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A Prayer to End All Suffering
I don’t don’t know about you, but I don’t willingly sign up for pain or suffering. Pollen season isn’t my friend. I could do without all this yellow and green stuff clogging my brain cells and my lungs. As I cough and die, swill decongestant tonics, and huff my asthma inhaler, I wonder if this…
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It’s Not Under Control!
All things will renew themselves in good season, yet we have only the present moment before us. We can’t live in the past, nor can we control the future. We have to recognize even our present moments aren’t always in our control, as we witnessed in the big Super Bowl game last Sunday. Who would…
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Introducing Watercolor Painting
Our art class has worked in acrylic paint for several years, but toward the end of last year, they expressed an interest in learning about watercolors. I said, “Sure, we’ll do that. It’ll build on the color theory you already know, but you’re going to have to learn to plan ahead and learn not to…
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Nativities Then and Now
Every Christmas, my family would put up a beautiful tree and decorate it to the nines. My dad would always tie this living sculpture to the nearest window frame so the tree wouldn’t topple over. He was well aware at least one of his three curious and rambunctious children would no doubt be crawling under…
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Art for the Inner Child
What is the purpose of an art class? Why does anyone learn to speak a foreign language or take up a craft or sport they’ve never attempted before? We must want to explore some unknown universe or get out of our comfort zone, or as my old favorite television series would announce weekly, “to boldly…
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Sharansky’s Hanukkah
NOTE: This extraordinary story comes from Arguable by Jeff Jacoby, an opinion writer for the Boston Globe, on December 12, 2023. I’m sharing it with all of you because even in the worst of times, even with the least of resources, if we have faith in God, we can be a light unto the world.…
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Season of Light
As the days grow shorter and the nights lengthen, the chill air adds to the darkness of our world. We can give into this dour outlook, especially this year with devastating wars in Ukraine and Gaza, or we can light a candle against the gathering gloom. Cultures across history have seen the time before year…
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Rabbit! Rabbit! Welcome to December 2023
“Gloom begets gloom,” my daddy always said, “so if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it’s best to go back and get out on the other side.” Some folks today don’t have much of the Christmas or holiday spirit, for they’re only looking at the dark side of world events or…
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Prints, Pumpkins, and Possibilities
Here we are shortly before Thanksgiving, at the time I call the “high holy days of family gatherings.” We’ll be in this space-time continuum until the last whistle of the last Bowl Game—the grandaddy of them all: Sunday, February 11, 2024. That would be Super Bowl LVIII, or three days before Valentine’s Day, as a…
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Inspired by Autumn Leaves
I returned from a spiritual retreat at Mount Eagle, at which we studied the Enneagram. This is our United Methodist camp site dedicated to holy listening. Of the nine spiritual personality types, I happen to be a Four: The Creative. I’m “The Sensitive, Introspective Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental.” Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and…
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