Disney without Erasers

There’s a drawing class you can take if you visit Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World. The class is called the Animation Academy.  The class is offered every 30 minutes and you get to learn how to draw a character with an actual Disney artist.

That is a pretty cool opportunity! Kind of…

Walt Disney World brings about every emotion in people from ecstatic to willing to cuss their grandmother. I happen to love Disney World, but I hate the Animation Academy.  (But no, I haven’t cussed my Mamaw Ball or Ma Higgins...yet.)

But I have two problems with this particular attraction:

1)   I hate to draw.

It didn’t take me long to learn that my creativity wouldn’t be played out by drawing or painting. As a kid, I would get so frustrated trying to draw.  I knew what I wanted to draw. I knew how to move my wrist and fingers. I just couldn’t get the two on the same page. So my drawings ended up in the wastebasket and me crying like a little girl.

2)   My daughters love to draw.

It’s in their DNA. Their mother is an artist. Their grandfather was the Kentucky Artist of the Year a few times. Since my daughters were three years old, they could bring you a picture and you knew exactly what it was. Every time we go to WDW, they want to take this stinking class.

I tried it once. I failed. So now I take it as an opportunity to take a 20-minute nap while they have the time of their life. (Once I fell asleep and started to snore. Lacey was mortified. I felt pride that I stuck it to the artistic people in the class.)

There is a reason I’ve tried the class only once.

They don’t give you an eraser for your mistakes.

That’s crazy, right?

Disney, who makes like a gazillion dollars every three minutes, can’t afford erasers for the class. (Actually, it has more to do with time and art than it does with money.) But regardless, drawing without an eraser brings me closer to total melt down than anything else in the world.

How do you draw without an eraser?

You draw light lines and darken the ones that look good later. Some of the lines are called “guidelines”. My wife and two young daughters get this, but it escapes me.

I like the eraser too much. I teach elementary students, I understand the power and the importance of an eraser. The eraser forgives mistakes that are made and you are able to move on and forget. No one even knows that they were there. Perhaps I would take the class, if they provided me with a little forgiveness.

So I don’t even try knowing that failure is inevitable. I don’t enjoy the happiness and pride that comes from my drawing like my girls do. Without the eraser, there is no point.

Unfortunately, Disney is on to something here.

Life doesn’t come with an eraser. As a Christian, you make mistakes that are left on the page all the time. Sure God forgives your sins when you ask Him. He doesn’t see those mistakes left on the page. He only sees the lines that have been darkened to perfection.

However, everyone else who looks at you sees the mistakes. They remember, you remember, and you know it. So what do you do?

You put the pencil down. You take a nap when you should be drawing. You start operating out of fear.

Since perfection can’t be attained, you quit trying. You don’t want to be called the “H” word. People know your sins and you know that you will sin again. You feel like you’ve lost your right to speak the truth. You don’t want people to accuse you of being a hypocrite and you don’t want to slip up and be one. So you put your pencil down throughout the week only to pick it back up on Sunday mornings or when you are in a safe, comfortable place.

But God calls you to so much more than that.

He calls you to finish the drawing with mistakes and all. That’s part of the beauty of His grace. He calls us to work with Him even when we don’t deserve it.

He will darken the lines later.    

What do you think?