The Brayford Pool

Check out this painting... or check it out here.

The painting is called "The Brayford Pool And Lincoln Cathedral"
(Check out a live webcam picture of the Lincoln Cathedral, here.)
It was painted by James Wilson Carmichael, born on January 9th 1800 in Newcastle, England. He was the son of a ship's carpenter and was apprenticed to a ship builder.
Dad wanted him to build ships, there was money in that. But he didn't want to.
I'm not sure how the argument went, it's lived out hundreds of times in hundreds of parent/child conversations.
The child didn't want to do what the parent had in mind for him to do. Something had to give. Something had to change. I guess dad changed, or died bitter.
James had been apprenticed to a firm of shipbuilders but in 1823 he became an artist.
He may have been a pupil of the landscape artist Thomas Miles Richardson senior, who was a friend and had a studio adjoining Carmichael's in Blackett Street, Newcastle where he set up in 1823. (23 years old)
Ships became his prime interest. And he got good at painting.
In 1838 he published a set of engravings entitled Views of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway.
He exhibited at the Royal Academy and at the British Institution.
In 1855 the Illustrated London News employed him as their artist in the field in the Baltic theatre of the Crimean War and the journal of his trip still survives.
In 1858 he painted this painting linked to above.
He married and in 1862 the death of his son affected him so deeply that he never exhibited again. The loss of his son effected him profoundly. Maybe he wanted to give his son the open door that his own father hadn't given him, maybe he understood his own father better once he became a dad. Whatever happened, it broke him deeply.
He retired to Scarborough where he gave up painting in 1865 and died on May 2nd 1868.
Carmichael wrote two well recieved books on painting; The Art of Marine Painting in Water Colours (1859) and The Art of Marine Painting in Oil Colours (1864).
Change can be a tricky thing. How do I react when someone comes up to me and wants to change what I'm thinking is a great idea? Especially someone close to me.
Change isn't easy, it rarely is. Sometimes it works out in a wonderful "Carmichael" type way, and other times it ends up in an utter failure.
But, if we didn't have people challenging the way we think and plan and do things, we wouldn't have...
the wonderful paintings that the Carmichaels out there have painted, or beautiful music!
We wouldn't have beautiful church buildings or the songs to sing in them.
We wouldn't have electricity or lights or cars or freezers or Canada or indoor plumbing or,
We wouldn't have salvation.
As Max Lucado said, "God loves you just the way you are, but refuses to leave you that way."
God wants to change us, to make us look like him, act like him, and be like him.
To "Conform us to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ" is His plan.
Change isn't easy, but it IS good, and it IS a part of LIFE, and it Is a part of knowing and walking with God.
"Ok Lord, teach me how to paint..."