The non-winning “best” painting. Click for large view.
The non-winning “best” painting. Click for large view.Speaking of ironies, here’s one often repeated, particularly when we think we were the one that should have won but didn’t.
Here’s the full passage:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned,
but time and chance happen to them all.*
Once I participated in a “Quick Draw” competition. That’s where artists work against the clock to make a painting. Most went off and did a landscape; I, and about a dozen others, chose to do a figure study—a draped model. We had two hours. As painting is solitary work, few of us knew how anyone else was doing. When time was up, it was apparent to just about everyone that mine turned out the superior work. I was grateful, particularly as I’d not been so confident in the process; but it had come together in the end.
When the judging was announced, one of the other figure painters was awarded third prize. I’d seen the painting. Pretty poor, I thought, so I began to mentally prepare my acceptance speech. The second prize was awarded to a landscape painter. By then, with just one left, I was really ready to accept my prize. But, to my chagrin, the first prize went to another landscaper.
Refreshments followed. I had humble pie.
I was consoled as when people saw my painting many said, “That one should have won.” That, in fact, became my reward. I realized it was better to not have won but to be reputed as the real winner than to have won, with a general murmuring that I shouldn’t have.
Two years later I entered the same competition. That time I did not paint the best painting . . . and I did not win. So that approach doesn’t work either.
Here’s the teaching: We can’t control outcomes. While the prize is usually to the best, there are always more complexities at work. We might call it luck, good and bad. Or as Qohelet calls it, “time and chance.”
Time we understand. The right solution at the wrong time is not the right solution. But chance? Where does that come in? We thought it was an ordered universe with predictable outcomes. Without that how would science be science, and mathematics the purest system?
Obviously there’s always more than meets the eye.
Survival isn’t always to the fittest.
And when we’re not always in that category, “time and chance” is another thing we can be grateful for.
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*Ecclesiastes 9:11
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Its About Life
8:55 am
OH Hyatt!! First of all, this is again, so hard to believe! But believe it I will because things like this happen so often in life! I am sure everyone would agree with that! Secondly, thank you for once again sharing not just the successes but the disappointments as well. This makes me oddly feel better because there are so many times that the wrong thing happens and you just stand there and go what???????!!!!!!! But in the end, time goes on, all gets forgotten anyway, and the Lord seems to mix up successes and disappointments in life for our greater good. Sharing, so humbly, as you do, the good and the bad, helps us to laugh at ourselves and say, well, if that happened to Hyatt and he gets up and dusts himself off, laughs, and moves on, so can I! Thank you Hyatt! Thanks be to God as well, for you and for your sharing! Best! Lisa
9:33 am
Thanks again Hyatt for wonderful wisdom, based on wonderful (but often undecipherable) wisdom! Will look forward to the upcoming book, filled with art and wisdom!
9:49 am
Thanks, Doris. The book is still in the making. Thought I’d have it for this season, but maybe the next. There are a dozen or so Ecclesiastes topics still to be hit, and that’s not counting the really obscure ones. Thanks for your anticipation.
10:07 am
Awesome…. I’ll be sure and reserve several for my Christmas shopping list!
12:56 pm
You should have won first place! I love the painting.
1:02 pm
thanks Hyatt!
And very timely for me right now. I needed to read that.
Love to you and your family!
Susan and Todd
1:29 pm
Thank you Hyatt ,
I Wouldn’t be surprised if the winning painter of the the landscape Was equally humbled by the fact that sometimes we get the prize for something we really don’t think that we deserve. I think the real challenge is to not be changed From who we are by a winning or losing outcome.
Can’t wait for “Moore On That” In a bookstore near you.
9:52 pm
I love Scott’s comment. God’s purposes are mostly beyond us . Weren’t you the one who told me, Hyatt, that we learn much more from our failures than our successes? I didn’t like hearing that, but you were right, as usual. (You still should’ve won.)
9:17 am
Thanks, Hyatt. More to think about. And immediately the cry goes up “It’s not fair!”
6:39 pm
I remember when I was sure you’d won first place and was completely perplexed when I heard differenty. While your words, as always, opens doors to deeper thinking for greater understanding. Still, for me and obviously many others, you did win.
6:43 pm
Thanks, Mary. I’d forgotten you were there.
9:07 am
I love that your honest & transparent about yourself.
Helps us be more like that….
Barbara