Mending Broken Strings

When I first sketched this painting out I saw a boy and a harp and then I was moved to tears. Who was this person? Why was I crying? I had the word medieval in my head before I started sketching. Other than that, I had no preconceptions before I began to draw. So after the harp made from a tree, I thought ‘medieval harp’. I started to search harp players from medieval times…Orpheus came up, seemed intriging, could this be Orpheus? My face screwed up when I asked and my head went from side to side. O.k I’ll keep looking. I started clicking on a couple of images of harp players from medieval images then a photo of a stained glass window stood out to me of a man playing a harp. It was King David. So I asked, “Is this King David?” and there was a smile and a nod. Oh my goodness, King David, the great King of Israel. But why the tears? To be honest, I needed to refresh what knowledge I had in biblical history, so I started reading summaries of his life and things began to make sense. 

There are distinct stages to his amazing life, like strings on this harp. There are many strong well tuned strings; from a shepherd boy who played the harp, to a chosen musician to play in the court of King Saul, to a young heroic soldier defeating Goliath, going out to fight and win other battles, becoming the King of Israel, rejoicing in the Arc of the Covenant, but then towards the end of his life, a string breaks, he falls in great regret and shame at what he’s done (I’ll let you find out if you don’t already know) and great tragedy hits. All these amazing feats, but the biggest feat of all would be for him to overcome his own pain. 

This painting alludes to that broken string, the broken heart, the sins (we all sin) and the regrets. But it is how we get through the pain. It is harder than slaying Golieth, harder than ruling a great nation, but we must try. And this is what King David wants to do - aid those who have fallen and help mend the broken strings so our hearts can sing again. The times of suffering in our lives are really the most important, because it is through pain and suffering we can grow the most. We can draw closer to our truth as this is when we are more likely to search within and ask for divine love and teachings to guide us.

"Look back to the times past and you will find that the greatest men have suffered most." -‘Abdu’l-Bahá 

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