The Canvas

God spoke into the silence and where there was no meaning before, He created meaning. Out of silence He spoke and created light, separating it from darkness. Out of silence He created nature with the sound of His voice. Out of silence He created everything that was to be. And so, whether by setting into motion the process of evolution or by creating a developed universe, God entered the nothingness and began to fill the silence with meaning.

Silence is the canvas on which the masterpiece of existence must be painted. It is the nothing that allows for an actual something. In the same way that light is only conceivable because there is an opposite, darkness, meaning is only meaningful because there is a lack of meaning, silence.

So, in this way, silence makes meaning clear. It is therefore opposed to a corruption of meaning which we commonly call noise because noise serves the opposite purpose. Noise distracts from meaning. It is the stray marks of a shaky brush that muddle the picture by covering the contrasting canvas.

Why then do we fill our lives with so much noise? I believe it is because noise, a feint at meaning, is considerably easier than the real thing. Creating meaning may require hours of staring at a blank canvas, whereas anyone and anything can sling paint on it with little effort and little time.

A&E aired a special a few years ago the purpose of which was to criticize modern art and modern art critics. They gave an elephant a paint brush, let him sling paint onto a canvas, and presented it to modern art critics as the brilliant work of an up and coming artist. The critics took the bait and began to rave about symbolism brilliant use of color, and originality.

The point is this: everything can make noise. Even elephants make noise; in fact, they are probably better at that than humans. But what makes humans unique is that we will spend countless hours, often lifetimes, trying to create meaning out of noise because we are so scared of a blank canvas.

A blank canvas is the only road to meaning. Every moment spent trying to make sense out of stray brush marks is time that could be spent carrying out our God-given role to create meaning.

All this to say:

Turn off the TV.

Silence the cell phone.

Close the book.

Close your mouth.

Stare at the canvas for a while.

Now paint.