{"id":10617,"date":"2015-04-29T12:04:38","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T19:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=10617"},"modified":"2015-04-29T13:14:41","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T20:14:41","slug":"so-many-talents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2015\/04\/29\/so-many-talents\/","title":{"rendered":"So Many Talents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Justine-with-Bike\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Little Justine will be five in just five weeks, and very precocious. Of course . . . she’s our granddaughter. Actually we have 16 grandchildren, all favorites, but Justine and her brother are the only ones that live near us. So we get to watch the daily growth.<\/p>\n

The other day Justine told us she’d been learning about talents. I thought she said\u00a0she possessed them all, but she said, “Not all, just almost all.”<\/p>\n

A short list starts with:<\/p>\n

Jumping on one foot
\nHula hooping
\nDrawing
\nPainting
\nColoring
\nTap dancing
\nWorking a zipper
\nHolding a guinea pig<\/p>\n

She said she can also hold a rabbit.<\/p>\n

Something she didn’t mention was riding a bike, which she picked up lately and already races circles in the cul-de-sac, stretching the patience of whoever’s keeping an eye on her.<\/p>\n

Which one of this ever-growing array of talents she will develop to the point of defining her is yet to be seen. When we’re young, it’s a broad horizon; as we go, it narrows.<\/p>\n

It’s like making a painting. The first strokes can be all over the place, but the last stokes are limited and specific to that particular painting.<\/p>\n

You might have known I’d get around to making a painting metaphor here. The fact is,\u00a0I have been doing a lot of painting lately, and have received a number of interesting commissions. If you’ve been watching the Blank Canvas<\/em> blog, you’ve seen their results. For a review, go here.<\/a>\u00a0(Speaking of that, thanks to\u00a0all those who made such gracious comments on the last one, rounding out the whole message.)<\/p>\n

Today I’ll fly to Anchorage to stretch, install and unveil my largest painting\u00a0yet, a 12 ft. tall by 60 ft. wide mural\u00a0for a new youth center at Muldoon Community Assembly Church. I got to know the pastor, Kent Redfearn, years ago when we were both working on our master’s degrees . . . in \u201cleadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

(As I think about it now, it would seem I was still moving toward the talent that would define me.)<\/p>\n

Over the years Kent procured a number of my paintings for his church, but this one will be a climax. The last time I was there he invited me to return and speak on Ecclesiastes<\/em>. Since then I’ve made a book on that topic,\u00a0so of course, it’s what I’ll do.<\/p>\n

You’re all invited. Just come to Anchorage this Sunday and ask\u00a0around. I’ll be the guy talking about his granddaughter with so many talents, like holding a guinea pig.<\/p>\n

Who knows where all these things will\u00a0lead? Like me, picking up a brush one day and ending up in Alaska.<\/p>\n

Likely something similar\u00a0is happening with\u00a0you.<\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

PS \u00a0It’s About Life<\/em>, my take on Ecclesiastes, is available on Amazon and on this website, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we’re young, we have so many directions we can go; as we mature, the field narrows, and deepens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10617"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10646,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10617\/revisions\/10646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}