Coping with Reality

I asked my art class what they wanted to draw next.
"A cabin!" one shouted.
"With mountains!" another said.
"And a dog!" a third one cried out.
"With a dragon!" a fourth suggested.
"How about if we leave the dragon for the next picture?" I said. Fortunately, the dragon lover agreed.

Since I would not have much time to prepare after returning from my daughter's out of state wedding, I knew I had to do a practice pastel drawing this week. So yesterday, while praying to God about some of the disturbing trends in our society, I drew the picture above. It was very calming. I thought again how blessed I am to be able to draw. How do people who can't recreate a world the way they wish it was cope with reality?

For example, I got two texts last night from two different mamas we work with who chose life at the abortion mill. Both had been doing really well. Both had hit major bumps in the road. Neither is an artist. What do they do to soldier on?

Psalm 46:1-11 gives us a good idea of the best way to cope when reality disappoints:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. ...

In the midst of earthquakes, mountains collapsing into the sea, tsunamis and floods...God is immovable. His holy habitation awaits us, and is secure from all the ravages of the world where we reside. God Himself is the unshakable refuge in the cataclysmic shifts of earthly life.

There is a passage in the beautiful Psalm 23 that I never thought much about till recently, but it relates perfectly here.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overfloweth...

This is a remarkable image. How many of us are surrounded by enemies, in mortal battle, and sit down to a quiet and sumptuous feast, relaxing as our head is anointed with oil and our cup is filled to the brim?

Answer: None! We are shooting, hiding, running, freaking out!

Yet look at the image God sends us of how He leads us in this frightening, conflict-ridden, and fallen world. We are seated at a banquet though our enemies are all around us. We eat and drink in peace while God Himself keeps the enemy at bay.

Ultimately, He is the only reality that matters. The earth and its pleasures will pass away, but God remains forever. He and I, He and you, are seated together, safely enjoying the bounty of His eternal goodness. The enemies may surround us, but they cannot harm us. Not eternally.

That is even more comforting than drawing my pretty picture! Meanwhile, I have a whole host of supporters of Cities4Life I hope to galvanize to help the mamas. God is sufficient, but we cannot sit idly by while His people suffer when we have the means to help.

*********************

1 John 5:13-14

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

John 10:10 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Matthew 10:29-31 

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Significance

The email said: "We have to write a paper on our favorite artist. I picked you. Can you answer the following questions about yourself?"

This was a strong encouragement in my hectic day. My ex-student had to write a school paper on famous artists...and she chose me! I looked happily at the list of questions.
#1.  When were you born?
"That's easy," I said, typing in ,"Not yesterday."
#2. What style of art? What medium?
"Hmmm...eclectic, I guess...but probably would be most aligned with the expressionistic movement. (Google it- I'm not writing your paper for you!) However, I don't really have a single style. In fact, a major criticism I often hear is that I have no style...but you might not want to put that in your paper."
#3  What makes you significant?
"You mean other than being the only one in the family with green eyes?"

Now this is a hard question. It is the sort of answer that is engraved on tombstones. Living people rarely know their significance. Or if they do, they are a little self absorbed, don't you think? I suppose by significance, the teacher doesn't want to know what makes every human being significant, that she  has been created by a loving God who knew her before He knit her together in the womb and numbers every hair on her head? Or that I am part of the body of Christ and that if any part of the body does not be who she was designed to be, the whole body suffers?"
I paused and considered all the implications of this question.
Significance.....
We all yearn for significance. We all want to love and be loved. We all experience pain and suffering and despair and most of us find the strength to weather it one way or another. We all had mothers and fathers and most of us were the light of their life. Still, even beyond that, all of us want to have impacted the world in some important way.

On this day in 1895, physicist Wilhelm Rontgen observed xrays, forever changing medicine and disease detection, as well as pornographic machines at the airport screening gate. Now that is significance! Picasso changed the flavor of modern art, dabbling in so many different break-through styles, that he set the art world's heads spinning out of control. Rachel could have chosen Picasso....he was undoubtedly significant.

But the young girl that I had taught for years in my little art class chose me. I suppose, from her perspective, I was a great artist, in the same way that all parents are great until the child reaches age 13.

#3. Significance....com'on...you can answer this one!

I thought of Enoch, in Genesis Chapter 5, who has four sentences in the Bible about him. All we know of Enoch is that he was born, had some kids, and then:
^"24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."
In a litany of births and deaths recounted in that chapter, the refreshing significance of Enoch was that he didn't exactly die...he was no more, taken away by God. We presume it was because he was so faithful in his walk with God, that even God could not bear to see him die.
Now that's significance!

#3 Significance- the paper is due soon. Answer now, or I am moving on to some other second rate great artist wannabe.

"Ok, I am significant in that I am the world's foremost iPod artist. I draw at least one picture a day on my iPod, and have over 700 iPod masterpieces. I feel very confident no other artist can make this claim."

Oh, how I wish I could be a fly on the wall when Rachel's teacher reads her paper. Her teacher probably won't understand that my significance has nothing to do with my talent or my style or my medium. My significance was that a little girl who loved to draw lived nearby and came to my art classes. I loved her and I loved art, and a little of my passion must have spilled over into her heart. And perhaps that is as significant as I will ever be to anyone, but for today, it has made me glow with deep satisfaction.

Genesis 5:
 ²¹ When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. ²² After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. ²³ Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. ²⁴ Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

Contemplating Perfection

After five tedious months, Asherel has completed her entry for the NRA Wildlife Youth Art Contest. She has spent 5-7 hours a day on it for the past two months, while I have read her school work to her. She spent several hours a day during the three months prior to that. It has really been a monumental effort. She knows that the judges will not care that she devoted 1/28th of her entire life on earth to this wolf, however, and she will be judged on the merit of the final outcome. And of course, that judgment is subjective, and may not go the way we hope it would. For now, she is just relieved to have finished it.

Now after all this time, the last thing she must do is name it. After five hard months of effort on a piece of art, it deserves a stupendous name.
I matted it for her and then held it up in all its finished splendor.
"What will be the title?" I asked, filled with expectant wonder.
"How about Wolf Standing on Rock?" she said.
I lowered the painting, "Can you think of something more poetic?"
"Wolf Standing on A Rock?"
"Let's just go all out and call it The Wolf Standing on A Rock."
Or maybe even The Wolf Standing on A Rock with Grass in the Background.

She was tired. The wolf was supposed to be done a month ago, we thought. And each night she told me it would be done the next day. But the level of detail was excruciating, and she refused to lower her standards so the wolf genesis crept along more slowly that the gestational period of real wolves.  I suppose there is no name that would give proper justice to how much struggle, time, effort, despair, and delight went into the wolf. I came out this morning and stood a long time looking at the picture. Maybe obvious is the best choice after all. What does one title a picture grasping so ardently for perfection?

When Ezekiel goes before the people of Israel to confront them with their sin, how short they fall from the righteousness of God, he uses the Temple as a goad to their conscience. He tells them to look upon the beautiful temple of God, designed in exact conformation to God's plan. He tells them to consider all its exits, and entrances, and the laws contained within. It was constructed exactly as God required, and it was described by Ezekiel as Perfection.  There are only 7 times the word Perfection is used in the Bible, and most are from Ezekiel. In every case, however, except the Perfection of the temple, the word was used in paragraphs that showed how perfection on earth was always temporal, always limited, always vanished in the end. There would be no lasting perfection made by man. However, the seventh time the word perfection is used is in the book of Hebrews. The author of Hebrews tells us if perfection could have been achieved by the old order of human striving and sacrifice in repentance when they fell short, then there would have been no need for Jesus. But humankind always would fall short, would never reach perfection, not on their own.

I stood in front of the wolf picture, marveling at my daughter's use of form, light and dark, design, color and especially the incredibly detailed rendering of every hair on the wolf in a very difficult medium. He has a pensive look on his face, as he stands atop a rock, looking out over the beauty of God's creation. How about Contemplating Perfection for a name?

Psalm 119: 96
⁹⁶ To all perfection I see a limit,
   but your commands are boundless.

Filled with Hope

The first day of art class is always the best. The kids enter the room filled with all the enthusiasm a summer's rest provides. They sit down bright eyed and expectant, eagerly awaiting all the pearls of wisdom that will fall from my lips. We all review the rules that will keep the class peaceful and productive. They quietly and respectfully listen, and the promise of the universe lies at our fingers.

Then class starts....

Soon pastel dust is slowly filling the air. The kids are so happy to be drawing and seeing each other again that they forget rule #1- no talking while I am talking, or I will lose my voice. Halfway through the class, I lose my voice, and the pictures of sunsets and silhouetted figures are beginning to emerge. The nervous newbies, who weren't sure they could draw, are no longer nervous. The class ends in a rush, and the happy young artists disperse like milkweed pods bursting open. One artist mentions she is a little sick of drawing sunsets.
"That's why I had you draw the person in front of it," I told her, "That was just for you."
"I know," she smiled, giving me a thumbs up, "And I have to show you something." The other kids are gone. She opens a sketchbook.
"See, I have been practicing blocking in my drawings, just like you told me."
I had been telling this particular, immensely talented artist to block in her drawings in this manner for years. it was like battling my teenage daughter over the dangers of too much computer time. There is good, and there is best. All my heartfelt instruction seemed to fall uselessly on deaf ears.

I stare at the young lady that had respectfully, but consistently defied my advice about blocking in the shapes before heading to details.
"And what did you decide?" I ask.
"It's easier," she agrees, "I love it."


She leaves class. I lie down and heave a deep sigh. Next, I need to convince her an artist should never get sick of sunsets, I think. No one should. I only rest a moment before scurrying off to vacuum before the rainbow pastel dust is ground permanently into my carpet.

Psalm 32:
⁸ I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
   I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Isaiah 59:21
“As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the LORD.

Futility

So I lied. I wasn't done with the wedding painting like I proclaimed a mere two days ago. I kept looking at the painting of my son and his soon to be wife, and I couldn't stand it any more. I know I insisted I was done, but it just doesn't quite look right. I had to go in and change it....again.

"Your soul sucking painting?" Amy asked me later when I called to see how she was recuperating from her nasty bout of pancreatitis.
"Yes, that one."
"Send me just Matt's head and let me see if I can help," asked Amy.
So I sent her Matt's head, not on a platter, but on gmail.

She sent back a photoshopped correction of what she felt was wrong. She lengthened the nose, dipped the upper lip, and squared the chin....the very changes Asherel told me to paint out last week. I am beginning to feel like a yo yo.

I even incorporated math into the process. I measured the distance between all Matt's features and then set up a ratio/algebraic equation to discern if my painting ratios matched. I found one measurement off by 1 cm., corrected that, and felt it did help. I may not be much of an artist, but I was pretty self-impressed by my math skills.

If I had another year....I think I could do it. But I only have two days. Then we are off to a Beatles tribute concert and then to go take care of recuperating sister Amy. Then it is wedding time.

Now I wish I hadn't made fun of all those portrait artists that use projectors to trace their subjects from a photo. At this point, I would be sorely tempted to cheat that way. It's like how I chastised my mom for all those years for dying her hair. Now that I am old and grey....if I hadn't made so much sport of her maybe I would become a blond and see if I had more fun. Smugness has a way of rebounding onto oneself.

And I must say, I have a whole new respect for God's skill in making each of us look exactly the way we are supposed to. It is much harder than you would think.

Karissa, the lovely bride to be, is nothing but grace and kindness. They will love the painting, she writes, because it was made by me. It is very sweet of her, and I almost want to paint a mustache on both of them just to see how far that sentiment could survive.

"Does it look like Matt?" I asked husband, Arvo.
"Do you have a picture of him?" he asked.
I didn't say what was in my mind, which was, "It is your son....remember him?"
I showed him a picture, which he scrutinized. He gave some good and thankfully simple advice. I agreed with those observations, mostly because I could do them without totally repainting any feature. I have noticed that my receptivity to any advice on the painting is in direct proportion to how easily I can incorporate the changes.

I have reached this point of total frustration in my art many times. Sometimes, I let the bitter defeatism take over and I take a glob of black paint and paint over my struggle with frantic, vicious strokes.( This might be that "lack of maturity" the art gallery owner who rejected my work was referring to.) I have had to leave the room to prevent this from happening to this year long labor of love. Funny how anyone looking at the final result would never suspect it took me a year to get even this far. They can't see the layers and layers and layers of failure underneath the current layer.

Again, I knew God was painting me a message. To many people, I think I appear to be at least on the fringe of respectable normalcy. I mostly can get through each day without causing too much damage to myself or others. But there are layers and layers and layers of failure underneath the surface....and the surface is still not what it should be.

I guess if it were, I wouldn't recognize my need for God. Perhaps all that failure is a blessing. Success never seems to bring me quite so desperately to His side, begging Him to take my brush and guide my hand.

Two days aren't enough....but it is all I have. So I better stop writing and make the most of my time.

Job 7:3
³ so I have been allotted months of futility,
   and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

Daniel 12:13
  ¹³ “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”

Delusions

I sent the art gallery owner an album of photographs of my art work. I felt before lugging all my work over to a meeting with her, it would be wise to have her select the pieces she was most interested in. Then I set about daydreaming of how to spend the millions I would make when my undiscovered talent was finally discovered. I thought of how she would open that album, and within seconds would be on the phone, telling me my work was not only to take center stage in the gallery but she wanted to set up a one woman show now, today, and begin printing flyers.
"How does The Future of Art is Here in Charlotte sound for a title?" she asked me in my happy musings.
My phone was blinking, alerting me to a new email.
I smugly scrolled to my gmail, and opened the letter from the gallery. I could almost hear the applause.

"Thankyou for sharing your album," she wrote,"While your work has a great deal of creativity and energy, it is not quite at the maturity level I am seeking for our gallery......"  There was more. She still wanted to meet to discuss greeting card art for which she felt I was suited, and she would be willing to display, and she could suggest how to improve my fine art portfolio. I will take her up on that....later. With my visit to help Amy and my son's wedding looming, I don't have the time or energy for another project. Frankly, all my energy was siphoning off into keeping a stiff upper lip.
"Please don't be discouraged..." she wrote, as though that would somehow pick my chin up off the floor.

Her gallery did display some truly gorgeous art. I shouldn't be ashamed that I lack that level of "maturity"....whatever that means. But what really distresses me is that I was deluded enough to think I did. Am I like one of those early entrants in American Idol tryouts, that everyone laughs at, and they put on TV because no one can imagine how anyone that sings like that could even begin to think they could be the next American Idol? How many other areas of my life am I faking myself out in that way?  Will the next gmail be from one of my kids:
"Dear Mom, while you get an A for effort, you lack the maturity to be a convincing and effective mother. However, you seem to have a talent for raising dogs. Perhaps you should focus your energies in that direction instead."
And most disturbing, a gmail from the toilet:
"Dear homekeeper, while I applaud your efforts at approximating cleanliness, you lack the maturity to do a truly thorough job and I would suggest you apply your energies towards a low skilled job that would pay for a house cleaner that knows what she is doing."

But I am not discouraged. Discouragement looks like someone bawling her eyes out while the dog creeps from his bed and lays his silky chin on her lap and lets her run tear stained fingers through his ruff......

Arvo and I went on a walk in the excruciating heat on a treelined sidewalk while Asherel was in youth group. The sun tried valiantly to melt us but it couldn't quite vaporize us through all the shadows cast by the overhanging limbs. Light and dark danced around us.  That's just how it is sometimes. Life is filled with lightness and darkness. Exaltation and Disappointment. Sickness and healing. Reality and Delusion. The pastor at the church had mentioned that in heaven there will be no darkness. It will all be light. And all the fears that assail us in the middle of the dark night will be forever gone.  It occurred to me, does that mean no more sleep in heaven? Because frankly, I really look forward to going to bed each night, curling up with a good book, and drifting off to a land of fantasy....one not created by my own delusions of grandeur.

John 12:
³⁵ Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. ³⁶ Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”

My vision with some help

With all the difficult tasks my aging parents might need my relatively young arms to tackle, their request for this visit was to beautify the yellow blobs of hardened foam oozing from the woodpecker holes in the tree. My dad, in his ongoing attempt to keep wildlife and decay from snatching civilization, had filled in the large holes created by the hungry woodpeckers. He had used a bright yellow foam which not only clashed with the stately grey of the bark but also expanded to a pendulous unsightly blob. On two trees were two large bright blobs, each with another smaller blob above or below. My assignment was to paint the blobs to make them into an artistic creation, something to placate the neighbors and prevent little children from passing by and snickering.
I know my Dad, so with great foresight asked,"What is your vision for the blobs? "
"I don't want to influence you," he assured me, "Make it what you see fit."

So I set out with a ladder, my oil paints, and a variety of brushes. Dad had advised that the first tree blobs looked a little like a small four legged creature. I just didn't see that
I saw a bird holding a broken egg. I painted the bird clutching the oozing egg to her breast. This blob was my expression of all the cruel realities of nature, and angst of motherhood. Dad came out and watched for a while, telling me perhaps the feet clutching the so called egg needed better definition. And while I was at it, perhaps the egg didn't really look like an egg since eggs are not so round. But then he left and I suspect was wondering if he should have just had me vacuum the living room instead.

I finished the bird and moved on to the second set of blobs. At first I had seen a toucan in these blobs but as I examined them more closely, a horse appeared in my head.

Dad wandered out again. The large pickle shaped blob had been painted like a horse snout
Above it but not connected to it was a small round blob. I had painted two eyes on that and then painted two ears right on the bark itself as I had no more blobs to work with.
"What happened to the toucan? " asked Dad.
"I don't know. When I started I saw a horse instead."
"But the eyes aren't connected to the nose! "
"Well use your imagination. "
"You need something between them connecting them."
"Dad, I had rather limited material to work with here! "
"Fine, its lovely! " but his face was troubled.
As we were watching television later, he exclaimed out of the blue, "How about a nose piece like horse bridles have? "
"But those aren't right under the eyes, " I said.
"We could buy more foam, " he said, " Fill in the gap."
"I could make a duck tape bridle, " suggested Asherel, "You need to fill in the gap. "
So Asherel made the bridle and I nailed it in place. She had made the nose piece by rolling several thicknesses of duct tape.

But then the painted bark to suggest ears no longer looked right. I made duck tape ears and tacked them on.

Dad wandered out again.
"Do you think the nosepiece is too wide for the face? " he asked, as I was putting away the ladder. I controlled the few spurts of steam wafting from my ears.
"Dad that is about 2 inches thick duck tape. I would need a saw to cut it down! "
"Oh... well then it is fine. It's lovely! " but as he walked away his face looked troubled.

So I put the ladder back under the tree and got some large pruning shears. I pulled out the nails and spent ten minutes sweating and grunting as I slowly mangled a cut through the thick wads of duck tape. Then I tacked it back up.

As I was folding the ladder, Asherel wandered out.
"That's not what horse ears look like, " she said.
I unfolded the ladder and sat down. "I'll wait here."
She returned a few minutes later with two perfect duck tape ears. I tacked them up.

As we all gathered to head off to lunch, all four of us gazed at the horse.
"It looks like a donkey, " said Mom.
"Fine, its a donkey! " I cried.
Fortunately they all agreed it was a lovely donkey and no one had any more input into "my" vision.

1 Corinthians 3:6-14 NIV

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God's service; you are God's field, God's building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.

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Negative Space

"Today we are going to draw the parts we don't see, the parts that are not the object we are drawing."
The kids looked confused. I have harped all year on drawing exactly what they see. What was this new confounding task?
I held up a picture of a dog.
"Here are his front legs. Don't draw his front legs. Draw the space between his front legs. Good. Now see this triangle shape created by his tail above his back. Don't draw his tail or his back, draw that space. That is called 'negative space'. It can be used to create a rather piece-meal abstract looking work, but it is very useful in correcting drawings. When you have reached a point where something in your drawing is wrong but you just don't know what it is, look at the negative space. It will point you to what you need to correct."

As the class progressed, when kids asked me to help them correct their work, I told them to look at the negative space. They began to figure out how to use what had been ignored, unseen , to shape and perfect their art.  Sometimes those things that are ignored and unseen become the most valuable aspect of taking the common to the sublime.

In a metaphorical sense, I think we all are at times, negative space, some more than others. Attention is given to the brightest, the loudest, the funniest, the cleverest, the most out-going, the most obnoxious....  Meanwhile, there are sometimes very quiet, very lovely 'negative space' types that have a beauty all their own, a subtle and unexplored depth that is often overlooked. They stand wedged between all the riveting objects of attention, unnoticed. There is perhaps nothing so sad as to have someone look through you as though you were not there or of no consequence.

I was definitely a 'negative space' kid. I found solace in animals. Animals have an uncanny ability to see negative space. They notice everything. As I grew older, I never totally shed that negative space mentality but I began to understand that the only way for negative space to become the main event is to seek it, find it, draw it. I discovered that by noticing and encouraging other negative space types, we began to come together, form a picture, and even at times, a masterpiece. Negative space types can feel very alone. But just like I told my art class,  across that dog leg was a triangle of negative space above the back and under the tail. A lot of negative space is around you. You are not alone.

It is ironic that the man who forever changed history was Himself a bit of a negative space guy. We are told there was nothing in Him to attract others. He was not handsome, or imposing, or powerful, or rich. In fact, He was gentle, submissive,  and silent when others felt He should speak. But when He allowed Himself to be used for the purpose God intended for Him, He became the champion for all mankind.

I just want to make a little shout out to all those negative space types. Hang in there. Sometimes your destiny is still gathering itself, and the lonely time waiting feels like exile. But it is negative space that gives shape to the object in art, and without it, the picture is one blob of formless color.

Isaiah 53

 ¹ Who has believed our message
   and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
   and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
   nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
   a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
   he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
 ⁴ Surely he took up our pain
   and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
   stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.

Worldly Riches

"You always draw trees," said Asherel, "It's getting boring."
"But I love trees."

"And you always write about the same things- the Science olympiad helicopters, or trebuchets....or Comer and Evelyn and Alzheimer's, or dog agility. You should write about something new."
"But I have to write about what I know. This blog is about seeing God in my life, in the common things around me. Maybe my life is boring."
"Maybe you should just blog once a week. Then you will have people anticipating when the next one will come out."
"But I have a duty to my readers. They expect me to brighten their morning. I can't let them down. Besides, yesterday I drew a Guinea Hen."
"Yes that was good."

So I sat at the computer this morning thinking what do I have to write about that is new, even if I drew trees again. Well, I got new blisters on my feet. I have been taking long walks in all my shoes in preparation for our upcoming trip to NY and Boston to visit my parents and my first born son. All of them hurt my feet.
When I showed the shoe saleslady my blisters, she said, "My, you must have sensitive feet! Have you tried these?"
She brought out ugly shoes. They looked very supportive.

When I was young, I told my mom I had ankles that "fell into the ground." I didn't realize it then, but I was correctly diagnosing overpronation. Later xrays further revealed that I am missing a bone in my foot. I have looked every where for it, and cannot find it. It must still be in Mom's uterus. Anyway, as a result, Mom got me "saddle shoes" as a child. I think they are considered somewhat "nuveau geek hip" now, but back then, they were just geek and geek was not cool. They were those sturdy black and white lace up numbers that orthopedic clients or sometimes nurses wore. I think that experience marred me for life. It is not Mom's fault. She was doing what every good parent tries to do- make kids grow up intact. 

But as a result, I am always on a quest for the perfect shoe. The shoe that is beautiful and doesn't hurt my feet. I have thus far failed in this quest.  But what is stranger than this obsession in an otherwise fairly non-materialistic individual is that my grandmother shared this trait.  She had a thing about shoes....and bread. She loved both with a passion. And I seem to have inherited the shoe bread gene. My gene also mutated and I have an extra chromosome for haircuts as well. After God, and family, the things I love most are perfect haircuts, shoes, and yummy fresh bread.

"Mom....you have written about shoes before too."
"I have?"
"Yes....and haircuts. Do we really need to go into all this again?"
"Well if it is on my heart, then God must be sending me a message."
"Which is....?"
"Hmmm. Well, it did flit through my head last night that perhaps my heart is not being stayed on things from above, like it is supposed to be. Like, perhaps all my shoes blister my feet because in the grand scheme of things, nothing of this world ever will fit perfectly. It isn't even supposed to."

Yesterday, I heard someone on the radio attribute to some great philosopher,(can't recall who), that we are not to be of the world, just in the world.
"That wasn't some great philosopher!" I screamed at the radio, "That is in the Bible!"
It is a message that is very hard to live out in reality. Being immersed in the world, surrounded by people with shoes that are beautiful and don't blister their feet, I long for beautiful shoes that don't blister my feet. But I think the message of the Bible falsely attributed to that unknown philosopher is: don't worry about my feet. It is my heart and soul that matters.

"I still think you ought to consider writing your blog just once a week."
"Maybe you are right. But kayak season starts any day now. I can add that to my list of things to write about."
"Mom, you wrote all last summer about kayaking."

Oh well. Redundancy is the curse of old age. I wonder if there will be shoes in heaven?
A couple days ago, a friend who is agnostic and I were discussing God. She started the discussion. I try never to start such conversations, but wait for God to open the door. Anyway, as we were parting, I said something like, "Well, we may never know til we get to heaven."
"Maybe this is heaven!" she said.
I looked down at my blistered feet and guilty shoes.
"I sure hope not," I said.

Luke 16:10-12

   ¹⁰ “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?

The times, they are a changin'

Every leaf that flutters by the front door causes an eruption of barking. We keep a squirt bottle labeled "No Bark Spray" by the front door. It is filled with highly noxious bark deterrent spray, chemically known as H2O. However, it only momentarily deters the barking.

"Have you tried adding vinegar to it?" asked Asherel.
"No, that just seems cruel."
"That's what the dog experts recommend."
"Then our dogs and house will smell like vinegar. That's worse than the barking."

The breeze blew and a twig skittered across the lawn. The dogs sensing the imminent Armageddon sure to follow again pierced our tiny ear drums with their vociferous warning.

We squirted them with the Bark Deterrent Spray, and collapsed heavily into the living room chairs.
"This is getting old," I pronounced, "How long have we been trying to change this behavior? Three years? When do you think they will change?"

Change is hard.

I taught my art class this week and one of my very talented artists sketched in a face she was drawing using a magazine picture as her guide. She is beyond the level of just drawing the roughly correct shapes. She needs guidance in more careful drawing of exactly what she sees. I told her she had drawn it beautifully, but she had drawn a face-on model, and the picture was of a model with her head turned. I held a ruler down the center of her picture and down the center of the model's face.
"See how much larger this side of the model's face is than this side? That's because her face is turned. Now do that with your picture."
She put the ruler on her picture and saw she equally divided the face.

"Can we just pretend the model is looking right at us?" she begged.
"You could," I said, "But then all your picture will be out of your head. Every single feature is drawn differently when the angle of the face changes. You will have to guess how to draw it. It won't be drawing what you see. My advice is to change it now before you get too far or every aspect of it will be a struggle."
She looked close to tears. I felt bad. Perhaps I should've just let it go. It is always touchy knowing how far to push my better students. But inevitably when they finish the picture if I don't help them correct those initial errors, they are dissatisfied, and by then, it is too late to do much more than say the change needed to be made long ago.

When I brought Comer to Evelyn in the Alzheimer unit yesterday, she looked up listlessly as we approached. There was no sparkling glow of recognition, no spreading smile of delight. I actually feared she was dead at first, her eyes looked so lifeless.
"Hey Mama," said Comer gently, pulling her up, "Stand up. Vicky is here to take us for a ride."
"Would you like to go for a ride?" I asked, "The wisteria are blooming."
"Go for a ride...." she said weakly, "Blooming...."
She walked between us and when we reached the elevator, she glanced at Comer.
"Oh," she said, "I love you so much!"
" I love you too, " smiled her dear old husband.
We got McDonald's icecream, which Evelyn ate with gusto and we drove to the millionaire development with streets and streets of mansions. We all pointed at the houses we loved, and oohed and aahed over the magnificence, the opulence.
Evelyn sat in the front seat with her icecream, and a smile on her face. She laughed at Comer's jokes, and then out of the blue asked me how much I felt my house was worth.

When we dropped her back at the Alzheimers building, and headed on to the Assisted Living apartment Comer lived in, he said sadly he didn't feel she was long for this world. She had stopped eating, the nurses said.
"She ate the icecream happily enough!" I said, surprised.
"I don't know why," said Comer, "But I have an overwhelming sense of guilt."
I'd like to say I knew exactly what words to offer that would explain, comfort.... but I didn't.
"You are doing all you can for her," I told him gently, "You are doing your best. That is all you can do."
He nodded and I saw him soundlessly crying as he shuffled off to the front door of his building.
I hopped out of the car and hurried past men carrying a mattress out of the building. It crossed my mind that someone must have died, and their furniture was being taken away. I caught up with Comer and hugged him again.
"You are doing the best you can," I told him again.

Change is hard. It is hard for dogs; it is hard for children struggling to learn new things; and it is hard for old folk struggling to adapt to a world that makes no sense and brings so much pain. Most of us kick and scream and rail against change. There is one final change we will all undergo, and that is the one we should keep our sights on. Our mortal body will be exchanged one final time for an immortal one.  I am hoping for a leggy, shapely blond one who always says the right things and knows how to comfort with a single word.

1 Corinthians 15: 50-58
 ⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
 ⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
   Where, O death, is your sting?”
 ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
 ⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Be ye Perfect

I was working on the wedding portrait of my son and his bride to be, and flinging my brush with disgust every few strokes.
"OH NO!"
"What's wrong?" asked Asherel, glancing up from her math book.
"I ruined Karissa! It at least looked like her before. I don't know what I did to ruin it and now I don't know what to do to make it better."
Asherel who has an excellent artist eye, looked carefully at it.
"Her teeth are too dark and the shadows around Matt's eyes are too dark. And his nose is too long."
She left the room.
I went back to work on it and then stepped back.

"Don't do anything else!" cried Asherel returning.
"It does look like them all of a sudden, doesn't it?" I smiled.
"Yes," she said.
And if it doesn't look like them to them, in twenty years it won't look like them anyway and they will look back fondly on those days when they looked so young, so in love, so beautiful, so hopeful.  The strange thing is, I don't know what small change, what small dab of color transformed them from strangers to familiar faces. I am convinced that God got sick of waiting and just grabbed my hand and guided me.

In my art class yesterday, one of my most gifted students was drawing a portrait. I showed him where his line was off by miniscule centimeters.
"This may sound picky," I said, "But if you are off at all in a portrait..."
"It won't look like them!" we said in unison. It is gratifying to have someone who so completely gets it.

My friend Danielle is an agility handler. She is a lovely and unconsciously humble soul, comfortable in her own skin. Her husky is in the running for being one of the top agility dogs in his breed. She just finished a trial where she placed three times, with 2 seconds and a third. She found this a disappointing result.
"In my level," she told me, "You can't make any mistakes. You must be  perfect."

I seem to be bumping up against this message of perfection, time and time again. I am a perfectionist, or used to be. Until I got tired. I looked around my house with the bathroom that hasn't been scrubbed in....well, a long time..... and the dog smears on the windows, and the dust bunnies hopping in the corners. I would never have allowed that a few years ago. I also seem to be wearing stretchy polyester alot all of a sudden. Slowly, comfort and ease seem more alluring, and reaching for impossible standards less so.

And then God sent me the wedding portrait.

I sat in the car last night waiting for Asherel to leave youth group at Church. The minutes stretched on. So I pulled out my Droid, and started sketching the moon and the limbs of the tree against the sky. You may think all I was doing was killing time, and at first, that is what I thought too. But then I realized that a still, quiet voice in my soul was whispering, "If you reach for the moon, you may fall short, but if you don't reach for it, you will certainly never touch it."

Psalm 18:30
As for God, his way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.

Isaiah 26:3
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.

Matthew 5:48
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Hopeful Petals

The dogs were sniffing at their usual spot when I noticed the small purple petal. Crocus! My daffodils were beginning to show green buds but none had opened yet. But here the crocus were now defying the certain return of frost and cold to brave raising their tender petals to the open air. We stood and marveled at the crocus for a little while.

God is such a good artist, I thought, with a tinge of jealousy. My own wedding portrait art work at home was not going so well. I had begun to paint in my son Matt's face and something was going very wrong with the mouth. I had obliterated it once already, but it was still not right. After many hours, I painted over it with a wash of flesh color and put away my brushes for the day. Karissa, the bride is almost done, and Matt's tux is painted in with a wash that gives an idea of the final color. They are a lovely couple, except for the groom without a mouth.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe that is the way man and woman should have been created. Man without mouth. "Just do what I say, no back talk, and no one gets hurt," should be in the wedding vows somewhere.
Alas, that is not the way God seems to have envisioned what the world should be. Not only does He give both the bride and groom a mouth, but He expects them to use it responsibly.

This is a tall order, especially if one hopes to be married for a lifetime. Honestly, I know I would have more success if I just hadn't been given a mouth to misuse in the first place. I am not second guessing God. I know He who brought forth the gentle crocus when the bitter cold was still raging around the corner knows best. He knows exactly how to bring a most unlikely hope in the midst of the winters of our lives. Perhaps that is why He longs and desires for marriage to last a lifetime.... it will take that long to paint in the mouth properly.

Psalm 141:3
  ³ Set a guard over my mouth, LORD;
   keep watch over the door of my lips.

Psalm 19:14
 ¹⁴ May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
   be pleasing in your sight,
   LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 17:3
  ³ Though you probe my heart,
   though you examine me at night and test me,
you will find that I have planned no evil;
   my mouth has not transgressed.

Taken Captive

Portraits are not easy to paint. In case any of you want to take up portrait painting, I would recommend you first take a course in anger management. The difference between a picture that looks like the intended sweet daughter in law, or one that looks like a vampire is a small extra stroke of white. With one shaky misplaced stroke of gray I made my victim lose a tooth. The dogs gathered as dinner time came and went, and I kept painting, painting, painting. Finally Honeybun could stand it no more and came over and gently pried the paintbrush from my hand with her teeth.
"Feed the dogs. We are real. That painting is not."

And she is half right. The painting is not real, but the love that motivates it is. I am doing a wedding portrait of my son Matthias and his future bride, Karissa. The bonus for me is I get to see the dress before anyone else. It is stunning. That's all I am going to say about it. They asked for a background of particular significance to them, and sent me the specifics of the wedding adornment. I have peppered them with questions that from any other mother would just be nosy: what jewelry will you wear, what will you do with your hair, what color eye shadow, what will your flowers look like....etc.   I bet if I phrased it carefully, I could find out all kinds of juicy gossip in the guise of needing background information for the psychological aspect of any great piece of art.

But I have been painting very carefully and very slowly. On one tree, near the happy couple, I actually painted in every leaf. This is highly unlike my normal expressionistic treatment of trees where a quick blob of various shades of green convey a tree with none of the anguish of detail.  Truth be told, I hate detail. Detail is hard, laborious, and exposes weakness. My whole soul races to finish in one broad stroke.... but the task at hand demands careful attention and detail, or a mouth that once was full of sparkling teeth becomes a pit of rotted, broken, gaps.

I was really ok til I hit the face. Karissa is a beautiful girl, and every viewer of the portrait will notice if I fall short of the mark. So I am using a brush where a single long hair picks up the paint, and painting micrometer by micrometer to build a face that if not exactly like hers, at least one she would want to claim.  And it is painfully obvious that if a face is not painted with exactly the correct proportion between the parts, and exactly the correct shadows to depict exactly the correct bone structure in exactly the correct space.... it ends up looking nothing like the model.

I have read that some if not most portrait artists cheat. They use a projector to flash the photo on the canvas and then copy. I don't get the point of that. Just take a photograph and be done with it. A painting, if it is a good painting is meant to capture more than just a likeness. It is supposed to capture a soul. That will be my excuse. It may not look like them on the outside but it is perfect on the inside.

As we were driving home from the mountains yesterday, Alex who has an artist's soul exclaimed, "Oh! Look at those blue mountains! I wish I had brought my camera.!"
"You should bring it the next time we go," I offered.
"I would.... but I am not sure I could get a good picture through the dog slime on the windows."
Out of the mouth of babes....
"I'll try to clean them before we go next time," I said.
"I love taking photos of landscapes.... or animals... or trees. Not people though. I never photograph people."
"Why not?" asked Asherel.
"Because I have heard when you take their picture you capture their soul."

Funny, I think of that as a good thing. That is exactly what I am trying to do when I paint. In my opinion, it is almost impossible to capture a soul. The only one who can really do that is God and it requires our permission. In fact, one of those pesky verses that I can never live out as fully as I would like to touches on this subject. We are to make "every thought captive to...Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Every thought?

I am lucky at times to get one thought out that I think God might want to hold near. Talk about being into detail! God doesn't seem to care if the vast bulk of my thoughts are in line with His desires. He uses the very tiniest brush available. He wants every thought....every little one. hoo boy.

And if He is sending me a message through the agonizing symbol of my painting, struggling molecule by molecule to paint a likeness and spirit of a beloved and familiar face.... then I suspect that I won't look anything like the image God desires to paint of me til every single itty bitty thought is captive to Him.

This painting is going to take a very long, long time.

Isaiah 49:8-10

 ⁸ This is what the LORD says:    “In the time of my favor I will answer you,
   and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you
   to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land
   and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’
   and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’
   “They will feed beside the roads
   and find pasture on every barren hill.
¹⁰ They will neither hunger nor thirst,
   nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them
   and lead them beside springs of water.

Ascents and Descents

The phone rang but I ignored it. I never answer the phone when I am teaching art class as I don't want to deprive the kids of one second of my wisdom. After a brief silence it rang again. I still ignored it. It rang a third time and I went to see who was calling. An unknown number. Probably a telemarketer. I returned to my art class where one of the students held up his phone- "Leigh's mom wants to talk to you...."

Lucky, the dog who cannot exist without a day of mischief, had been left loose with his electronic collar on so he could greet the students who came in through the open gate. He had busted out of the electric fence. And now Deenee, my art student's mom, had him in the street, but he didn't want to go back through the electric fence. She had called my home phone three times. I was grumbling about the stupid dog and wondering why Deenee didn't just take off the electric collar to coerce him back in the yard.... when I saw her and Lucky in the street. She was on crutches with a cast on one leg. She held Lucky, tottering on her crutches.

Do you ever feel like you have made really poor choices? You weigh the options, choose a course of action, and then feel like a jerk with the full result of your choices slamming you in the face? And stupid poor choices are one thing. Morally poor choices totally another. Those are accompanied by regret and shame as well as feeling like a knucklehead. I cannot begin to express how deeply I long for wisdom.... for continual, reliable wisdom. And goodness. It just doesn't flow out of me the way it should after all these years of walking with God. It is funny that despite having the world's worst memory, I remember in excruciating clarity every poor choice I have made,  and continue to make. Those haunt me, tugging with icy fingers at my joie de vivre.

Asherel spent another frustrating many days and countless hours on her helicopter, and we did a test flight yesterday morning. After all that work, again, failure. The new wire attachment idea worked, so it didn't break, but it flapped to the ground. She picked it up and the wound rubber band rewound with a resounding smack against her newly repaired rotor, breaking it....again. And then she realized that on both the newly repaired copters, she had attached the rotors backwards. They were flying exactly as they should with rotors pushing them down, down, down....towards Hell.  My usually good natured girl is very close to the breaking point. The very air around her is crystalized...ready to shatter with one more setback.

She went back to work. I went back to prayer. Finally she reemerged with the repaired copters and a woebegone look on her face.
"It won't work," she said.
"Let's try it, " I urged, sighing deeply. I have come to loathe Science Olympiad.
I thought of the highschool student in my art class who is doing the highschool division of the helicopter event.
He has still not started building his, nor researching, nor gathering supplies....and there are now 3 weeks til the contest.
"I suggest you start," I warned grimly.
So we wound Asherel's rubber motor, and she lifted her hand, her face downcast. The helicopter rose out of her hand, and one of the rotors flew off the copter, spiralling to the ground. Miraculously, on just three rotors the helicopter flew for about 20 seconds. This bodes well for what it will do with 4 working rotors.
"Fix it and call that one done. We won't test it again til the team meeting."
There is only so much stress a twig can take before it snaps.

So once again, we are leaving our 70 hour weeks behind and going skiing today. The mountains have fresh powder that was supposed to fall all night but stop conveniently in time for the plows to clear the roads. Asherel and I need to purposely race downward instead of being dragged down against our will.

Continual failure and set backs marked the journey of the Jewish people out of Egypt into the promised land. Some of the failure was due to their own stubborn disobedience, and some due to the evil idolatry and corruption of the people in the lands they traveled through. Any way about it, the Jews struggled in a perpetual see-saw between trusting and following God with joyful wholeheartedness, and giving over into sin and despair over failure after failure after failure. What Asherel, Lucky, and I are experiencing is nothing new. Failure and setbacks are a part of life, sometimes a huge part. Somehow, one has to waddle through the mud of tribulation.

I have a few favorite verses in the Bible, but the past few mornings, one in particular keeps coming back to me, "I lift mine eyes unto the hills. Where does my help come from? "  Yes, I can identify with that despair, looking all around wondering when will triumph blast its trumpet in my ear? I know Asherel can relate. But the rest of the verse is the part that suddenly covers me with relief and peace:
"My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth."

To the snow covered hills we will lift our eyes today. The creator or heaven and earth will hopefully be working on the helicopter while we are gone.......

Psalm 121

A song of ascents. ¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
   where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the LORD,
   the Maker of heaven and earth.
 ³ He will not let your foot slip—
   he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep.
 ⁵ The LORD watches over you—
   the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
   nor the moon by night.
 ⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—
   he will watch over your life;
⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going
   both now and forevermore.

Measure twice, cut once, love always.

With Asherel's painting done and ready to be mailed, I had to fly into action. Matts, while not required for the art work, were allowed. What Bozo would send their kid's painting off to a contest dressed in smelly, ripped jeans when the rest of the prima donnas are all in sequined formals? Not me, not more than the one time I did it last year. This year, I was pulling out all the stops. I knew I needed the artwork in the mail by lunch time, so I raced to Michaels Art Supply for a pre-cut matt for the standard size paper Asherel had used.

"What do you mean 9 x12 is not a standard matt size? I have a standard pad of art paper 9x12," I said, sweat pouring off my time constrained brow.
The nice young man behind the custom frame counter told me, "It falls between the cracks. It is a standard size for paper, but standard matts are either 8x10, or 11x14. They skip 9x12."
(I saw a huge niche market for entrepreneurs here, but I didn't have time to find the venture capital right now.)
"How long to cut me a custom matt for a 9x12?" I asked.
"A week," he answered.
"A week!!!! God created the entire world in a week. All I am asking for are 4 quick razor swipes at a neat 45 degree angle!"
"And that's of course if all goes well. You could cut your own."

Yes, indeedy I could, if I had half an ounce of steady hands or history to back me up on this one. I of course knew how to cut matts and had cut many in my day. I had a professional matt cutter tool, and having gone in a flurry of cleaning when we returned from cleaning Grandma's house, even knew where it was and where a box of 50 shiny new matt knife blades were. But I remembered how the owner of the gallery where my work is displayed took one look at the matts I had cut, and told me unabashedly they were the worst matts she had ever seen.

I don't know what it is about matt cutting that seems to paralyze me, but I have never, not once, cut a perfect matt. I always rip edges instead of getting clean cuts, or my cut goes wobbly, or I overshoot corners so there are knife slices where they shouldn't be. Never have I cut a perfect matt.
"The matt boards are over there," said the young man, dismissing me.
With desperation, I bought a pre-cut matt that I knew was too small, hoping somehow Asherel's work had shrunk while I was gone, and then grabbed a matt board.  Why why why...... I muttered as I stumbled to the car.

I came in with the board, and gathered the matt cutting board and knife.
"What's that?" asked Asherel.
"I am going to cut you a matt," I said.
"You can do that?" she asked.
"No," I answered, "But unless God snaps His fingers and miraculously produces one, it is the only way we will have a matt in time to mail your art."

I carefully measured where my cuts were to go. I measured twice, remembering the maxim, "Measure twice, cut once." Normally I reverse that, but I was determined to approximate competency.

Then I adjusted the blade angle, and took a deep breath, and lined the cutter up carefully. For the next 10 minutes, I held my breath and took my time, and my spirit was praying frantically. Now came the moment of truth. I stepped back, and carefully lifted the matt from the rest of the board.

I could not believe it. It was exquisite. There was no shreds, or rips or crumples or tears. There were no splotches of blood or wet marks from sobbing. The corners were crisp and perfect right angles, with no overshot knife marks. I had for the first time in my life cut a perfect matt.

"If you don't win, it is not because the matt was cut by a troglodyte," I said smiling.

It doesn't happen often, this rising to the occasion and doing more than I am capable of. But when it does, it seems to be uniformly connected with the degree of love that motivates it. Funny how cutting a matt to showcase my own work for my own fame and glory always failed. But cutting a matt for the daughter that lights my life almost made me want to open a matt cutting seminar to the public.

1 Peter 4:8
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Taken by Surprise

Asherel sketched her deer for an art contest she is entering while I sketched one too, both of us listening to the rain.
"I hate pastels," she complained,"They always smear."
"They are supposed to smear," I told her,"That is the nature of pastels. Use it to your advantage.
And while we are at it, use your technology to your advantage
too. Set an audible reminder on your iPod to copy the forms you need tomorrow for Gavel club."

She did so, and continued drawing, often grumbling how pastels smear when you don't want them to.

That night as we were calmly eating dinner, the storm dripping outside off and on, there was a sudden explosion of a warning siren- the kind that signified a tornado about to carry Toto to Oz.
I nearly choked on my burrito.
Asherel remained surprisingly calm, and in fact, began laughing.
"What was that!?" I gasped, clutching my pounding chest.

"My iPod reminder," she laughed.

"You have an air raid siren on your iPod?" I exclaimed.

Asherel can do amazing things with her iPod- use it as a flashlight or as a level, tune her guitar, and now warn the entire neighborhood of Armageddon. She is very resourceful and usually excels at exploiting the potential of her tools. That is why her grumbling over the smearing pastels was somewhat out of character.

I love how pastels smear. As the colors melt together, quite often surprising effects that are astonishingly beautiful result. It is ironic that although I am a planner, I love the unplanned surprises in art.  And Asherel who is much more a go with the flow kind of person hates that unpredictable quality in art.
"I like pencils," she lamented,"the line stays where I draw it."


I like surprises by God too. I love drawing pictures on my iPod, and then uploading them to my Blog and wonder anew what message God can show me through that seemingly irrelevant sketch. God doesn't seem to care much about what I may plan or the course of smear I think my life should wander. But He does seem to delight in what astonishingly beautiful times He can produce if I let myself trust that His seemingly unplanned smudges are creating a glorious picture of my life.


Asherel and I chuckled all evening over the air raid siren, and I think she felt she had appropriately paid me back for making her use pastels which she hates. But the last laugh is mine, because I love surprises.


Jeremiah 14:9
⁹ Why are you like a man taken by surprise,
       like a warrior powerless to save?
       You are among us, O LORD,
       and we bear your name;
       do not forsake us!

Duck, duck, goose

The burly young man quickly sketched in his goose and then began to apply the thick layer of pastel.
"Wait!" I called out, and my student stopped mid stroke.
"Before you apply the pastel, which can't be easily corrected, is your drawing as good as you can make it?"
He glanced at it.
"For example," I said in the silence of a teachable moment, "Right now you have drawn the body beautifully but look at your photo of a goose. See that long, snake like neck? You have drawn a duck neck."
"I like ducks," he said, and began to apply the pastels.
"Stop!" I begged, "You can do this. It is not a duck. It is a goose. Look at that long neck and correct your duck. Make him a goose."
The young man flipped to a clean sheet of paper.
"You don't need to start all over," I advised, "Look at the curve here. You  have made it an opposite curve. Do you see that?"
He did.
"And now just lengthen and skinny up that neck..... then you will have a goose."
He sighed, and I suspected he didn't believe me. Also, turning his duck into a goose would require some effort and he wasn't quite sure it was worth it. After all, he didn't have to tell a soul that what he was really trying to draw was a goose, not a duck. But I knew he could do it, and I knew every time he looked at his duck, he would see a failed goose if he didn't deal with it.

He made one of the changes and then began to color in with pastel again.
"Not yet!" I called, "It is still a duck neck!"
He again sighed and this time put aside the pastels, and one by one, began to apply the corrections.
A few minutes later I glanced over.
"That's it!" I exulted, "Now you have a goose!"
"Yes," he agreed, and smiled as he began to color it in with his pastels, finally.

I try to get away with ducks when what I really want is a goose too, so I understood his hesitancy.  Settling for less than what is our best or sometimes what we know is right is much easier than correcting and striving for excellence. It eeks into every moment of life if we let it, that tendency to settle for less than what we know we should. Yet in the back of my mind, every time I do that, there is a nagging conviction that I have let the fullness of what life could be slip past me.

In the book of Revelations, God chastises His people not for sin, but for being "lukewarm".  He would rather have us be hot or cold than just complaisant. It is true in faith, in worship, in relationships, and in drawing geese.

Revelation 3:15-17 (New International Version)

¹⁵I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

Waiting

As I sat in the car waiting for Asherel, I started to add up the hours I have sat in the car waiting for my kids over the years. I am pretty sure I could not calculate them all without the use of logarithms, and since I am still a little shaky on my logarithm skill, suffice it to say, it adds up to at least half my life. Back in the days when I would wait for Anders, I would watch Matthias and Asherel climb on the modern art at UNCC. Then while waiting for Matthias once Anders was off on his own, I would walk with Asherel and point out all the bugs and other small creatures we could find. When Matt went off on his own, and I wait now for Asherel, I bring my iPod and sketch, memorializing these days. It will be just a turn of the page, and I will have no one left to wait for.

So I spend time now as I sit in the car looking at the world around me and fill the pockets of my soul with the beautiful blessings of God's creation. Yesterday I sketched the clouds, and realized most of the summer there were no clouds in NC. Just wide open blue sky. There is always something to draw. Always something left to wonder about, to love, to explore, to honor.

It doesn't feel like waiting. It never really did. It always felt like joyful expectation of being reunited, with excited voices and flushed cheeks crashing down beside me and saying, "That was fun!".  Each of us had had our own adventures to recount- theirs often much more exciting than mine, but mine were maybe more precious in some ways. Their adventures were of dashing off into a world they didn't yet know that would carry them ultimately away for a time. Mine were of reconnecting with a world that had always been there, right under my feet and beside my hand, waiting to be caressed, waiting to be noticed.

Waiting is one of the supreme characteristics of God. He watches as we scurry about exploring all the new places we think we need to go to find abundant life. And He waits, knowing that the world is finite, as is our strength. Ultimately we plop down and look around, and if we are weary enough, finally look right at Him.
"That was fun," we say, as we crawl into His embrace,"Thanks for waiting."

Psalm 130:5-7 (New International Version)

 ⁵ I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
       and in his word I put my hope.
 ⁶ My soul waits for the Lord
       more than watchmen wait for the morning,
       more than watchmen wait for the morning.
 ⁷ O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
       for with the LORD is unfailing love
       and with him is full redemption.

Light that Guides

When I was in highschool, I had an art teacher who took a group of students to Ogunquit, Maine each year on a sketching trip. I don't know if she knew what an impact those trips had on this shy, introspective budding artist. My mom always went along as a chaperone, and it was a very special time for both of us. It is funny that I don't remember a whole lot about it though I went twice. But I do remember that Nubble light was a lonely and beautiful light house set on the edge of a starkly beautiful rocky cliff. And I remember wending our way through tall golden reeds on a narrow path while the ocean crashed below, and then stopping frequently to sketch. How desperately I wish I could have those days back now with all I know about art, about family, about teachers who teach for all the right reasons.

Like so much of life the lessons we learn often come to fruition too late to properly thank the people who prodded us along the way. I loved my art teacher, but I am not sure I ever thanked her for how much she encouraged me. I think I just thought she was doing her job. I don't think I ever really thanked my mom for how special those trips were to me. Fortunately, she will read this blog and probably smile. But my art teacher was old even back then. I am pretty sure she is long departed from these mortal coils.

She was a lighthouse for me . She never directed the light onto herself though- it always turned outward in warning, in beckoning, and in guiding to safe shores.

I want to be a lighthouse.

Last week, one of my very talented older art students asked me to write a recommendation for a scholarship to the premier art school in the area. I had one day to do so. They dropped it off and I quickly composed the best recommendation I could and then they returned an hour later to pick it up. The competition for that scholarship was fierce.

I just found out she won. I got a letter, thanking me for my work with the student. Honestly, I haven't had this student very long, and she is the kind of talent that makes anyone that touches her life look good. But it was an unexpected joy to see that someone at least marginally in my realm of influence had succeeded against impossible odds to obtain such a coveted prize.

All my life, I had thought I wanted to be a famous artist. I wanted people thronging to buy my paintings for millions of dollars. Instead, I am laboring in relative obscurity (drat) helping others achieve the dream I had once hoped for myself.

But my goals are readjusting. I think I may find contentment staying on shore and lighting at least one small corner of darkness.

Matthew 5:15 (New International Version)

¹⁵Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

What You Are

Once when I was bemoaning the lack of time to produce art, a professional artist friend told me, "Everything an artist produces is art. It is not a thing you do, it is what you are."

That gave me comfort through my hectic years with young children. I was an artist at changing diapers. I was a Picasso with projectile vomiting. I was DaVinci with da babies! But, even though the kids are nearly grown, I never have the kind of time to produce art that I did when I had no children and was in art school. I know the dangers of art now. For example, yesterday I was supposed to pick Asherel and her friend up after Gavel Club and I got involved in artwork. When the phone rang, it was as though I were awakened from another planet. I could not imagine who could be calling me since I was the only human on earth doing the only thing that mattered. Then Asherel's voice telling me they were ready to come home jolted me back to earth.

I have to make a startling admission. I am irrevocably addicted now to digital art. The picture in today's blog was made on an Ipod, using a cute little program called "Doodle Buddy". Now who would not want to play with a program with a name like that? It is like potato chips...you can't just have one.... same with Doodle Buddy.... you can't just draw one picture. One picture leads to another, and pretty soon you have forgotten you have a daughter, or dinner to make, or even what your name is. All you know is that color and form and line can be exquisite and a delight beyond even food and sleep.

There are some things about Doodle Buddy that make it far superior to pencil and paper. First, if you make big mistakes and just want to start over, you just shake the Ipod, and like magic, the screen is clear! It is the ultimate symbol of redemption- sinful drawing...? NO problem! One shake of the Doodle Buddy and you are washed clean as snow. Secondly, with the touch of a stylus you can make your brush huge or just a few millimeters wide. No expensive purchasing of a zillion brushes to fit your every need- Doodle Buddy has it all in one touch of a button!
And thirdly, you have all the colors of the world at your disposal through the use of blending 20 or so major hues to any color you might desire.

And this is not even the best of the Apple drawing programs, I am told. Unfortunately, we are not sure which ones will operate on Asherel's IPod but are busily trying to find one (some require Iphone capability or 3g, which is techno-talk for things rich people have that we don't).


While bonding with Doodle Buddy, I did consider that perhaps God was sending me a message using the language of a technological world I have kicked and screamed and begged not to be forced to enter. What an unexpected joy to find that in a very short time with very technical, specialized tools, I was able to produce some startling results. I had clung to my perception of pencil, paint, and brush as the only true tools of an artist. I did not want to give up the old, and embrace the new. I did not consider the use of Doodle Buddy what a real artist does. I did not really believe my friend who long ago told me that an artist is not what I do, but what I am.

But God is speaking to me, and to you, all the time and His ways are sometimes startling unorthodox and unexpected. If we keep looking for Him in the "old" ways, we sometimes miss Him when He appears in a jingle bell, or an illness, or a wounded animal we give a drink of water to. We are precious and loved, no matter what we do, because of who we are in Him. And every morning, we are His Doodle Buddy, shaken so all the old ruins of bad choices and sin are washed away, ready to create with Him a new day.

Romans 8:34-36 (New International Version)

³⁴Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?