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Pillars of Creation
The Bible has many creation narratives. We’re familiar with Genesis 1 and 2, but our scriptures also include creation stories in Job 38-41, Psalm 104, Proverbs 8:22-31, Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 and 12:1-7, and excerpts from Isaiah 40-55. Some believe God created the world and all of creation in seven 24-hour periods. Others believe God had nothing…
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Never surrender!
“Never give up! Never surrender!” This is my favorite quote from the 1999 sci-fi parody film Galaxy Quest. As a fan of Star Trek, I love the heroics of the storylines and the movie’s devoted fans. What sets this spoof story apart is how an alien culture has modeled its entire identity on the “historical…
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Picasso’s African Masks and Inner Mysteries
What is the key to open the door to the hidden mysteries? For Frodo and his fellow travelers in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, they needed to know the elvish answer to the riddle, “Speak friend and enter.” Gandalf knows this language, so they enter with ease. For years, the Egyptian hieroglyphics were unintelligible…
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Pumpkins and Gourds
Sometimes I can work for hours and end up with nothing to show for it. In grammar school, I could use the excuse, “The dog ate my diorama.” Today my primary reason is “The latest iOS upgrade sent my file into the far realms of the cloud and smashed it to smithereens while it was…
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Creating a Picasso Still Life
Einstein never said, “If we do the same thing every time, but expect a different result, this is the definition of insanity.” So why do artists return over and over to the still life? For that matter, why do preachers repeatedly use the same scripture texts for their sermons? Some of my former congregation members…
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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…
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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…


