http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:KetsiaLessard&section=today deviantART RSS for by:KetsiaLessard en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:03:57 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/28871629/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/28871629/ Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:11:10 PST The reason I've had to ponder on this is because I recently met a woman who has inspired me for years. I painted her portrait last summer (I work from photographs so she only saw the result when she received the print I sent to her), and we happened to talk a bit about it. At some point she exclaimed: "I was thinking: 'Why did she paint me? Why?'" And I could tell she was both puzzled and moved by it. I was also moved to see her reaction and never found the words to explain it to her. I proceeded to write her a letter afterwards where I tried my best to explain.

Thanks to C. S. Lewis and his autobiography Surprised by Joy I am starting to see how I've created an ideal parallel world within myself because of how faulty the actual world is. As a Christian, I understand this world as a "fallen world." The actual and the imaginary ideal world coexist in my life, but sometimes, a bridge is created when inspiration strikes: an element of the physical world is revealing itself as ideal. Hope fills me and makes me think the real world isn't so hostile after all. Imagine the bliss. Since this bridge is usually created by a human being, I can become very idolatrous of that person at times.
As a Christian, I have struggled so about this! Because my conscience was step dancing around like crazy, but also because the relationships created with these people can easily become unhealthy and even disastrous.

I also eventually come to find faults in the people I first thought ideal and God always opens my eyes to his grace through this: God loves us even as sinners. Through this he's taught me to love the Bridge people as they are, and see them as my fellow human beings, not like some gods walking on the face of the earth.

I read The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis, and thought this passage particularly relevant in regards to this:

We were made for God. Only by being a manifestation of his beauty, loving-kindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish an no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do. (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves- Charity)

Yes, it is God's face I am seeking in these people, and I must learn to worship him in spirit and in truth. I so wish I could "feel" love for God. Not just in faith and obedience, but with my feelings as well, just like I love the people who inspire me. How easy it is to love when you can see a face. Will I have to wait to see God's face to feel real love for him?
I also realize I have to accept the actual world as it is and face it armed with the grace of God and the shield of faith.

]]> ~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/27852043/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/27852043/ Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:21:14 PDT When I am disppointed by my role models, my whole world is shaken. I might choose them poorly or my idealization blinds me and eventually makes it unhealthy, but I feel like I need to think there are human beings I can look up to on this earth. Otherwise, the ugliness of the fallen world simply becomes overwhelming.
I have come to understand grace through it all, forgiving and faithful love in spite of disappointment, but I feel the next step is faith. Trusting and waiting patiently on God to provide inspiration, motivation and the right challenges.

]]> ~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/25314882/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/25314882/ Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:19:00 PDT
When I took the time to ponder on why this random girl had startled me so, I noticed that Melissa physically resembled many people I had met or seen in my life, friends or individuals who had left a lasting impression on me, some of them linked to the process of understanding Joan of Arc or finding a model to portray her. I also noticed Melissa seemed to serve God with an honest, devoted heart, in spite of stupid man-made rules, submitting to these with a good attitude, which is a trait I truly admire in young Christians because I had a hard time with this myself as a youth. There was something very genuine and pure about her faith (something I also aspire to), and all of these things coupled together generated inspiration and led to two paintings and a drawing, and great fellowship with this young missionary who happens to be the most cooperative model I’ve ever had a chance to work with.

As I look back to old muses, I see they have meant something to me in the same way, unconsciously reminding me of people from my childhood, people that have done something important for me, people I have admired, but mostly people who have made me a better person, people who have set an example by the way they were, becoming ultimate role models in a context where I desperately needed one. These muses appeared to me as human incarnations of spiritual concepts and beauty ideals (both inner and natural outer beauty) that had been piled up in my head for years but now manifested themselves in a harmonious form that led me to grasp the tail of universal truth. I now realise I need these people to motivate me to paint or write. Without them, my creativity withers away.

I still don't understand how I can know them from just getting a glimpse of their faces and how my interpretation can turn out to be so accurate about what they are like inside, but I suppose this will probably remain a mystery to me. I believe God simply knows who I need to meet and leads me to the right people in His time.

So thanks to all of you who have incarnated these ideals for me even if you didn't do it on purpose: Anne, Liane, Chantal, Bonny Jean, Christian, Daniel, little Sara, Laurence, Asa and Melissa. You all mean a lot to me.

]]> ~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/19863784/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/19863784/ Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:26:56 PDT When we arrived, we put several questions to Joan, and, among other questions, Master Jean Lombard asked her why she was come and that the King wanted to know what had impelled her to come to him. And she answered boldly and gravely that while she was guarding the beasts, a voice had manifested itself to her which told her that God had great pity on the people of France and that she, Joan, must go to France."
-Brother Séguin Séguin, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Poitiers University

Joan of Arc has fascinated me as a model of spiritual devotion and steadfastness since I saw Christian Duguay's Joan of Arc in 1999. Her story left such an impression on me that I would weep every time I'd watch the film. I later became quite concerned and interested in Christian martyrs because of this. I often heard scientific or psychological rationalizations of the Maid's "voices" as schizophrenia or some other mental illness, but after reading the very well documented Joan: the Mysterious Life of a Heretic who became a Saint, by Donald Spoto and Régine Pernoud's Jeanne d’Arc par elle-même et par ses témoins, I simply couldn't doubt the authenticity of Joan's experiences anymore; atheistic rationalizations were plain silly and cynical. The Maid was a profound lover of God. She had a relationship with Him that was quite rare in the Dark Ages, with a free mind about it. She stood up to the Inquisitors and declared: "I am the servant of all; but Sire God first served."

I agree with those who see her as a beacon of the Reformation, because of this resolution of having God's will done, not men's: "In the Lord's books there is more than in yours," says the Maid to the Catholic clergy. I am very moved by the way she died, crying out to Jesus until the flames engulfed her.

I find amazing how her life story echoes the lives of biblical characters and prophets such as Moses, Gideon, Jeremiah and even Jesus himself. "And me, I answered it that I was a poor girl who knew not how to ride nor lead in war," said Joan about her call. Most of the prophets didn't think they were fit for the task, and answered the same. Also, the assurance she had in her God reminds us of Elijah and Elisha as she speaks to the Bastard of Orleans: "In God's name, the counsel of the Lord your God is wiser and safer than yours. You thought to deceive me and it is yourself above all whom you deceive, for I bring better succour that has reached you from any soldier or any city: it is succour from the King of Heaven." Her most unfair trial and cruel death certainly resemble that of Jesus who was crucified even though he was a Saviour and an innocent. If Joan of Arc was mentally ill, I suppose we have to assume most Bible figures were insane as well.

]]> ~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/18937649/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/18937649/ Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:19:33 PDT I was asked to partake in a Christian Art Camp held at Terrebonne-Mascouche Baptist Church on June 13 and 14. The Word of Life event included teachings and workshops and wrapped up with a gala concert on Saturday evening. My part in the concert was to read an excerpt from a novel I had written, along with some illustrations cast on a screen behind me.
As I sat waiting for my turn to come, I felt great heaviness and fatigue. I had been very busy lately and was completely drained. Considering the pressure of going up on stage made me think: "Oh, I really don't feel like going through this."
A verse from Colossians suddenly sprang up into my mind: And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. (Colossians 3:23). The Holy Spirit's still small voice uttered to me: "Do it for me. Don't worry about the crowd."
"Fine, Lord," I replied. "But I have no strength. You'll have to do it through me."

So I walked up to the stage and adjusted the microphone. I began reading and felt very little stress because I was so tired and could barely see the people behind the spotlights. The excerpt I read was taken from my story Léa Fallon ou les chrétiens de l’ère post-chrétienne and described a vision the character has after a night of powerful intercession. As Leah prays and begs for forgiveness, she begins to weep at the ugliness of sin and sees herself proceeding along hundreds of burdened souls gathering around a precipice. Demons are casting the sinners into the pit, and so I read the sentence "Some of the shackled folk headed straight to the precipice and jumped…" –and what a strange emotion! My guts were suddenly shaken with sobs, I really had to refrain myself from crying aloud. All of those lost souls' lot became so sad and so real to me. The very text I had written touched my heart in a way it never had before.
It took me a while to realise what was actually taking place in me. God was reading through me. He was answering my prayer. But He was so heartbroken at the thought of those too many souls heading towards perdition that His Spirit within me wept sore.

I managed to finish reading without showing tears, but when I went back to my seat, I could not help letting some out. The music was so beautiful; my soul was flying and crying at the same time. I was free from myself a moment. The emotion was noticeable, because Lysanne Picard, the artist sitting besides me asked: "Are you all right?"

At intermission I understood that the Holy Spirit had not only read through me; He had moved through the audience and opened many spiritual eyes. The people would come to me and tell me what they had felt and found, what each element had meant to them. Oh, the "manifold wisdom of God!" This is what it can be like to be a feeble instrument in God's almighty hands. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (II Corinthians 12:10)

]]> ~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/18332666/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/18332666/ Thu, 15 May 2008 07:51:24 PDT He had given me a hint before, but we are "forgetful hearers," aren't we ?
Last fall, a friend I care a lot about unintentionally did something that made me question our very friendship. I wept alone about it and started the whole process I often go through: "You have fallen into idolatry; God will take this person away from your life to give you a good lesson and teach you to love Him only."
When this happens, I start to make up my mind about letting the relationship go and put up with loneliness once more.
But that event was different. I was praying to God and asking how my friend could do something like this while I loved her so much. Then the Holy Spirit's voice rang into my heart: "Do you love her ? What is love ?" Then, my mind immediately switched to the 1 Corinthians 13 description of Agape:

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Was I ever wrong and pretentious to claim I loved my friend. I didn't and I was selfish about it.

Then similar things happened again lately, and God brought me back to it through a most unlikely book about occultism. In it, the author denounced the different types of idolatry, and among them Eros, excessive conditional love for a person, as opposed to agape love, godly unconditional love.
God wasn't asking me to give up a friendship; he wanted to teach me to love unconditionally; to stop feeling sorry for myself and to start forgiving and keep on loving. Gracious Lord !

]]> ~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/18310629/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/18310629/ Tue, 13 May 2008 18:41:15 PDT Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John 12:24). Reverend Sipley (the speaker) explained how we have to die to ourselves and live for God and others to be cured from loneliness. Loneliness happens when we are self-centered. I agree, but I feel like my loneliness is of another sort.

The moments I feel the loneliest are when I've met someone with whom I feel I could have a rare kind of fellowship, someone I look up to and wish I could befriend the way Jonathan befriended David. This person disappoints me, ignores me, doesn't keep her word about something meaningful or is simply taken away from my life. I fall from my cloud, thinking this kind of fellowship is the rarest thing on earth. I quickly start to wonder what is wrong with me.

The most hurtful element is when I have the impression that God allows this to happen so I won't fall into some kind of role model idolatry. At the same time, I think he has been showing me grace through it all. Isn't he disappointed with us all the time while he loves us and has such high hopes and plans for our lives? But then I always fall on my knees and remind God that he said: "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." (Genesis 2:18).

Who is this help meet for me? When will I find it?
Then something else comes to me: "Be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrew 13:5)
I have a lot of good friends. Last weekend, I have had many occasions to spend time with them and found that it made me feel better. I went to a Starfield concert on Sunday, and the sermon was about the fact that wonderful people make horrible Gods. I don't need Jesus plus this or that, I only need Jesus. "And ye are complete in him." (Colossians 2:10)
But God is Spirit, and I am stuck in this earthly body for now. I need fellowship with human beings and I'm sure God understands this. I'll keep praying about this, because I definitely need to know what is up with this.

]]> ~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/15000338/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/15000338/ Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:08:59 PDT
Life went back to normal, and I prepared for the high season. I work in a garden center; spring and summer are wild times for us. May came around the corner, perennials and annuals filled the backyard and cash registers were set up in our department. A phlegmatic girl by the name of Laurence Labonté (Labonté literally means "the goodness" in French) was assigned to that cash, and I would see her regularly in the garden center. This was a very agreeable surprise to me because I had noticed this girl from the very first time she had been hired but never got around to speak to her since we worked in different departments. I now had plenty of occasions to get to know her, and the more I observed and listened to her, the more my heart was won by her integrity. Laurence Labonté is one of the most upright human beings I have met in my life. So humble. So devoid of vanity. Only yielding to the essential things of life. This finding brought much joy to my life, but much bewilderment as well. I soon started wondering what philosophical or spiritual views motivated Laurence to be the way she was; it seemed obvious to me that such an attitude towards life required much reflection, spiritual maturation and painful experience. I had some occasions to speak of theology and philosophy in front of her, but was puzzled at how clueless she was about it all. Laurence was not alert spiritually. She was very intelligent and righteous in her actions and words, but wouldn't have really known what to say if asked what her convictions were. She had a completely simple and innocent way about it.

I prayed a lot for Laurence and about what it was that God wanted to show me through her. Every instant spent in her company revealed the evil in my heart, and I was daily on my knees seeking sanctification. There I was, a fervent Protestant who read the Bible everyday, confronted to a Catholic who didn't know much theology but lived according to the Gospel in a way I had never seen before. "God must love her so much," was my constant thought. Then it hit me. "Lord, make me love the things you love so I won’t be disappointed with vain things." Laurence was God's very tangible answer to my prayer. I wept so much that I think I understood God's very love for this humble girl and those of her kind. During one of my daily devotions, I was strangely inclined to flip to the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) and found an unexpected description of Laurence:


Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5: 3)

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5: 5)

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5: 6)

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (Matthew 5: 8)


I soon felt the urge to create something artistic out of Laurence, and found the courage to ask her if I could paint her portrait. This was a grand moment for me. For ten long seconds, Laurence's eyes went all round and bright, and a hesitant smile appeared on her face. I got the strange impression she'd stepped outside of herself. It felt very awkward at first, but as I thought about it afterwards, I guessed my request had had the effect I wished it to have: making Laurence feel appreciated and important.
The ten seconds passed and Laurence went back to her ordinary way. She didn't answer, but sort of nodded as to say, "I don't mind." I showed her my paintings and photographs to let her see what my art looked like, and she agreed.

So here are five paintings featuring Laurence Labonté illustrating the Beatitudes:


The Poor in spirit

Those who mourn

~KetsiaLessard http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/13472475/ http://KetsiaLessard.deviantart.com/journal/13472475/ Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:38:00 PDT
Is there such a thing as love in friendship? Intensity and affection? If there is a friendship that has been intriguing me all my life, it is that of Jonathan and David in the Old Testament:
"And it came to pass, when [David] had made an end of speaking unto Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." (1 Samuel 18: 1)
That strangely sounds like love at first sight. But it is a soulful bond. The friendship between Jonathan and David in the Bible is a puzzling thing because this post-modern society would call it homosexuality. But the Bible is clearly opposed to such a thing. So what is it then?

"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle ! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." (2 Samuel 1: 25, 26)

"Passing the love of women" is the expression used by David to describe his friendship with the deceased Jonathan. David was the man according to God’s heart. We find something quite mysterious here. Friendship could be something greater and deeper than marriage.

I have sometimes experienced deep affection for certain friends that did make me feel like my soul was knit with theirs. Like I belonged with them. Soon after, the problem of sex would come to my mind because my society always suspects sexual motives in all human relationships. As if all bonds should inevitably lead to sex. Well, I want to declare it doesn’t have to be this, and I find quite sad that true, profound friendship is something my culture does not know.

"Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved." (John 13: 23)

John was the disciple whom Jesus loved. And affection was involved! Physical affection that is. Now, am I the only one who has ever experienced irritation about this? About the way saintly affection is not respected for what it is, and even ignored as something that cannot exist? And how would it ever be possible to change mentalities concerning this?
I have an impression that immorality would take a heavy blow if we could change the way people perceive friendship.

]]> ~KetsiaLessard