I Express Myself Through Writing
[image deleted]A print of My Bunkie by Schreyvogel, hangs in the anteroom of the office where I work; which I do not like. The scene is a rescue action. One of the riders has apparently been shot and the three men are galloping in to pick him up. In the foreground, the stranded soldier is being swept up onto the back of the horse of one of his mates (his "bunkie'), while the other two are providing rifle cover.
I get distracted by it. Everytime I see it …as if it's nudging me to say something about it. I react silently saying, "I don't like you! I don't want to say something about you!" I often see the subject in my mind, tho. Again, I don't like it. I don't have an eye for such an artwork…
Yet, I found myself saying, [i]You cannot be the man who rescues, until you are the man without a horse, the man who needs rescuing.[/i]
It's what it was telling me!…True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant, our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really in and of yourself, what will you need anyone else for?
Only when we enter our wound will we discover our true glory because the wound was given in the place of true strength, as an effort to take us out. Until you go there you are still posing, offering something more shallow and insubstantial. It is out of brokenness that we discover what you have to offer.
Wounded by life myself, I learned that when we begin to offer not merely our gifts but our true selves because we have come to know how it feels to hit rock bottom yet hang on to nothing but our own strength, and we have learned to believe in ourselves because nobody else believed, that is when we become powerful. And we finally realize that it is by giving a bit of ourselves and the gifts we've used to hide behind, that we feel empowered. That is when we are ready for battle. And that's how I understood the message of the painting.
Personally, I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered. I don't let a man get close who hasn't faced his wound. Posers - they are not the kind of man you would call when life is collapsing around you… I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road of a broken soldier.
I get distracted by it. Everytime I see it …as if it's nudging me to say something about it. I react silently saying, "I don't like you! I don't want to say something about you!" I often see the subject in my mind, tho. Again, I don't like it. I don't have an eye for such an artwork…
Yet, I found myself saying, [i]You cannot be the man who rescues, until you are the man without a horse, the man who needs rescuing.[/i]
It's what it was telling me!…True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant, our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really in and of yourself, what will you need anyone else for?
Only when we enter our wound will we discover our true glory because the wound was given in the place of true strength, as an effort to take us out. Until you go there you are still posing, offering something more shallow and insubstantial. It is out of brokenness that we discover what you have to offer.
Wounded by life myself, I learned that when we begin to offer not merely our gifts but our true selves because we have come to know how it feels to hit rock bottom yet hang on to nothing but our own strength, and we have learned to believe in ourselves because nobody else believed, that is when we become powerful. And we finally realize that it is by giving a bit of ourselves and the gifts we've used to hide behind, that we feel empowered. That is when we are ready for battle. And that's how I understood the message of the painting.
Personally, I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered. I don't let a man get close who hasn't faced his wound. Posers - they are not the kind of man you would call when life is collapsing around you… I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road of a broken soldier.