A Sunset that Paints its Own Colors

Asherel and I have an ongoing battle. She is doing a beautiful but very time consuming art work for the NRA Wildlife contest. It is due in three weeks. She has been working on it since early summer, but despite my wise counsel, she didn't put in as many hours over the summer as I suggested. I warned her that 9th grade was going to be busy, and she would not have much time to devote to the lovely project once the school year began. Lo and Behold, as she should know by now, the Mother was right. Children everywhere, save yourself the energy of eternally challenging this fact: Mothers are always right.

At any rate, she has far more than three weeks worth of tedious work on this art work, in my opinion. She insists she can finish in time. I have tried to suggest some time saving techniques, that I believe would produce equally lovely effects. No, she refuses to compromise her standards. If it isn't done in time, it isn't done. She won't do something less than what she feels is the called for optimal artistic decisions.

I suppose, in some ways, it is like me suggesting to God that perhaps a little more magenta and a little less orange is needed in the optimal sunset. In the end, the Creator really should make the decisions on how the creation ought to look. As a creative person myself, I am a little astounded when I think of God's courage in giving His creation free will. Now I know already what my dad is ranting and raving about as he reads those words. We have had a thousand or so discussions about " free will vs. predetermination".  For now Dad, suspend your thoughts about all that, and let's just suppose for the sake of the rest of the story that free will does exist and it was ordained by God. (If necessary, take an extra blood pressure pill.)

In that case, it is like me giving the power to my painting to suddenly sprout a mouth and say, "Hey wait a minute! You stink! Why don't you take a few more drawing lessons, turkey?! Why are you making me that color with that shape? And you call yourself an artist? Gimme a break. I don't need you. Get lost!"

It seems ridiculous in that context...but that is what I do to God over and over again.
Hey! Why did you put me in this stupid situation?
How could you expect anyone to be patient, kind, or loving with the jerks you plopped me in the middle of?
How do you expect me to carry our your will when I'd have to give up all that pile of desires over there?
Why are you doing this to me? I deserve better!
This is the thanks I get for carrying out your commands?
ETC.

Fortunately, God is used to His creations that talk back. When Moses was leading the grumbly Israelites to the promised land, their incessant complaining finally overcame him.
 He cried out in angry despair, telling God ,"You gave me a bunch of whiney babies, and then expect me to lead them for forty miserable years. You have given me a burden that is too heavy. Just kill me now!"
But God doesn't kill Moses. Rather than chastise Moses, or ask him how he dare question the wisdom of His Creator, He gently calms Moses down, and promises to immediately send him seventy helpers to share a portion of the burden. He allows the sunset to paint its own color, in a sense.

Asherel finished the tail of the wolf. It looks so real, I feel like I could reach out and stroke the soft fur. Ok, maybe sometimes mothers aren't right. The creator probably knows best the direction to guide her creation.


Numbers 11: 10-17
¹⁰ Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. ¹¹ He asked the LORD, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? ¹² Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? ¹³ Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ ¹⁴ I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. ¹⁵ If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”  ¹⁶ The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. ¹⁷ I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.

The Day of Small Things

The little boy had been standing near, silently watching me as I labored in the sand. The sand dog was slowly taking form, more slowly than our usual family sculptures since certain unnamed members of the family were relaxing at the beach, rather than helping.

It was ok. The sand sculptures are my beach activity. I love being at the ocean, but not of the ocean. There are too many biting, stinging, sliming, and frightening creatures in the ocean to make swimming a relaxing experience for me. It would not be a vacation then...it would be more like paramilitary training camp.

So I was making my sand sculpture, happily safe from the sharks, jellyfish, blowfish, sea urchins, and genetically altered poisonous sponges. The little boy had wandered over and not even said Hi. He just watched me with big brown eyes. It became clear if there was to be any interaction, I would have to initiate it.
"Hi, do you like to build sand things?"
He nodded.
"Can tell what this is?"
"A dog."
"Yep."
More silence. As I patted the sand carefully on the dog's head, he followed me and leaned in, watching me with a serious scowl. I moved to the front paw, and he moved with me. As I crouched near, he crouched near, behind me, peering under my arm as the sand dog took shape.
"Do you want to build a sand creature?"
"It looks hard," he said.
"It's not. I'll teach you. Come over here."
We walked a few feet from my dog."
"Ok, first what do you want to build? Choose something simple, like a clam shell."
He looked at me, his face blank.
"How about a crab? They're pretty easy."
He nodded.
"Ok, first you draw an outline on the sand."
I used my sand shovel and drew the outline of a crab. He watched with furowed brow, and nodded.
I wondered where the child's mother was, and why she was letting him talk with a stranger.
"Then you dig a trench outside the outline like this and pile the sand on the shape. Later you will patt that sand smooth and in shape like you saw me do with the dog. Do you have a sand shovel?"
He nodded, looking at the crab.
I went back to work on my dog and he stood still. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his mother appear with two shovels.
"Would you like me to help you build an animal?"she asked.
He nodded smiling and they hurried over to their own space of sand several yards away.

I'd been reading with Asherel about missionaries who had gone to Africa risking their lives and heads bringing the gospel to cannibals. I have never felt called to leave my own country. But I do pray every time I leave the house that God would open my eyes to the world of suffering, loneliness, and need around me and that perhaps, I could be a blessing to someone.

It seems that God has not gifted me with an ability to do large things, to do great things. But He has taught me never to despise the day of small things.

I carved the name of my book in the sand by my sculpture and wrote also, "available at amazon.com" in careful sand script. You just never know what might be used of God, I thought, glancing at the mother and boy busily building a creature in the sand together.

Zechariah 4:10 NIV

"Who dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of the Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel?"

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The Creative Spirit

I'd passed the sign for a month, and every time, Asherel would tell me I ought to bring my paintings to that new gallery opening soon.
"I should," I agreed, since my book is still in the hands of the agent and no action seems imminent on that creative venture.
So while on my way to errands, I almost plowed over an old lady as I did a sharp right turn into the parking lot on a sudden inspirational whim.
I didn't have my paintings with me, but it seemed I was being tugged to the art gallery.

I saw they had indeed opened. A lone woman sat behind her computer, but greeted me warmly as I walked in.
"So you have opened!" I said.
"Yes, last night we had our opening reception," she said, "I am dead on my feet today!"
"Well congratulations. I have been driving by for a month and keep meaning to drop by. I am an artist....and I do work that is similar in a way to these....."  Glancing around I saw some paintings that struck me as having a similar gestural quality as my work.
"Those are really beautiful, by the way, " I added, stopping to look more closely.
"Thank you," she said, "Those are mine."
I just love it when I unwittingly give encouragement to others!

"Well I have an attic full of work and wondered if you would be interested in looking at it?"
"Our artists are all award winning artists," she said, not snobbishly, just stating the obvious. The work in the gallery was stupendous. "Have you won awards of any kind?"
I laughed, "I won 'best highschool artist'.....does that count?"
I think I won best artist in my middle school too, and designed the winning yearbook cover. I suspect it wasn't that kind of award she was referring to.
"Truthfully," I said, "I have won honorable mention in a couple of shows, but I don't enter many. Haven't in years. However, I suspect I am the world's most prolific iPod artist."
She tilted her head, peering at me.
"I do a daily blog and I draw on my iPod every day to illustrate it."
She pulled my blog up on her computer, and told me I should do greeting cards. People have told me that for years. She offered to market them for me if I got some ready. I may just do that, but for now, I needed to clean my attic.

"I would be happy to look at your work next week, before we open here," she said. So we set up a time, and then she took me on a gallery tour, describing each artist's intent behind some of the main pieces. Her own work ranged from detailed realism to broad, gestural splashes of paint.
"You have so many styles," I said, "My professor in art school told me that I had too many styles. He told me that I had to settle on one distinctive style, so anyone looking at my work would know it was mine. I never could settle on one."
She nodded vigorously and pointed at me, "That is just what they told me! And I refused."
"There are so many styles, so much to explore," I said, "How could I limit myself?"
"Exactly!" she cried, "Though I really enjoy the broader more simplified approach like this one."
"Do you know the Matisse sculpture?" I asked her, "I think it is called 'Woman'. It is a series of bas relief sculptures of the back of a woman. The first one is very detailed, very realistic, and each successive one is of the same pose increasingly simplified. The last one is of only 2 or 3 lines that give the essence of Woman.That is what I think art should attempt to achieve."
We talked an hour. When I finally left to hurry home to take Asherel to her first guitar recital, I realized I had just had a soul encounter. I haven't connected in my art spirit with anyone in years like I had connected with that artist. And I hadn't realized til then how much I had missed it.

Asherel had been practicing her song for the recital in her room for a month behind closed doors. I was anxious to hear her. Arvo had rarely heard her play her guitar. She has only taken lessons for 9 months and  we always finish practice long before he is home. I set my camera on my lap as we settled in the center front row.
"What's that?" asked Asherel, looking apprehensively at my camera.
"I am videotaping you, and that is that," I said, heading off the argument I knew was to follow.
She opened her mouth to speak, but I was quicker than even her photophobic diatribe.
"I told Aunt Amy, poor Aunt Amy in the hospital who almost died that I would videotape you for her."
Asherel closed her mouth around her protests, and slouched back in her seat.
When they called her up, she went on stage, and removed her guitar from her case. The case was outlined in duct tape, and a lovely duct tape rose adorned the top of it. She settled calmly on the center stage, like she had done this a thousand times, and played "Blackbird", by her beloved Beatles. It was so beautiful I would have cried, had I not been so anxious to catch it all on videotape.
Later I sent the video to Matt, my gifted guitarist son in his own right, and he wrote back, "She is amazing! May I post this on my facebook page?"  He told me if she continues in this vein, she could have a career in music.

As we returned home I got a text message from Jim, sister Amy's sainted husband.
"They discharged Amy. We are headed home!" Amy texted me a picture of her wearing the duct tape rose barrette Asherel had sent her.

I have often thought about what it means to mirror God, to become more like Him each day, which is my goal when all is said and done. We are, after all, made in His image. And I realized as I felt my soul sing in chorus with the gallery owner and then listen in delight to the skillful strumming of my daughter on her guitar that our God is a creative God, the author of Creation. Is it no wonder that our spirits sing when we yield to our own creative spirit?  I thought of the duct tape rose adorning the case of her beloved guitar, and the duct tape rose adorning the hair of her beloved Aunt and reveled in the beauty of praising God by using His gifts, like this daughter of my own heart.


Jeremiah 3:13
¹⁵ Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.

The Basket in the Bulrushes

I'm blowing her cover, but Asherel transported a pond snail across state lines and is harboring the alien life form in a small aquarium in her room. She claims her dad never technically said she could not bring it home from the Maury river, while he clearly forbade the little frog she saw there from joining our menagerie. So the snail, whose name is something like Ferdinand Charles Maury Alexander III, came from Virginia to Charlotte in her water bottle.

She researched the needs of a pond snail and told me it needed fresh river water twice a week. And lettuce. And a place it could crawl out above water so it could study Philosophy and train for a promising career. She set about building it a series of ramps out of duct tape that it could slither up to reach a platform where it could breathe dry air in its little aquarium and watch the world unfiltered through water with its beady little eye stalks.

For the "fresh" water, filled with all the microbes a pond snail considers delicacies, I saw an opportunity to trick Asherel into healthy outdoor activity. We would ride our bikes to the Greenway each week and collect creek water. I got out a water bottle for our catch-pan, and she recoiled.
"Not nearly big enough!" she said, "Ferdinand Charles Maury Alexander the III needs a complete change of water in his aquarium."
We foraged and found a huge old plastic dog bone container with a nice screw top. It didn't fit in my bike basket but we squished it halfway in and started off, the dogs watching us morosely. All they knew is a dog bone container filled with bones had been emptied to another container that was not their stomach.
"Bring duct tape," I told Asherel, since the container top was a little smashed.

Fortunately, the creek was quite full from recent rain, but the banks down to the creek were too steep for us to climb.
We paused on the edge of the creek and pondered this dilemma. Then my child, trained in Destination Imagination to use common objects to solve problems saw my bungee cord on the back of my bike.
"We could hook the bungee cord and lower the jar down," she said.
"But it will just slip off when it is filled with water. Water is heavy," I added.
"Then we can duct tape the bungee cord on!" she proclaimed happily.
She set about securing the bungee cord around the lip of the jar.
Other bicyclists passed by on the greenway trail, and swerved as they craned their necks wondering what kind of creature we must be after or what newfangled fishing pole we were constructing. Several wondered where they could buy one for themselves.

Asherel lowered the bungee jar into the water, where it settled.... and floated.
"Push it down!" she called, "Get a stick!" As I tipped its lip underwater, it quickly gurgled and filled.
"Lift!" commanded the Operations Manager.
As she pulled up, the bungee cord did what all bungee cords are designed to do...stretched.
The water was quite heavy. We joined forces and together hauled with all our might. Slowly the huge jar rose through the air. The duct tape held. With sweat dripping off our chins, we successfully hauled the water jar to shore.
"The Eagle has landed!" I cried.

Of course, the obvious next question was, "Now what?"
The 50 pound jar of water would not fit in my basket and would throw my balance off even if it could fit. I had a back rack , but the jar was tall and all I had was duct tape, and a bungee cord.
"Duct tape it to the rack!!!" called Asherel.
So she balanced it on my bike while we first bungeed it down. Of course since the jar was rounded, each time I bungeed one side the jar would roll from under the stretchy cord.
"Do it like a package string, criss-cross it," said the technical advisor to the mission.
That worked, though I knew with one bump the bungee would shift and the 100 pound jar of water would go tumbling.
"Now duct tape the bungee in place," said Asherel.
I did so, and mounted my bike. The jar of water weighed more than me.
We pedaled home slowly. The bungee/duct tape securing system held.
Asherel rushed inside to bring the microorganic feast to the lanquishing Ferdinand Charles Maury Alexander III.

It reminded me, as we lifted the basket of lifegiving protozoans from the river, that another clever young girl and her mother had once used creative Destination Imagination type problem solving to save a life. Instead of pulling a basket out of the river, they devised a clever basket to put something in the river, to keep it safe, and dry. They soothed the crying child as they lined his new home with pitch and laid soft plants against the tar for a dry and gentle cradle. Then they sent baby Moses afloat, but they watched and trusted that God would keep His hand on the vessel and bring their baby safely to the place he was meant to be. And the floating baby Moses was noticed by the Pharoah's daughter, pulled out of the shallow water where the basket bobbed in the bulrushes, and Moses was saved. Raised in a palace, it was Moses who one day would lead God's people out of slavery, and start them on the path back to God, the Promised Land.

All because a clever woman knew how to use duct tape and a jar....
well ok, bulrushes and tar but only because duct tape hadn't yet been invented.

Anyway, there are a lot of major changes in the wind in our life right now.... and usually that is true of most people. Alot of those things are scary, and we don't really know how we will manage- emotionally, financially, physically....
But if duct tape and bungee cords can haul a 500 pound jar of water and if tender reeds and pitch tar can be woven together to save a People....
there is nothing, nothing we can't accomplish when God is for us and our heart is stayed on serving Him.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand Charles Maury Alexander III is enjoying his organic soup for breakfast.

Romans 8: 31-32
³¹What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

True Art

A brand new application called Live Sketch appeared on the store for iPod users. Asherel who peruses this store like a shark in blood infested waters, pounced on it and told me I MUST download it NOW as it is FREE for a limited time.

Most of her suggestions involve free applications that do wildly silly things like the one that makes the iPod screen look like a full container of tictac candy, and even makes the sound of the container when you shake it. But I did look at the Live Sketch application and felt it showed some promise.

For the next hour, I could not stop drawing on my iPod using Live Sketch. The picture in this blog post was created with that program. It has some kinks that I hope the developer will work out but it is a very fun program. It is almost impossible to draw thin lines or add any detail, but the sketchy lines it creates are unlike any other art "medium" I have used, and I found that the more I practiced, the more I could control it to do very interesting things.

I have some relatives who insist that iPod art is not art. I do admit that there are applications that draw for the artist, and in my opinion, those are cheats. However, the programs that allow the user to draw are like any other art medium. True artists use anything at their disposal as a tool to create art, and it is always evident who is a creative genius, and who is a fraud. Unless you think my art falls in the latter category in which case it is not at all obvious......

However it does make me think of one of the most unusual art forms of all time. Out of nothing, God created a universe, and out of dust, He created man and out of a rib, He created woman. If this is not a supreme message to every person to take the most meager of supplies, the most unlikely of raw material, and the least promising of opportunities and from that seeming paucity - create a life glowing with beauty.... well, then I hang up my iPod brush.

Isaiah 42: 5-7
This is what God the Lord says---he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: [6] "I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, [7] to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

Breaking Out

As we were preparing my son's pile of things for him to leave for his first year at college, he refused to bring an umbrella. Young adults have bizarre perceptions of what makes them conspicuous when they would often prefer to just melt into the wall. As Anders was heading to Boston, the cold and desolate north where there is cold and rain, and he would be without me to remind him that it was cold and rainy so that he could then ignore me and go out unprepared in the cold and rain.....I wanted at the very least that he would have an umbrella. Who would have thought that the very suggestion of an umbrella would cause my son to shudder with the gruesomeness of my deviousness for even thinking such a thing. I could not imagine why the thought of an umbrella would cause such a reaction, particularly in Anders, who probably more than anyone I know could not care less what others thought of him.
"Really Anders," I insisted, "It is perfectly normal to carry an umbrella when it rains."
"I have no intention of being normal!" he barked.

Well now. This could probably be emblazoned on our door, the rallying cry of our family.
"Give me abnormality, or give me Death!"
"I only regret that I have but one not normal life to live for my country!"
"I think, therefore I am not normal!"
You get the picture.
I think this is the blessing and the curse of the creative, artistic soul. There is something that rebels deep inside against conformity, against sameness. There is a constant drive to be unique, to show a soul that sparkles in the fog. It is a blessing when the bubble of creative juices boil above the simmering mass and splatters a fresh thought to a world tired of the same old mush. It is a curse when the creative soul languors in weary exhaustion, every new thought depleted and dry, with the crushing realization that Shakespeare already said it, or else it is in the Bible. There is nothing new under the sun. We are living in a world of left overs.
And just when the creative soul is ready to hang up his beret, something bizarrely wonderful and new is unveiled.....creatures like the Dumbo Octopod are discovered a mile beneathe the sea- 6 foot long octopus like animals with fins that look like ears of giant elephants. Or the recently discovered ghost slug, a blind huge white carnivorous blob found in Wales. It feeds at night with razor sharp teeth. Ick. If that isn't the stuff of nightmares, I don't know what is. Picture yourself out for an evening stroll and being stalked by a slimy blind blob that then goes after your toes with a mouth full of razor blades. (I am canceling my trip to Wales....)However, who would have thought to make such a creature? Creativity is not dead!
So the very same Bible that bemoans that nothing new is under the sun in Ecclesiastes 1:9, also lifts our drowning spirits with this exaltation:

²² Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

²³ They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

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