Painting as a Blanket Over the Mystery

I never thought the road manager for the band AC/DC would be someone who gave me one of the clearest spiritual insights I’ve heard in a long time, but here we are. His name was Barry Taylor, and he said, “God is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape.”

That sentence stuck with me immediately. Something clicked in my brain and rang true for me about the mystery of God. The idea of God is abstract. The idea of God inside of us is even more abstract. So of course we try to give it some kind of shape. Not to reduce it, but to be able to relate to it at all.

I don’t think of the blanket as hiding anything. I think of it as revealing something that otherwise has no edges.

I keep thinking about old cartoons. The ones where there’s an invisible character and you can’t see anything at all until water splashes on them, or fabric gets thrown over them, and suddenly you can see movement. You don’t know exactly what it is, but you can see where it’s standing, how it’s shifting, where it presses into the world.

That’s what the blanket does.

It doesn’t explain the invisible thing. It gives it a way to show itself.

That’s where painting started to click for me as my version of that blanket.

When I paint, it feels like a release. Things come through me in a way that isn’t conscious thought. I’m not planning or narrating or analyzing. I’m able to shut out the parts of my brain that want certainty and answers and clarity. All of that disappears. I think I’m in a meditative state, letting go of what’s happening in my life and also letting go of controlling the painting itself.

There’s a skeptic part of me that’s always there. Sometimes I’m the skeptic to myself. I’ll say, “You don’t have to make everything a God thing.” Or, “This is just your nervous system letting out energy.” Or, “This is just your brain and body needing a release.”

And I actually think that voice has been important. It kept me grounded for a long time.

But what started to fall apart for me is the idea that those things are separate. If all consciousness is part of this, then how would my inner state be excluded from something spiritual? If my body and my brain are how I experience anything at all, then why wouldn’t that be one of the ways God communicates with me?

Painting lets me be embodied without having to explain anything. I’m creating this blanket over the mystery without having to explain how I’m making it or what it means. It feels less like me trying to understand God and more like God helping me understand myself.

When I paint, the ego quiets. Not ego as in arrogance, but ego as in the part of me that’s trying to control things, manage outcomes, or make sense of everything. That part steps back. And something else comes through.

There’s also a kind of grace that shows up when I paint. If I make a mistake, I don’t punish myself. I adjust. I accept it. I work with it. That level of acceptance honestly feels like something that only shows up for me when I feel connected to God.

Painting doesn’t solve the mystery. It lets the mystery press into form.

What takes shape on the canvas isn’t God itself. It’s trust. Surrender. Presence. Love. Grace for myself. It’s evidence of something moving through me when I’m not trying to control it.

Painting is my way of throwing a blanket over the mystery because it lets me see where it lives, how it moves, and how it meets me, without my ego or skepticism getting in the way.

What are the blankets in your own life that help you understand God in a more tangible way?