Article January 23, 1954 Issue

ESTABLISHING THE WORK OF OUR HANDS

FRANCES L. SMART

The artist sits before a piece of white canvas. He sees a mental picture which he plans to paint. His experience and his talent for the work influence the product. Christian Scientists, like people of Bible days, turn to God for inspiration and help in all their problems. The artist can pray with the Psalmist (Ps. 90:17), "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it."

As a mother with four small children, the writer found it increasingly difficult to find time to develop her ability as a water-colorist. A Christian Science practitioner pointed out to her, however, that grace developed in an artist's consciousness was at the same time establishing grace and control for her pictures, even though a brush had not touched the paper, and that when work could be resumed, more mastery would be expressed. This approach to art relieved a tense desire to spend more time with its physical properties and turned her to keeping the home harmonious and to developing Godlike qualities of thought.

She saw that her true work was to express God and that whatever work she was doing, whether it was caring for the children, cleaning the house, or painting a picture, she could be demonstrating grace, which is defined in part by a dictionary as kindness, mercy, virtue, and a sense of right. As she stopped dividing the day's work into that which was necessary and that which was enjoyable and gained a true sense of work as the gracious expression of Life, Truth, and Love, she experienced peace and progress in all she did. And she had tangible evidence of grace with its accompanying self-control in the medium of water color.

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