The Best I Can Do

 

In the Sunday Chat column of The Catholic Times, an artist hired to help remodel a church shares with readers what he learned from the experience.

While working as an artist, I have supervised the construction of five Catholic churches. This is because I wanted to share my experience of visiting 180 churches in two dioceses over three years and analyzing their architectural features to design the covers of the parish bulletins for the Busan and Masan dioceses. When word got out that I was doing something out of the blue, my artistic colleagues joked that I couldn't make a living from my artistic talents alone. 

They admired Michelangelo and Gaudí but were puzzled to see me working on an architectural site. Also, when I wrote a short poem that was published in a literary magazine, they told me to dig a well somewhere, please. They said it was for my own good, but they were trying to keep me in the same old box. In any case, the change in my activities was spurred by my own need to express myself.

Three years ago, I was at the church remodeling site in the Diocese of Busan. The church was designed by a famous architect in Seoul and had a very high floor. The ceiling structure, which was 15 meters high from the floor, was dilapidated and needed repair. Many contractors had visited the site and given up, so I was contacted by chance. Knowing the pastor's concerns, I eventually took on the project and had to find various breakthroughs that differed from the existing specifications due to the low budget.

Explaining the solution to the pastoral council and the building committee and getting them to understand the construction process was complicated because they didn't trust anything other than traditional methods for such a challenging project. It was a replay of their past history, where they had no choice but to oppose the project, even if it meant that the project would not proceed, to avoid being held accountable for the wrong decision.

This statement silenced the room for a moment, but it didn't change the stubbornness of the person who opposed it from the beginning. I had to say something. “Brother, have you ever lived this day before?  How did you walk out of your front door today since you have not lived this day before?” The meeting ended, and the next day I was appointed general manager of the project. I think the words I uttered that day were the wisest words I have ever spoken.

When it comes to the statement "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's," the believer is faced with a stark choice. The "best" and "best I can do" are different. The "best" is an absolute value, while the "best I can do" is relative. The world seeks the best, and God desires the best we can do. How humble is the best that finite human beings can achieve, and how beautiful is the best activity combined with a place in life to one who looks to God!