The Better Feeling

School is out, the days are long, and Mom has enrolled all four sisters in a summer art workshop at the community center — three mornings a week, brushes and color and something to do with the hours. It is a good plan right up until the Wednesday the instructor holds up Ava Grace’s painting as the example for the whole class. Not Allison’s careful, methodical piece. Not Addison’s composed and intentional one. Not Ana’s bold, full-color expression. Five-year-old Ava Grace’s. Each older sister carries something home that afternoon that she didn’t have when the morning started — something small and sharp and not entirely comfortable to look at directly. When Dad opens Proverbs and First Corinthians at the table that evening, the Jones family discovers that envy is never really about what someone else received. And in the warm close of a summer evening, news arrives about Brother Thompson and Sister Beverly that reminds every person in the room what it looks like when love gets it right.

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SPEAKER_00 1:18

Welcome to the Jones Family Chronicles. For life at school, home and church is always full of lessons, laughter, and love. Meet Dad, the pastor's assistant, Mom, the heart of the home, and their five bright and lively kids. Allison, Addison, Anna, Ava Grace, and little Andy, who somehow always managed to turn ordinary days into extraordinary adventures. So gather round, open your heart, and let's discover together the joy of faith, family, and the timeless truths of God's word. This is the Jones Family Chronicles. All right, kids, get her close. Papa has a story for you about your favorite family, the Joneses. Summer had arrived at the Jones household the way it always did. Gradually and then all at once, like a door swung fully open. The backpacks were hung and mostly forgotten, the alarm clocks had been negotiated down to a more reasonable hour. The kitchen in the morning smelled like cereal in the particular ease of a day with no particular destination, and Andy had taken to waking up earlier than everyone else and sitting in the living room with his trucks in a silence that was by any measure the most peaceful thirty minutes the house would see all day. Mom had arranged the summer with her usual quiet intention. There were library days and neighborhood afternoons, and a chart on the refrigerator that was color coded in a way that suggested Alison had been consulted, which she had, and three mornings of a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, all four sisters walked the four blocks to the Glendale Community Center for the summer art workshop. It had been Ava Grace's idea originally. She had seen the flyer at the library and brought it home folded into a small, careful square, which was how she brought most things she considered important. Mom had looked at it, looked at her four daughters, and signed them all up. Alison had approached the workshop the way she approached most structured activities, with a system. She organized her workspace at the beginning of each session. She kept her brushes clean between colors and produced work that was precise and intentional. Addison had approached it the way she approached most things involving aesthetics with a genuine investment. She thought carefully about composition, about what colors said next to each other, about the difference between a painting that was busy and one that was full. Anna had approached it like Anna approached everything, with her whole self and both hands, working fast and bold and occasionally getting paint on the person next to her, which had happened twice and been apologized for sincerely on both occasions. And Ava Grace painted quietly, the way she did most things, with the kind of focused stillness that meant she had forgotten anyone else was in the room. The first two weeks had been easy and warm and good. Wednesday of the third week was different. Miss Yvonne ran the workshop with the cheerful, unhurried energy of someone who'd been teaching art to children for a long time and still genuinely loved it. She moved between tables, commenting on colors, asking questions, occasionally redirecting someone who had decided that more was always better. On Wednesday, the assignment was simple. Paint something that makes you feel peaceful. Alison painted a window with the light coming in through it at an angle, which she had planned before the session began. Their proportions were correct, the light gradient was careful and studied. Addison painted a garden path with a bench at the end of it, deep greens and a soft gray and a single yellow flower placed deliberately off to the left because center would have been too obvious. Anna painted the backyard at home, which required the full range of available colors and a level of enthusiasm that caused two different brushes to need rinsing midwork. It was vibrant and alive and entirely on up. Ava Grace painted something that from a distance looked like a simple blue circle on a white background. Up close if you looked at the way the blue moved across the paper, layered, varied, breathing somehow, it looked like the inside of something quiet. With fifteen minutes left in the session, Miss Yvonne walked to the front of the room with Ava Grace's painting held carefully in both hands. I want everyone to look at this for a moment, she said, her voice carrying the particular warmth of someone who has found something real. Notice how the color isn't flat. Notice how it moves. This is what we mean when we talk about a painting that breathes. She looked at Ava Grace. This is extraordinary work. You have a real gift. The room looked at the painting. Then the room looked at Ava Grace, who was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, looking at her own painting with the same expression she used when something had turned out the way she hoped, but she hadn't wanted to say so out loud. Thank you, she said quietly. The room went back to its work. Alison looked at her window painting, the proportions were correct, the light gradient was careful. Addison looked at her garden path. The composition was considered, the yellow flower was placed with intention. Anna looked at her backyard. It was vibrant, it was alive. Nobody said anything. But each of them felt something they hadn't felt when the morning started. The walk home was quieter than usual. This was noticeable primarily because Anna was the one being quiet, which affected the entire atmosphere of the group. Anna being quiet was like the wind stopping, technically natural and yet somehow unsettling. Ava Grace walked beside her, holding her rolled painting carefully. She was humming something under her breath. She was not performing anything, she was just happy in the simple, uncomplicated way of a person who had made something she liked and had it recognized and was now walking home in the summer sun. This made it somehow harder. Alison walked ahead at her usual pace. Binder, yes, even in the summer, even at the art workshop, there was a binder tucked under her arm. She was thinking about the light gradient in her window painting. Yet it had been carefully done. She had looked up how light worked through glass. She had been methodical about it. She was aware that she was thinking about this to avoid thinking about something else. Addison walked in the middle, her painting rolled under her arm. She had spent eight minutes on the placement of the yellow flower, eight minutes on one detail because she understood that the detail was where the meaning lived. She understood composition. She understood intention. She was aware that none of this was the point right now, and that the point right now was very uncomfortable. Anna lasted until they were two blocks from home. I feel bad, she announced without preface. Alison looked at her. Your painting was fine. No, Anna said. I feel bad about how I feel. About Ava Grace's painting, she paused. I was jealous and I didn't want to be, and I still was anyway. The word landed on the sidewalk between them. Jealous. Nobody disputed it. Nobody offered an alternative description. Ava Grace, who had been listening, looked at Anna with her head tilted slightly. Of my painting? Of Miss Yvonne picking your painting, Anna said honestly. Yours, not mine. Ava Grace was quiet for a moment. She looked at her rolled painting and she looked at Anna. I didn't know it would do that. I know, Anna said, that's not the bad part. They walked, the last block in a different kind of quiet. The kind where something had been said out loud and now was just simply true. At home the sisters scattered the way they scattered on afternoons when something needed to be processed before it could be talked about. Andy met them at the door with a ball in each hand and a look of tremendous satisfaction at his own preparedness. He held one out to Ava Grace, who took it and rolled it gently back to him, which was the game, and they played it in the hallway while the others moved through the house. Alison went to her room, she sat at her desk, opened her binder to a blank page, she wrote at the top in her precise handwriting What I am actually feeling. She sat with the blank space under it for a while. Then she wrote I worked hard and I wanted it to matter more than it did when it didn't get chosen. She looked at what she'd written, then underneath. That's jealousy. I'm being honest about it. Addison sat in the living room with her painting unrolled on the coffee table in front of her. She looked at it. The garden path was good. The yellow flower was in exactly the right place. She knew this. She hadn't known it when she placed it, and she knew it now. But knowing your own work was good did not. She was now discovering fully prevent the feeling that came when someone else's was chosen over it. She rolled the painting back up. Then she went to the window and looked at the backyard where nothing in particular was happening, and stayed there until she had figured out what she was going to do with what she was carrying. Anna had already done what Anna always did when she felt something she didn't like. She said it out loud. She had said it to her sisters on the sidewalk, which meant it was no longer just hers, which was an honest experience, the first step toward it being smaller. But smaller wasn't gone, and gone was what she wanted. She found Mom in the kitchen and sat on the counter the way she did when something needed to be talked, rather than just named. Mom, she said, What do you do when you feel something you don't want to feel and you've already said it out loud and it's still there? Mom sat down what she was doing and turned to look at her. You bring it to the table tonight, she said. All of it. Dinner was chicken and summer squash, and the particular liveliness of a household where the windows were open in the evening was just beginning to cool. Andy had arranged four pieces of squash in a row on his tray and was regarding them with the expression of a general surveying terrain. Dad looked around the table. What stood out about your day? There was a pause that was a fraction longer than usual, then Anna's hand went up. We were jealous today, all of us. She said it with the directness of someone who had already decided that the only way through was straight ahead. At the workshop, Miss Yvonne held up Ava Grace's painting and said it was extraordinary, and I was jealous. And I think Alison and Addison were too, but they should say their own things. Dad looked at Alison. She had her binder on the table, which was unusual for dinner. She opened it to the page she had written on that afternoon and slid it toward Dad without a word. He read it, nodded back, and slid it back to her. Addison Addison was quiet for a moment. My painting was good, she said. I know it was good. And I still wanted it to be the one she picked. Both of those things were true at the same time, and I didn't know they could be. Dad looked at Ava Grace, who had been sitting very still. I didn't try to make them feel that way, she said carefully. I just painted what I painted. We know, Alison said, This isn't about you doing anything wrong. Ava Grace looked at her. Then what's it about? Dad answered. That's exactly the right question. And I want to come back to it tonight. He reached for the bread. Before we get there, I want to share something, something good, the table settled. A few weeks ago, Dad said Brother Thompson came to me and asked if we could sit down together. He said he'd been praying about Sister Beverly and wanted counsel before he took a step of any significance. So we sat. We talked, and I asked him questions and he answered them like a man who had thought seriously about what he was doing and why. He paused. This past Sunday he asked Sister Beverly if they could court formerly and properly. And she said yes. The table was quiet for a moment. Then Mom said softly Thank the Lord. Anna's expression had shifted completely. She said yes. She said yes, Dad confirmed. Pickles must be so happy, Ava Grace said with complete sincerity. Addison's mouth curved. This is genuinely the most important part of this information. Alison was smiling in the particular way she smiled when something she had been watching for a long time had finally arrived. He did it the right way, she said. He did, Dad said, every step of it. And that matters. We're going to talk about why at devotion. Andy knocked a piece of squash off his tray, looked at it on the floor, and said Uh oh with a gravity suggesting this was the most significant development of the evening. The evening settled around the living room the way summer evenings settle. Slowly, warmly, the light outside going golden through the open windows, the neighborhood quiet in the particular way of a Wednesday, that has used up all of its activity. Andy was on the floor with his trucks, Ava Grace sat with her feet tucked underneath her, Anna sat beside Allison, which had become her habit when something real was being discussed. Addison had her ankles crossed, her hands folded, her painting leaning against the wall behind her, still good, still intentional, and still hers. Dad opened to Proverbs chapter fourteen and read verse thirty. A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones. He let the verse rest. Envy, he said, is described here as a kind of decay, not a loud thing, not a dramatic thing, but a quiet thing that works from the inside slowly. Solomon is actually saying what lives in your heart determines what kind of life you have. A sound heart, a whole, healthy heart gives life. Envy quietly takes it. He turned pages and found first Corinthians chapter thirteen verse four. Charity suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Charity, Mom said softly, which is love, the Bible is saying that love, real love, the kind God puts in us, does not envy. Not because jealousy never shows up, but because love, when it's healthy, makes room for other people's good things without having to take from them. Anna was leaning forward. What do you do when the feeling comes before you can stop it? I didn't decide to be jealous, I just was. That's honest, Dad said, and it's important. The feeling arriving isn't a sin. Jealousy knocks on the door of every heart. What matters is whether you let it move in. Whether you feed it or release it. You named it on the sidewalk, you brought it to the table. That's not someone letting jealousy take root. That's someone fighting it in the right direction. Alison looked at her binder page on the table. I wrote it down because I didn't want to pretend it wasn't there. Well, that's wisdom, Mom said. You can't release what you won't name. Addison spoke quietly. My painting was still good. Jealousy didn't change that, but it made me feel like it wasn't, just for a little while. And that's what it does, isn't it? It wasn't quite a question. Yes, Dad said. Envy lies to you about your own gifts while it's lying to you about someone else's. It tells you that what you have is less because someone else has something too. But gifts don't work that way. Ava Grace's painting breathing does not take one breath from yours. Ava Grace had been listening with both hands folded and both eyes serious. What is the better feeling? she asked, the one that's on the other side of jealousy. The room was still for a moment. Mom answered Joy. Real joy for someone else. When you can see something good happen to another person and feel genuinely glad about it, that's one of the freest feelings there is. It means jealousy didn't win. Anna looked at Ava Grace. Something in her face was working through something. Then she said your painting was really beautiful. I saw it when Miss Yvonne held it up and I thought it was beautiful before I felt the other thing. I want you to know the first feeling was a real too. Ava Grace looked at her for a long moment. Thank you, she said. That's the one I'm going to keep. Alison was quiet, then I'm glad it was yours. I mean I mean that now. Even if I didn't mean it two hours ago. Me too, Addison said, simply and fully. Dad prayed. He thanked God for a family honest enough to name hard things at the dinner table, and humble enough to bring them to the light. He prayed for hearts that learn to make room for each other's gifts, each other's recognition, each other's good moments. He prayed for the better feeling, that it would grow in this house and crowd out the other thing the way a good plant crowds out weeds. And he thanked God for Brother Thompson and Sister Beverly, and for love that moved slowly and carefully and did things the right way. After the Amen, Andy picked up his drumstick and tapped his drum once, which everyone agreed was an appropriate conclusion. Friday was a workshop day. They walked the four blocks the way they always did, Allison with her binder, Addison with her. Her hairbow chosen deliberately for a summer morning, Anna narrating something she had thought of overnight, Ava Grace humming and carrying her supplies in the small bag mom had found for her. The assignment on Friday was open. Paint whatever you want to paint. Alison painted a window again, but this time she left the light less structured. She let it do something unexpected in the upper corner, something she hadn't planned, and she left it where it was instead of correcting it. It was better for the uncertainty. Addison painted something abstract this time, color rather than composition. She didn't plan the yellow flower. She just put it where it wanted to go and discovered it wanted to go somewhere she wouldn't have chosen. She looked at it for a while, then she decided she liked it. Anna painted fast and big and bold and got paint on the table which she cleaned up herself before Miss Yvonne noticed, which was growth. And when the session ended, Miss Yvonne walked the room doing her final pass. She stopped at Alison's painting and said, This light in the corner, did you plan that? No, Alison said. Leave it exactly like that, Miss Yvonne said. Alison looked at the unplanned corner of her painting, and she looked across the room to where Avergrace was carefully cleaning her brushes, unhurried and content. Alison felt something warm and clean move through her. Something that was not jealousy, was not performance, was not the complicated tangle of Wednesday afternoon. It was simpler than all of that. It was just glad. Glad to be here in this room and this summer, with her three sisters, who were each making something entirely their own. She was feeling the better feeling. She had wondered what it felt like now she knew. The walk home took them past Brother Thompson's house the way it always did. He was on the porch, which was not unusual. But today Sister Beverly was there too, sitting in the second chair, the one that had appeared on the porch sometime in the last month, with a glass of something cold and a book open in her lap. Pickles was between them, asleep on the porchboards with the full confidence of a dog who had decided this arrangement was permanent. Brother Thompson saw the girls and raised one hand. Sister Beverly looked up from her book and smiled, warm and unhurried and entirely herself. Good day, ladies, she said. Good day, Sister Beverly, they said in the overlapping and slightly staggered way of four sisters responding to something at the same time. Anna looked at Brother Thompson, then at Sister Beverly, then back. She was doing the math of the second chair and pickles asleep between them in the particular ease of two people sitting in the kind of quiet that had been built over time. She didn't say anything, which was for Anna the most eloquent possible response. Ava Grace raised her hand in a small wave as they passed. Sister Beverly waved back. Brother Thompson gave a nod that had something settled and satisfied in it, the nod of a man who had done things exactly the right way and was sitting with the result of it on a Friday morning in the summer with pickles at his feet. The sisters walked the rest of the way home without saying much. But Addison said quietly, almost to herself, That's what it looks like when there's no jealousy in it, when you're just glad. Nobody disagreed. They turned up the front walk as the summer morning opened wide around them. Bright and long and full of a particular unhurried abundance of a day that had nowhere else to be. Now, who's ready for brownies?