Deeper

We had some lovely ladies round last night, Jodie works for the living room project in Tenerife and Wendy also helped start it up, Jade and Theresa were also along for the craic. They have been in Ibiza since Monday and go today, and it has rained everyday this week, how disappointing must that be.

Jade had been reading my blog and said she was pleased to find that I was pretty similar in person to how I come across on this blog, which was a great encouragement to me. I do try to be myself on this blog, its not always easy, as reader stats have gone up I have felt a bit more pressure. Last year a girl called Johanna stayed with us and she said that after reading my blog she thought I would be deeper!

I sometimes wish I was deeper, but then I catch myself on, depth is not something you achieve like an exam or test, it comes with life.

When I was younger I used to get really annoyed with people who tried too hard to be deep, now it doesn't bother me so much, although I have moments of wanting to punch deep people.

I did an art course when I left school, art students always tried to be deep and meaningful, I just liked to paint. I found that these "deep" people made me insecure so I tried to keep up with them, talked about politics, listened to strange music, wore an overcoat, read poetry, smoked weed. It didn't work, I got expelled from college, for misbehaviour of the drunken kind and rude comments to a lecturer, I wasn't very deep.

I think depth is more about character than anything else, Romans 5 says : we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Having a good attitude about our struggles and suffering, persevering through our struggles, this produces character and this is where I think depth comes from.

I see allegedly simple people with little education or status who have a tremendous amount of depth because they have persevered through suffering.

Leonardo Da Vinci said: "The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves"

Depth is the reserves of character we have built up through life's experiences, I was thinking in many ways we are like a piece of art, a masterpiece. Gods workmanship, His poetry.

Throughout life, as a piece of art, we get worked on, we also get the chance to work on our own lives, we have opportunities to develop grow and add new colours and subtle nuances to who we are as people. We can embrace the harder times which give us opportunities to grow, we can persevere through them in the hope that in the end we will be more beautiful, deeper, with more character like a fine work of art, or we can give up.

Da Vinci also said "Art is never finished, only abandoned"