and me, imperfect ambassadors of the gospel that we are, to reach out in faith with compassion filled hearts to those just like us, those that are as equally as needy and wanting, only in different ways.  That’s how this extraordinary God is revealed and encountered in the peaks and valleys of everyday circumstances and the ordinariness of life.

Days later, an email arrives in my inbox from him saying that obviously we see things from different perspectives and approaches, and that he will not share with his audience about what we do.  That was it – done and dusted, no other explanation.  Initially, I was a bit disappointed, but really – mostly perplexed.

I’m okay not getting a mention on his blog, but idealist that I am, what troubled me most is I had hoped that in the arts, culture, faith, current events – you know, wherever or whatever direction your political, economic, geographic, religious, cause-related compass points, that ultimately, there would be room enough for diversity and discussion.  Yes, feel free to pity idealists like me…

What do I take from this as I walk away and glance over my shoulder?  For some people, there may be room enough for diversity in the matter of opinion – as long as it aligns with their own, but unfortunately dialogue doesn’t always seem to be a part of the process, and that is indeed a shame.  Why?  Because if we choose not to dialogue, how will we ever begin to understand one another and where we’re coming from.

If you’re inclined, let me know if there’s something I’ve missed.  Idealistically Yours.

It was once said, “Artists are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.”

Given all the talk of change in the States, what’s your opinion of this quote?  Do artists really fill the role ‘real architects of change’ and if so, what are you seeing to make you believe this?

Is it because we prefer safety and predictability?  Unfortunately, good art isn’t always safe or predictable, and while being in control is comfortable, it’s not exactly biblical and has little to do with exercising faith.

As a visual artist, I have often contemplated what empty spaces in life primarily motivate me or that I am desirous to fill.  Perhaps the same is true of you.  Is it the attempt to fill the empty space of a prestigious art gallery, a blank canvas resting on an easel, the space between people’s ears with words, imagery, music – all to evoke emotion or a particular response?

I like the quote from Samuel Beckett because it can be applied to life in general and to those of you that consider yourselves ‘non-artists.’  For you it may not have much to do with artistic endeavours – but we all attempt to fill empty spaces in our lives.  And what of the people God places in our paths everyday that happen to be doing the same, whether conscious of it or not?

I think it’s important for us to first ask and wrestle with questions like these, thenanswer how through our lives and our art we can address people’s deepest longings and their attempts to fill an empty space.