Author(ity)

Colors were splashed on a canvas, and pictures were taken of it and posted here some days ago…Would you mind having a brief look at them?

Now what do you think, what’s your reaction to what you see?

The one who made them would be excited to find out… But how could she know unless you speak to her?

On the other hand, you can hardly detect who the author is, why those pictures were made, and what she was seeking to communicate through them, unless that person breaks the veil of anonymity and talks to you.

That is, through observation you can’t get explicit answers to any of these questions, though you can certainly make a number of rightful remarks on the colours applied etc. Furthermore, you may enjoy or dislike the pictures, as well as generally assume that there is an author out there who made them. Nevertheless, that’s not quite enough to find out about her exact identity and the very purpose and meaning of her work.

Moreover, if you don’t actually engage in a conversation with the author, sharing your thoughts with her and listening to her, can there really be a relationship between you and her? I doubt… Therefore I’d say merely knowing the answer to the questions about the author’s identity and the purpose and meaning of her work is not enough to establish a link between you and her. What is needed for a relationship is personal engagement, given that you don’t get into a quarrel with the author by refusing to acknowledge her definition of her work.

This comes hardly as a surprise (especially given the cover picture), but it’s me who made those pictures. As long as I haven’t explained them, you have the freedom of interpretation. But, from the moment an explanation is provided, it will serve as a point of reference against which all interpretations are measured.

Of course, someone might then still make claims like “this whole thing about the author is a scam – actually what happened is that the colors just appeared on the canvas by chance… ” (which is rather irrational), “Sofia made this thing to be used as a pad for frying pans”, or “Sofia was not meaning anything particular when she made this painting”. However, what’s remarkable is that you will then be equipped to discern whether these statements are true or not.

What I’m trying to say here is that the author has the sovereign authority to define the purpose and meaning of the pieces (s)he creates. In the scope of a painting, truth seems like a rather undramatic issue. However, the stakes are getting higher if the piece we talk about is the creation that we ourselves are part of.

A building block in my life has been to fathom that I am created by God, and that I live in the world made by the ultimate Author to glorify His name, the source of all being – God, who calls himself ‘I am‘. Furthermore, the Author of the universe has all the time been fundamentally engaged in the course of events on earth, and He has spoken to us in the person of Jesus who is referred to as the Word in the Bible.

Essentially, Jesus is the most important statement made by the Author.

But who is Jesus really, what is he like? He is the son of God, He has purchased our freedom and forgiven our sins, He is the visible image of the invisible God, He existed before anything was created, through Him and for Him everything was created, He holds all creation together, He is the Head of the Church which is His body, He rose from the dead, in Him God was pleased to live, and through Him God reconciled everything to Himself by the means of Jesus’s blood on the cross (see Col 1:13-20).

Now if this is the truth, our relationship with God, our Author, will be determined by whether or not we decide to base our lives on Jesus. Therefore, our reaction to Jesus is the most important question in life. My reaction was ‘yes’ when this question caught me at the age of 23, for I got convinced that it is objectively (not symbolically or partially) true. What about you?

Finally, returning to these pictures, I’ll provide an explanation soon – just keep posted 😉