Beauty that Leads to Awe

You know that experience of taking in some natural wonder—a clear mountain lake framed by snow-peaked mountains, or a rainbow in the midst of a rushing waterfall—and then taking a deep breath as if you can inhale the wonder you are seeing as you feel wonderfully small and delighted to be a spectator on our earth?  Imagine that feeling.  And then multiply it by the way in which another human being has the power to touch us in a totally different, but equally powerful, way; through up-close-and-personal, vulnerable, intimacy that is so intensely connective and human.  That is what I experienced today when I met Fabian Debora.

Fabian at work in his studio

Fabian is a sort of artist-in-residence at Homeboy Industries.  On the one hand, he’s another one of the hundreds of Homeboy employees who have made the choice out of gang life, out of drug addiction, and into fatherhood, into sobriety, into dignity.  On the other hand, he is a unique marvel.  I met Fabian this morning, on my first day of volunteering at Homeboy Industries for the next month with a team of college students.

After following him in his car through the crazy traffic of the downtown LA garment and wholesale district, we followed him up to the second story of his downtown LA second story art studio.  Not only are his art pieces—hundreds of them, some of them ten feet by ten feet—stacked up against the walls everywhere, but the space is profoundly intimate, filled with drawings by the students he his apprenticing, sketches by his daughters, and a corner that is his altar of precious memories and mementos.

His art is beautiful.  It is powerful.  Some of his pieces feel like they are filled with layers and layers of meaning and stories and emotions that are hidden behind the canvas ready to burst out into expression.  And when Fabian told us his story, they did.

One of my favorite pieces.

From the pains of catching his father shooting up heroin in a park yard bathroom as a young child to when he was beaten up by a gang at age twelve and went to his cousin that night to join the gang and be protected, Fabian’s story is moving.  And when you consider the sensitivity of his artist’s heart, and project that onto a child, it becomes heart-wrenching.  I was most moved by his attempted suicide while high on methamphetamine, the destructive voices in his head, and his experience of literal divine intervention that saved his life.

As he told his story I beheld a beauty which exceeded that of that mountain lake.  It exceeded that of any painting I’ve ever seen.  It was the beauty of a human life, in all of its glory, being rescued, redeemed, cherished.  It had fallen into the pit of despair…and then had been picked back up, washed, cleaned, and was living and thriving and glowing before my very eyes. 

Awe is not an emotion I regularly feel.  But I felt it today.  In the presence of Fabian.  I sat in awe.  And I marveled.  I worshipped.  I beheld raw beauty and goodness.

Today I was given a gift.

And thankfully, I can give you a little taste of that gift through this short film made about Fabian’s art and his life found here:  http://vimeo.com/93161888. 

I hope you can stand in awe as I am today.