I still find paint in places.
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The
Pink Room: Thoughts About Intentional Living
Chapter
10/ Proof of Life.
Part
3 (Previous post contain the previous chapters.)
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When I left my ministry job, there
was a year I did not attend their music festival. The festival saw 80,000
people over five days when it was at its largest. There were five stages booked
from 10am until 10pm or later, some much later.
I felt a bit homeless during the
year off. One conversation with a friend, who still was on staff, lead to an
invitation to help with ArtSpace. The first year I walked in to set up, we had
five tables, each sat eight people, and were expecting a few dozen people over
the five days. We were wrong. Very wrong. The event took place on a fair ground
so our facilities were barns for showing animals. We had a corner of one of the
largest barns, it had a cement floor. It never slowed and there were often
lines.
The first day of the event, we went
through all our supplies. We had to scramble and get more of everything. We
added five more tables and many more chairs. We ran out of supplies every day.
We kept running out for more. It was a marathon of the worst kind. Think color
run with acrylic paint—that is what we looked like by the end.
The next year we doubled the already
doubled number of tables. We made a much larger supply purchase. We still ran
out of everything on day two! We added five more tables and had half the barn.
We kept running to the store, people were coming out of the woodwork!
Year three we started with thirty
tables and ended with thirty five. We asked for a doubled budget, for the
festival to consider a sponsor, for special water hookups…for help setting up.
We still ran out of supplies half way through, but were not desperate to keep
up. This thing was officially out of control. It was not what we expected but
it was fun to watch the enthusiasm for it.
Year four we started with forty
tables, we added extras for drying artwork by the end of the event. We’d
finally hit our stride. We made it to the last day before running out of
anything related to painting. But we ran out of clay every day. People kept
coming, we had little down time. We need more volunteers. We still saw growth.
By year five we finally started
feeling like this thing was slightly predictable. Slightly. However, it was
still full of surprises. We were getting used to seeing thousands of people
work their way through our area. We were glad that the festival eliminated a
day, it made it more manageable. It was exhausting. Standing on concrete for around
ten hours a day (often more,) lifting things up to fifty pounds off the floor
and being covered to your elbows in paint is never easy on the body.
All in all, I helped direct,
creative direct, and grow ArtSpace for nine years. There were big surprises
every year. People loved it; there was something special about the place.
People came in and rested in the midst of the hot, dusty, loud, busy festival
fair grounds. It felt like worship was happening. It looked like it too—people
would hang their art on the walls. Near halfway the walls would be completely covered
in colorful images and handwriting generally praising God. Most-often Bible
verses, and notes.
I don’t maintain things well, I can
for a while, I am best when I can grow things. It is something I’ve known for a
while. Once ArtSpace was well-established, I started cutting back my time. Year
seven I didn’t do any volunteer leading, year eight I no longer did setup, and year
nine I completely gave up inventory of supplies.
There
is an ebb and flow, a natural progression in event life. There are people
called to build and others to maintain. Year
ten, I was done, I didn’t even go. It felt good, but strange. It didn’t need me
anymore and it was time to do the next thing. Now, I just need to figure out
what the next thing is.
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I
hope for more unexpected interesting and big things to plan and think about. Even when these experiments start in dark
corners of barns and are completely out of any human predicting or control—it
is fun to see what God decides to do.
My
prayer is: Lord, I do not know how to do what is in front of me, if it requires
faith to walk on water, help me keep my eyes on you, just say "come" and I will.
“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. -Matthew 14:29 NIV
