This morning, my family rose up early and went forty minutes north to Santa Barbara for the day. There’s a lovely artwalk on the beach there where anyone can find a kaleidoscope of characters. That’s definitely what we found.

We met a young woman, paralyzed on one side, who asked for my assistance in lighting her cigarette in the wind. I’ve never lit a cigarette in my life until today. I stopped on the pier and spoke with a man named Steve who learned to make beautiful flowers out of palm fronds. I asked him where he learned to do that, and he told me that he saw a guy doing it once, and learned it from him. He told me that palm fronds are incredibly strong. I left him a couple of bucks and thanked him for the conversation. We walked past a protest for peace where the group had placed a cross in the sand for every life lost in the war in Iraq. Looking at the sea of crosses, I couldn’t help wiping a couple of tears away. We passed a young man with a backpack who told us that we were all Jesus and that we needed to know that. I don’t know, but I think that Jesus must’ve been bursting out of him today. Yes, it was an interesting day at the beach, but the most interesting person was the last one we encountered.

We stopped at his booth because he was a caricature artist, and it’s always fun to see what they do with their subjects. We decided to get our son’s portrait done, and so we watched several people in line ahead of us getting their pictures drawn. Each person took the hot seat in eager anticipation. Their first reaction to sitting there was to brandish a huge smile at the realization that they would be watched for at least the next ten minutes. All the world’s a stage, and Andy Warhol was proved right once again.

The first thing the artist did was ask them their name and then, like a thousand monarch butterflies, his questions would begin to take flight. Where do you live? How long are you visiting? What do you like to do? All questions came in a calm, quiet way that seemed safe. Always within one or two questions, the eyes would widen and the stories would come flowing out like a gusher in an oilfield. Stories about hiking, hunting, dogs, and loved ones. Children in college, parents at home, places visited, places missed. For ten minutes, their lives were freed from the bondage of their memories by the liberating questions of a good listener.

There was no clock ticking at this beachside makeshift gazebo. Time stood still when one was in the spotlight. Then, the most magical moment of all arrived. The moment that the artist himself surely must love the most. The moment when he lifts his pen from the page, and turns his finished work to face his subjects. A beam, a flash of lightning strikes from within the eyes, and he receives his reward even as they receive theirs. It’s a symbiotic relationship that allows this drama to unfold before our eyes.

I left the house this morning hoping to be open to others and was able to take lessons from a real professional. This master of intentionality did more than draw a picture. He painted the blueprint of a personality boiling it down to its very core. When he finished drawing my son, complete with a picture of our dog Scout, I realized that he had a very good picture of what he was all about. He drew a two-dimensional image, but it was a three-dimensional experience. I wondered how many more dimensions could be unraveled if he had been there longer than ten minutes.