• The first bright light of creation must have been an awesome sight. Of course, only God was there to see it or hear it. The earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. Genesis 1:3 tells us, “Then God said, “Let there be light;” and there was light.” I have…


  • Learning Creativity

    Is creativity innate or can we learn creativity? From my experience, children are creative up until about age eight, at which time peer pressure begins to suppress their imagination and willingness to experiment and exercise their own inner truths. About this age, children acquire an understanding of the “real world,” as opposed to the worlds…


  • Intuitive Color Wheels

    The great and wonderful part of art is exercising imagination and discovering new ways to solve problems. One of my favorite memories in art school was the day our professor came to class with a single red clay brick. Our first thought was this is going to be the most boring drawing class ever, but…


  • Cosmic Rainbow

    In times of cultural change and uncertainty, some faith-based communities turn to apocalyptic literature to find meaning, if not solace, for their suffering. Other communities of faith look forward to a future of hope and joy, even though they live in the same circumstances. Apocalyptic literature is a genre of writing that appeared during times…


  • OAKLAWN FRIDAY ART CLASS

    WE’RE BACK!!! The older I get, the faster time flies! When I was a child, summers were long and lazy times. I actually got so bored, by the first of August I’d start to play school. I’d line up my brothers and the neighborhood children and pretend to teach them.  It was our way of…


  • The Creating God

    In the dead heat of summer, our gardens aren’t putting forth the fruit of our planting. Maybe the animals of our neighborhood have made their too frequent nightly visitations, so our harvest is skimpy. We can forget God is a both a creating god and a recreating god as well. The first words of the…


  • The Witness of the Cross

    We are a people who follow Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and (who) has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God,” as the writer of Hebrews 12:2 reminds us.…


  • THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN THE SCHOOLS

    When does an image become a meme? Or an icon, an idol, or a shibboleth? I ask those questions, and then have go about defining them. We all know what an image is—a representation of something which actually exists. An icon is the Greek word for image, but to become a venerable image, it must…


  • Anne Frank’s Last Birthday Cake

    We never know when the tides of time will change. Most of us aren’t creatures of change, but prefer instead the well-worn and familiar paths. As a United Methodist pastor, I moved every two or three years during my ministry, so one thing I kept was my telephone company. I know some people like to…


  • Entertaining Angels Unawares

    One of my favorite icons is the Rublev Trinity of 1411, which represents the three angelic visitors who came to Abraham and Sarah’s tent in the wilderness. They stopped there on the way to Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities known for their lack of hospitality to strangers, so the largess Abraham showed by preparing a…