I've been doing a lot of thinking on how inspiration strikes lately. It usually emerges from a person in my case, and I dared to investigate the phenomenon last time it happened big time, which was when I met my Joan of Arc model Melissa Dennison. I was afraid such analysis would kill the magic out of it, but on the contrary, it helped me see the wonder and complexity of it and how deeply rooted in someone's life experiences it can be. In this case, I was standing near the piano at church on Sunday morning preparing for worship (I am a church musician), and this Word of Life Bible Institute student group walked in. I spotted Melissa in the crowd (I had never seen her before) and kept my eyes on her. I observed her the whole service through, and even though I never had an occasion to speak to her, inspiration wouldn’t let go. I knew I had found the Joan of Arc model I had been seeking for a good ten years. I eventually got in touch with her through a common Christian friend and found she was very much like Joan of Arc inside.

When I took the time to ponder on why this random girl had startled me so, I noticed that Melissa physically resembled many people I had met or seen in my life, friends or individuals who had left a lasting impression on me, some of them linked to the process of understanding Joan of Arc or finding a model to portray her. I also noticed Melissa seemed to serve God with an honest, devoted heart, in spite of stupid man-made rules, submitting to these with a good attitude, which is a trait I truly admire in young Christians because I had a hard time with this myself as a youth. There was something very genuine and pure about her faith (something I also aspire to), and all of these things coupled together generated inspiration and led to two paintings and a drawing, and great fellowship with this young missionary who happens to be the most cooperative model I’ve ever had a chance to work with.

As I look back to old muses, I see they have meant something to me in the same way, unconsciously reminding me of people from my childhood, people that have done something important for me, people I have admired, but mostly people who have made me a better person, people who have set an example by the way they were, becoming ultimate role models in a context where I desperately needed one. These muses appeared to me as human incarnations of spiritual concepts and beauty ideals (both inner and natural outer beauty) that had been piled up in my head for years but now manifested themselves in a harmonious form that led me to grasp the tail of universal truth. I now realise I need these people to motivate me to paint or write. Without them, my creativity withers away.

I still don't understand how I can know them from just getting a glimpse of their faces and how my interpretation can turn out to be so accurate about what they are like inside, but I suppose this will probably remain a mystery to me. I believe God simply knows who I need to meet and leads me to the right people in His time.

So thanks to all of you who have incarnated these ideals for me even if you didn't do it on purpose: Anne, Liane, Chantal, Bonny Jean, Christian, Daniel, little Sara, Laurence, Asa and Melissa. You all mean a lot to me.