Comfort in a drainspout

On our way home from Shaw yesterday we took a small detour -- despite our daughter's protests -- to see what was going on in the shipyard at the end of Commercial Avenue. I got some more lovely rusty boat shots, and, on the way out, this photo of a clever downspout on the side of a warehouse.

I always wonder when I see art in such unexpected places. Whose idea was it to put it there? Who paid for it? Why there? Why not someplace more public, where more people could see and appreciate the creativity and whimsicality of it?

But that's my brain speaking. My soul has a different response altogether: a sort of soaring feeling of recognition. Not the kind of recognition you get when you pass by a mirror and catch sight of yourself reflected there, or, in the course of a conversation, when you find illuminations in the self-truths reflected in another's thoughts and feelings.

This recognition goes beyond the self-referential to some other plane, and rejoices in the brilliance of the creative spirit, finding hope and encouragement in the discovery that there can -- in a world where everything inventable seems to have already been invented -- still be that spark of genius and originality, and that it can flourish in the oddest of places.

It feels like a reminder of that sense that led me to faith in the first place, that there is Something beyond me that is wiser and more wonderful and more creative than I could ever be -- and I take great comfort from that.