Come unto me in Gethsemane

I feel like Moroni right now when he spoke with the Lord saying, “Thou hast also made our [feelings and insights] powerful and great, even that we cannot write them; wherefore, when we write we behold our weakness, and stumble because of the placing of our words…” (Ether 12)

I went to see the Carl Bloch exhibit again with my Family Home Evening group tonight and was again impressed by many of the pieces. I want to share what I understood from a couple of my favorites.

GETHSEMANE

When I was looking at this painting, I thought about the work the Savior had just put into his past 3 hours or so. The description of this painting suggested that his fallen hands rest in complete submission to Heavenly Father’s will. Part of why this painting struck me was how it shows comfort through hard things. I often find myself steeling up against emotion when things are hard which eventually leads to malfunctions in my behavior (to put it mechanically....) If the Savior was comforted through his hardest time, why should I expect my Heavenly Father to leave me on my own to fend for myself. This painting, a great teacher, has much more power than anything I can write. So much work and pain accompanied the subject of this painting. I desire to emulate the love that makes this painting illustrious. I hope many who see this understand how personal Carl Bloch made it for each individual. The little example I have posted doesn’t do it justice one bit. In real life this painting is at least 12 feet tall and the paints come out of the canvas and envelope you, making you feel that you, the Savior, and the angel are the only ones in the room. Majestic.

COME UNTO ME

This one wasn’t the one I had impressions about, but it was close. The one I remember seeing was not actually at the exhibit. It was in a short little video showing some of the pieces in their original chapel homes. The camera was panning the room. It started on the left wall, panned across a painting of Christ with his arms outstretched, then panned across the right wall, turning to the empty pews facing the painting. With the camera pointed at the empty pews, I imagined them full of people looking past me at the picture of Christ with outstretched arms. One person is shying away from the painting due to feelings of inadequacy. They are suddenly gone as if in a dream, and the audience seems incomplete. Even though they are all completely devoted to coming to Christ, I feel unsatisfied that the one person decided they couldn’t come to Christ. When I went through this scenario in my mind, I realized that more often than not, I’ve acted like that one person who separated themselves from goodness because I was unwilling to change how I understood what I saw.

So, with these new thoughts written down, they can’t be forgotten. This summer I will be working extremely hard to put my life back in order, making Christ the eternal head.