On Retreat

I’ve just spent the last night and most of today at a Retreat organised by a couple of the leaders from my church. It was a fairly quiet affair, with only nine participants, but it was well worth going to. I used to do fairly regular retreats just on my own, and need to keep doing more. There’s nothing quite like a day away from the norm, especially if it takes place at some beautiful spot - even if it’s near a beach. (I usually try and make sure my retreats are.)
Anyway, I took with me an old notebook which had Retreat Vision on the cover, and thought I’d fill up some of the blank pages. Turned out that the book had been begun in 1997, and it was interesting reading back through some of the notes I’d made in those long-ago retreat times.
But what I want to mention here now is that there are a couple of quotes from books in the notes, and one of these comes from a book on Colin McCahon that I was reading at the time.
The book’s title is Colin McCahon Artist, by Gordon Brown, and in chapter 4, page 28, Toss Woollaston, (the poster at the side relates to him), another famous NZ artist is quoted as writing: The Spirit that creates Nature and Art is God…an artist must lose his dependence on his optical vision in order to find his spiritual vision, and then paint his picture, carve his sculpture, and it will be authentic art.
I made a note at the time that the whole chapter has great relevance to ‘Christian’ art. I must check the book out again!