An Artist or A Writer

By C. LaRene Hall



While on vacation I visited the Precious Moment Chapel in Carthage, Missouri. This was my third trip to see this magnificent chapel. Samuel J. Butcher, designed and constructed it so he could share the joy of his faith with the world as they find peace, hope and promises viewing beautiful art that he created of well known and loved stories from the Bible. The east side of the Chapel has stain-glass windows that depict the Bible’s Old Testament stories; and on the west is stories from the New Testament. In the Chapel is a mural “Hallelujah Square” where he has painted the pictures of real children whose lives ended too soon. In the center of the picture is the Savior, Jesus Christ, surrounded by children. Every time I go this picture has grown because this amazing man returns every few years to paint more children into the picture. I guess I should tell you all the children are angels.

As I toured the museum I realized how much I and many of you are like this great man, Samuel Butcher. He once made some of his drawings on a napkin. I can’t count the number of times I’ve written on a napkin (or other things) because an idea hit me and I didn’t want to lose the thought. How many different types of things have you written on?

Included in the museum were pictures of him balancing between scaffolding while he drew angels on the ceiling. Don’t we as writers also do some crazy things so we can get our message to our readers? There really isn’t a lot of difference between an artist and a writer. We both do what we have to do to give our readers what they are looking for.