Perspective is both a mental outlook on life and our ability to view things in their true relations or relative importance. In art class, we use the tools of perspective to make a two dimensional surface appear three dimensional. One of the techniques is drawing parallel lines as converging in order to give the illusion of depth and distance. An untrained eye doesn’t see this at first, but once the illusion is pointed out to them, they never can unsee it. We worked last year with one vanishing point—railway tracks—and two vanishing points—buildings seen on the corners.
Two Point Perspective
There are mysteries in this world which we don’t understand, but those of us who have been taught by others with this “secret hidden wisdom” can share it with others. The Ancient Greek mystery religions kept their knowledge for only the select few, who learned it by word of mouth in secret ceremonies. The early Gospel, however, was proclaimed openly to all who would receive it. Yet even in Corinth, some believers wanted to be more special or spiritual than others. Paul wrote them, saying they needed to know “Nothing beyond what is written,” for the scriptures contained within enough for their salvation (1 Corinthians 4:6). As an apostle, he was a steward of the “Mysteries of God,” and even if he were to understand “all mysteries and all knowledge, and…have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but… not have love…(he’d be) nothing.” (1 Cor 13:2)
Cornelia: Art Room Door
As a teacher, I can provide students with learning opportunities for every skill in art. Thanks to Oaklawn UMC, and the generosity of my clergy pals over the years, I have a space in which to teach. I don’t charge for the lessons, since I consider this my ministry in retirement. I’ve taught every age from kindergarten through adulthood. There’s no age I don’t relate to. As Dale Chihuly says about art: “Most of art is the work. Not every piece is a success. We learn from our mistakes more than from our successes. If we don’t show up to work, we never have a chance to do well.” (It’s not an exact quote—I watched the film last night).
Gail: stage 1
As I tell folks, we may be saved by grace, but progress in art is by works. We can’t have our egos invested in the product. Right now Tim is in recovery from carpal tunnel surgery. Doing light exercises with pencil is good for his wrist muscles. Art class is a form of physical therapy. He wanted to draw a pumpkin because it had some shapes he’s struggled with over time. He noticed if he moved forward or backward by mere inches, the image he saw was different. This too is a matter of perspective. What is our view point: is it fixed or variable?
Gail: stage 2
Gail and I worked on painting an interior scene. I freehanded my painting, while Gail used her ruler and pencil to draw in the door shapes. I still wasn’t totally recovered from my colonoscopy—my age is catching up on me. My brain felt foggy, but I was trying. We came back for a second week to work on this project.
Gail: stage 3—extended floors
When we leave our work, we have an opportunity to clear our minds and reflect on other things. On returning to our canvas, we then look at our image with fresh eyes. My engineer friends call this the “saturation principle.” Just as the land can only absorb so much water before it runs off, our minds will get clogged up and we just can’t seem to make progress. Getting up for a drink or a walk about is a good thing. Sometimes the paint won’t dry fast enough for us either! That’s an indication to work in another area, even if we don’t want to. We must listen to what our work is telling us.
I often let my paintings rest overnight while I get a good night’s sleep also. In the morning, I’ll see if it still holds up, or if I need to keep painting. Sometimes I’ll take a “finished” painting down after a few months and repaint it. If it won’t last three months under my eye, it doesn’t leave the house. But I’ve learned from the experience. If we ever quit learning, we are dead. I don’t plan on being dead any time soon.
ABC—Positive and Negative Choices
Learning how to see in art is the most important lesson in art. Most of us won’t be Michaelangelo or Leonardo, but we can be the best of who we are. Our outlook on life in art means accepting our imperfections and our weaknesses. Some people can’t accept the learning curve necessary to make acceptable looking products. The point of art class isn’t the product. It’s the process of doing. With the doing, the “product” will come around eventually. We just need to have a positive attitude. Besides, our salvation isn’t dependent upon our accomplishments in art, but our faith in Christ and our love for Christ spread abroad into God’s world.
A Gift from my Mom
Perspective is also our attitude towards life. As Bob Ross, the great philosopher of happy trees and the joy of painting once said,
“If you have light on light, you have nothing. If you have dark on dark, you have nothing. It’s like in life. You gotta have a little sadness once in a while, so you know when the good times are coming. I’m waiting on the good times now.”
He said this in a PBS episode filmed shortly after his wife had passed away. Art class is also therapy for the soul, for we paint our emotions on the canvas, whether we realize it or not. We don’t have to talk about our feelings, but art helps us express them.
When I taught art back in the dark ages, I told my students if they learned only one thing from me, they would never forget it. A positive attitude leads to positive behavior and positive behavior leads to positive consequences. A negative attitude leads to negative behavior and negative behavior leads to negative consequences. That’s the simple ABC’s of life in the art room. Try it. You’ll like it. This is how we teach “Perspective.”
My most recent studio work explores my memories of my pilgrimage to the ancient ruins of Tel Megiddo. Why am I interested enough to make an entire series of drawings and paintings of this site, which I visited over two decades ago? First, the city was continuously occupied from the 7th or 6th millennium BCE, with the ancient tel generally left untouched and intact since its decline and subsequent abandonment around the 4th century BCE. The tels at Megiddo, Hazor, and Beer Sheba all have retained their authenticity and each have acquired the characteristic conical shape with a flattish top, protruding above the surrounding countryside. These three tels are now UNESCO Heritage Sites.
Megiddo: Marks and Memories
Excavations at Tel Meggido have uncovered about 26 layers of settlements dating back to the Chalcolithic period, or the early Bronze Age, about 5,000 years ago. Other sources say 30 layers exist at Tel Megiddo. The first four layers have been identified. This site was a Canaanite city, an Egyptian fortress, a Chariot City during Biblical times, and a prominent Assyrian and Persian city. King Solomon ruled the city in its prime in the 10th century BCE.
Megiddo: First Recorded Battle in History
The city has seen more battles than any other location in the world because of its location at the crossroads of the ancient world. The first written reference to Megiddo also happens to be the first recorded battle in history: a detailed account of the 1479 B.C.E. invasion of the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III. When King Thutmose III of Egypt conquered Megiddo 3,500 years ago, the pharaoh left with, among other things: 1,929 head of cattle, 2,000 goats, 20,500 sheep, 204 horses, 200 army uniforms, and 502 bows. Megiddo is also the first recorded use of the composite bow and the first body count. All details of the battle come from Egyptian sources — primarily the hieroglyphic writings on the Hall of Annals in the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak, Thebes (now Luxor), by the military scribe Tjaneni. Megiddo is also the site of a large chariot stable complex, called Solomon’s Stables, even though we now know they were built by Solomon’s successor King Ahab during the 9th century B.C.E.
Megiddo: Blue Version, Motions and Moods
Fortress cities sit on the 10 acre summit of Megiddo Hill or Tel Megiddo, rising 21.33 meters (about 70 feet) above the valley. Megiddo is located in the Lower Galilee region of northern Israel. Its critical location dominated the Aruna Pass (Wadi Ara or Megiddo Pass), which was the entrance to one of the few passes through the Carmel Mountains. Megiddo controlled the Via Maris, the main route between Egypt and Mesopotamia, also known as the Egyptian Way of the Sea. Christians regard this area as “Armageddon,” where the final Biblical battle between good and evil will occur.
Circular altar-like shrine from the Early Bronze Age at Megiddo. (Credit: Hanay)
The early Bronze Age temple compound at Megiddo is unparalleled for its number of temples, the continuity of cult activity and the record of ritual activity. The late Bronze Age palace is the most elaborate in Israel, and one of the best in the Levant. For the Iron Age remains, the elaborate orthogonal town plan of Megiddo has few parallels in the Levant. All three tels have impressive remains of their underground water catchments systems, which demonstrate sophisticated and geographically responsive engineering solutions to water storage. Megiddo is significant because the entire sequence of the Bronze Age and Iron Age is not only represented and excavated, but radiocarbon dated.
Megiddo: Moonlight Cityscape
Those are the travelogue statements. When on pilgrimage, one place full of stones begins to look like another after many days on the bus. Even though I was keeping notes of my journey in my paper journal, by the second week, I was hitting information overload. Each and every place was of the utmost importance, but my body was feeling the stress of constant traveling on a bus as well as the lack of good sleep from a different bed in a new hotel every single night.
Only strong coffee, lots of water, and eating three good meals a day were keeping me going. I was so excited during my pilgrimage, I was in an altered state of mind for weeks after my return home. Time slowed down and I could see more clearly for a long time. I would swear I could see individual oxygen molecules in the air, even though in my rational mind I knew this wasn’t possible. Pilgrimage is a spiritual journey, not a tourist trip of checking off various sites to say “I’ve been there and done that.” Even when surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” both physical and immaterial, I always knew I was walking on holy ground.
Megiddo: Motions and Moods, number 2
What does it mean to walk in the places where people have lived and died? Especially where they have clashed violently in war? The last time Americans fought a war on our home front was the Civil War. That internecine conflict was a horrific wound on our nation, an injury that hasn’t yet healed for some. I know my own daddy still carried the scars of his ancestors who fought on the battlefield to preserve slavery. He never understood why I thought that was a bad choice and why I worked to undo the damage of the war’s legacy on all Americans.
Cannon at Shiloh National Military Park
While traveling back home from viewing the Great American Eclipse, I met a man at Shiloh National Military Park, a Civil War memorial battle field. He visits these historic sites to pray for the deceased. He was from New Orleans, Louisiana, and believed those who died a violent death still wandered about, since their souls weren’t at peace. I don’t know if I believe this, but it gave him comfort to pray for the release of the hate and violence people can store up in their bodies and spirits and cause them to war upon one another.
I can say on that autumn day while I walked those killing fields, I felt the somber mystery of death and life, dignity and indignity as I walked about the silent hills and valleys. No longer do we hear the crack of the rifle or the thunder of the cannons. Rain has washed away the blood from the grassy knolls and pastures. Sunlight has dressed the wildflowers in beauty. If not for the explanatory signage, I’d never know about the extraordinary happenings at Shiloh National Military Park.
Perhaps I’m painting these historic sites of conflict because we are in a time of strife, not only abroad but at home. The actual shooting wars are going on beyond our shores, but conflicts at home are no less serious. I’m heartbroken by the devastation of the Ukrainian homeland by the Russian aggressors, and remember the ongoing tussle over the Temple Mount by the various faiths of the world. If there’s conflict beyond us, likely there’s conflict within our our own groups. The outer world usually reflects our inner world.
The stress of our United Methodist Church becoming the “Untied Methodist Church” has been rough on me. I’m carrying my stress in my neck and shoulders so much I’ve pinched the nerve to my pinky and ring fingers. They are now numb. I’m now in physical therapy for this. Medication and relaxation exercises will certainly help. One of my condo residents prayed for a “miracle cure” for me. My theology typically considers “miracles” to be reserved for situations beyond the usual care of physicians, but I know lay people use “miracles” more loosely than we clergy. Nevertheless, I appreciated their well meaning prayer for my healing. After all, God cares for both small and large problems, as Jesus reminds us in Luke 12:24,
“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!”
Moonlight over Megiddo, number 1
I look at that second painting and compare it to the first painting I completed. While I attempted to keep the surface flat, I got involved in the recreation of the old city in my imagination. I connected the moonlight outside with the lamplight inside. I also added an abstract figure in the foreground. The red marks don’t work for me anymore,so I’m likely to destroy this art work. The second one I may keep, only because I learned some new colors and was brave enough to experiment with colors I don’t normally use.
Megiddo #3
In this final work, I chose only a portion of the satellite image. This allowed me to eliminate the areas which were causing me problems in the earlier works, especially the large, repeating curves. Although I’m back to my favorite yellow—I confess to being a Van Gogh fan—I used a greater variety of tints, rather than painting straight from the tubes.
Pablo Picasso once said, “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” If our outer world is in conflict, this drama will wash over into our inner world. It will show up in our dreams, our health, our relationships, and in other parts of our lives. If we think the late pandemic and current politics have broken relationships or distressed families, imagine what this has done to our churches. Most people go to church as an escape from this drama, hoping to find a sacred place where everyone is Imitating Christ’s Humility:
“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves”(Philippians 2:1-3).
Unfortunately, all people bring their imperfect selves to Christ. Although Christ forgives our old sins, our sin habits remain. Most of us forget this. As an artist, I understand better than anyone the process of “going on to perfection” is both a gift of the Holy Spirit and our own work. While God could gift perfection completely, most often it’s a cooperative endeavor. This is why the studio product is sometimes a thrill, but other times a disappointment. Yet even in the disappointments, we can learn from our mistakes. We might need to “mistake a bunch of times” until we get focused on a new direction. We have to trust the process. Canvas is cheap. It can be reused or recycled. Plus, our salvation isn’t impaired by our detours in the studio.
Yet too often we’re hung up on the product as a reflection of our personal value or worth. If we are hurt, damaged, ill, broken,or harmed in any way, art is a therapeutic exercise for us. Monet tied the brushes to his hands when his arthritis made holding the brush too difficult. His later paintings also had freer brushwork. He could have quit, but he adjusted his expectations and his style to keep creating. As Monet once said, “I’m never finished with my paintings; the further I get, the more I seek the impossible and the more powerless I feel.” Degas was fond of saying, “Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.”
If we’re in the safe, but shallow waters of certainty, we’re unlikely to grow to the deeper depths of either the spiritual or artistic realms. Most of us are afraid to cast off the anchors that keep us bound close to well known shores. We want to hear the praise of the crowd, and if we sail off for the unknown horizon, we will leave those familiar voices of the crowd’s approval behind. We can only discover the new world by leaving the old one behind, by risking a journey in faith others are not willing to undertake. Sometimes we may need to get out of the boat and risk walking across the water to meet Jesus who calls us to meet us in the midst of the strong winds and high waves.
I don’t worry about these feelings anymore, for I know they will come up, I’ll meet them, and then I’ll let them go. Our feelings of the moment are not the feelings of forever. Only one is the same yesterday, today and forever—the Lord Jesus Christ. The rest of us are still a work in progress.
Looking up at the night sky, I think of the Eskimo Proverb which says, “ Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” The fatal September 2001 event at 7:14 am CDT impressed its significance on the nation to such a great extent that 93% of American adults 30 years old or greater can tell you exactly where they were when they first heard about the attacks. Only 42% of those 25 and younger can do the same.
NGC 3603: From Beginning To End Credit: Wolfgang Brandner (JPL/IPAC), Eva K. Grebel (U. Wash.), You-Hua Chu (UIUC), NASA
I remember my church was fuller than for Easter or Christmas on the Sunday after the devastation of the Twin Towers, the collapse of the Pentagon, and the crash of the airplane in which the terrorists had hoped to hit the White House. Only those brave passengers of Flight 93 stood between the terrorists achieving a psychological victory and their ultimate ignoble demise. As I recall, people were eager to hear “What is the Christian Response to Violence?” If they hoped to hear the one and only response, as the THE implies in the sermon title, the air was let out of their balloons.
A photo taken on September 11, 2001 by the New York City Police Department as the North Tower collapses, engulfing lower Manhattan in smoke and ash.
Of course, Christians across the centuries have had three major responses to violence. The first is “turning the other cheek” or nonviolence. We see this in the Biblical witness, for Jesus admonishes his followers in Matthew 5:38-42—
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”
Il Tintoretto: Christ before Pilate, Museum Scuola di San Rocco, Venice
Jesus himself practiced a non-violence response to violence when he appeared before Pilate after his arrest. Pilate questioned Jesus in Matthew 27:11-14—
Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
Unknown German artist: Aquamanile in the Form of a Mounted Knight, Copper alloy, ca. 1250, used to pour water over hands at the altar or at dinner table, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
The opposite of non-violence is the Crusade mindset. In this response, the infidel is “othered” to the point of inhumanity. Because the unbelievers don’t share the same god, purging them from the living is a good deed, worthy of merit for salvation or for forgiveness of past sins. As you can imagine, this makes people who believe in other gods “less than human,” so what we modern people would consider war crimes would be easy to commit for a person in Crusade mentality. We still hear vestiges of this dualist mindset in the vocabulary of people who talk about “weaponizing government” or those who feel the need to “hit the ground running.” If we’re always in “attack mode” at work, we need to question how we think about others if we believe we’re in a hostile environment or in enemy territory.
If the Christian has both a head and a heart, both of which are being conformed to the love, mercy, and justice of God, then we must have a middle way between passive nonviolence and crusade extremism. This golden mean is the Just War Theory. It’s taught in all our military academies and has its beginnings in Christian theology. The saints Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas developed the primary ideas:
Make war only for a just cause
Be sure your intentions are right
Only legitimate authority can make war
Use just proportionally in the war, nothing to excess
Go to war as a last resort
During war only attack military targets, not civilians
Following unjust orders isn’t a legal defense for unjust actions
Punish war crimes, compensate victims
Peace treaties must be fair and just to all, even the warmongers
Psalter Saint Louis et Blanche de Castile, MS 1186, BnF, folio 11b
Those of us who struggle with conflict—if we have a family, we have conflict or if we live in a community, we have conflict—yes, I’m starting to meddle now. You knew I’d get around to it. After all, God the Father had Adam and Eve, and God tossed those two kids out of the House. They had everything, and still wouldn’t follow the one rule (Don’t eat from that one tree). Just one rule. How hard could that be? It was downhill from there.
I always take comfort, knowing God had troublesome children. It means perfect parents can still have conflict at home. This gives hope to us less than perfect folks. The Bible reminds us always how God still loves the human race and hasn’t give up on us, so we don’t give up on those we have fusses with. We don’t roll over and play dead, yet we don’t set out on a crusade against unruly kids or others with whom we have conflicts. As Micah 7:18 reminds us about God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love:
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency.
Remnant of the Twin Towers
Maybe we should look at the just war thoughts and modify our attitudes and behaviors. We can come to a peace, even if others cannot. As Jesus says in Matthew 5:9—
“Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.”
Joy and Peace,
Cornelia
Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11 | Pew Research Center
Ready or not, the creative juices must be stirred. If the brain has lain fallow all summer, or it’s been overworked keeping the youngsters occupied, now you can find your own groove again.
Our first meeting will be Friday, September 8, at 10 am in the old fellowship hall. Bring your own acrylic paints, brushes, and a canvas or canvas panel to paint on. We begin with a short visual inspiration from some great art works, I give some direction on the skill we’ll work on in the session, and then everyone is free to bring their own unique expression to their paintings. We don’t copy my work and judge how well a person can match it. Instead, we learn from others and stretch our own skills to create something new.
Paul Klee: Houses
Making great art isn’t our first purpose. As we age, we will lose our ability to learn new skills until we lose our memory of what we just ate for breakfast. Challenging our brains is one of the best ways to keep our brain cells firing and “chatting with one another.” Socialization and encouragement also helps to keep our brains young.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Stained Glass Design
Making art means we also will have to give up our desire to be perfect. Artists quickly learn perfection comes from practice, or working at it. Every baby stumbles and falls as they learn to walk, but dotting adults encourage every trembling step. This is what art teachers also do. I’ve always had a rule in my classes, especially when I taught in middle school:
No Negative Talking about People or Art.
This includes a student’s own art works. They always had to give at least three positive comments about their work before they spoke about the negative. “My work needs improvement” is a better way to say “My work stinks!”
Of course, we’ve all grown up and worked in environments where negativity is the rule. Art class is a place of grace because this is how life should be. If we can transform a blank canvas into a field of color, why can’t we transform our communities and our world into fields of hope, joy, and love?
Blue Monochromatic Study of the City
Perhaps because we often try to make everyone copy/fit into our idea of the proper end product, rather than allow everyone discover their own creative response to the given subject of the day. Finding our own voice and our own expression is important. Even beginners will have their own unique voice and vision, if they only allow the creating spirit of God work through them. The museums of our world are richer and more vibrant because artists have listened to the Spirit of the Creating God. We might do well to realize God’s creative energies are varied and vibrant also, just as Isaiah wrote about his vision of God’s Glorious New Creation:
“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.” (65:17-18)
James Wyper: City of Dreams
I hope to see you in art class. I don’t charge for the class sessions, since this is one of my ministries as a retired elder in the United Methodist Church. As John Wesley once said, “The World is my Parish.”
The icons of Christ radiate a sense of calm, a spiritual experience created countless times by various artists over the ages. Each one channels the spiritual force which lies outside of language, mystery, and mysticism. Over the years, we’ve come to understand the icon serves as a window into the world beyond our own. In this world we think of dualities: good and evil, winning and losing, ours and theirs. In the world beyond ours, everything belongs to God, we are all one, and no one lacks for anything. The heavenly banquet table is a never ending feast for everyone and no one is reduced to begging for the crumbs that fall from it. No one hungers or thirsts in this land of the unclouded sky.
Jesus is the Bread of Life
The icon represents to us the world we yearn to be. In this respect, it’s a “wormhole” from the fully perfected world to this world, which is still going onto perfection. The New Heaven and the New Earth promised in Revelation 21:1-4 speaks to this very event:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
The Good Shepherd
Until that time comes, we have the icons gazing upon us to remind us of this promise, as well as of our calling to be coworkers with God in bringing this world into fruition. If we see with spiritual eyes, we’ll be able to look beyond the paint and canvas, beyond the image and likeness, and beyond material truth to see the spiritual truth of the icon before us.
To understand the icon better,we ought to take a trip in the WayBack machine to Ancient Greece to visit Plato and study up on his philosophy. This is important because whether they know it or not, artists of every stripe and measure participate in this “not yet, but yearning for a better world” as they make their art. In the 4th C BCE, Plato believed the true reality was in the ideal forms which existed in a world outside of this one which we daily experience. Every form we see on earth is merely a copy of the ideal form, but not the “truth.” Plato’s truth existed in this realm of ideas, rather than in the senses. This is the opposite of how most modern people look for “truth,” especially scientific or observational evidence based truths.
Christ Enthroned
For Plato, the ideals of good and truth had to exist as a form in the eternal world so we could recognize them in our transitory world. All things, even virtue, justice, love, and beauty, must have an ideal form in this realm beyond our sensibilities. Where we get into trouble is believing this world’s representations of the ideal forms must follow the pattern exactly. The examples we consider beautiful can change over the centuries, but the idea of beauty as the highest ideal of loveliness never changes. This is why we don’t keep repeating Greek and Roman Classical themes for our public buildings in the modern era.
James 1:17 says of God: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
The Golden Christ
When we say “God doesn’t change,” we mean God never quits loving us, always wants to save us, and always wants to work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to God’s purposes. God does change God’s mind when we give up our wayward ways and return to godly ways. The Old Testament is full of times God had a change of heart. Maybe some of these events were the people having a heart change and coming back to God. God does seem absent when we turn away, while God seems near when we turn towards God.
Coptic Jewel Icon
But I digress, and I plead the hot weather. Plato’s perfect forms are the subject, especially the form of the Good. For Plato, only the soul or the mind can know the true forms, while the sensible body is suspect. Plato’s philosophy is a form of dualism, which elevates the spiritual over the physical. This is an important concept for early Christianity, since they had to hash out an understanding of the incarnation of Christ. For some, Jesus was purely divine, while for others he was purely human.
Variation on the Christ Not Made by Hands Icon
The traditional interpretation of Jesus Christ is he is both fully human and fully divine, as Athanasius so succinctly said in his treatise On the Incarnation: “for God became man so that man might become god” (54:3). This theology of theosis, or perfection in love, always boggles the mind of those of us who are used to 1 + 1 = 2, or the sensible and mathematic physical reality of this world. One of the rallying cries back in those days was “There never was a time when the Son wasn’t the Son.” People marched in the streets to proclaim this belief: the Son of God never gave up his divinity even when he became human for the sake of our salvation. It was necessary for him to become human to save all of us and only if he were completely God would he be able to save us entirely.
Christ Pantocrator
For the icon painters, Athanasius also is informative when he writes about the Incarnation: “and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”
As Jesus says in John 14:7, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Like Phillip, we can only believe in what we’ve seen. Many of us are doubting Thomases, who need to touch and hold onto physical proof before we can be convinced. The icons remind us that Jesus is
“the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:15-16).
What image is the Christ icon? That depends on the time and place where the icon was created, but all images share certain qualities. The eyes are prominent, the mouth is small, the forehead is broad, and the lower jaw is small. Most of the icons of Christ look like a philosopher, rather than a warrior king, which was the original meaning of the Jewish messiah. All icons have at least one ear visible to hear the prayers of the faithful.
These letters form the present participle, ὤν, of the Greek verb to be, with a masculine singular definite article, ὁ. A literal translation of Ὁ ὬΝ would be “the being one,” which does not mean much. “He who is” is a better translation
The backgrounds are gold and represent a timeless, eternal spiritual space. Today, yesterday, and tomorrow are all the same for God, who is known by the name I AM. In John 8:58, Jesus got into an argument with some of the Pharisees over who were the true children of Abraham. When he told them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am,” they were ready to stone him for claiming to be god. Moreover, as the author of Hebrews reminds us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8).
Roman Icon, 12th CE, oil on wood panel, Vatican Museum
The icon itself isn’t holy, but the image it represents is holy. This is why icons are venerated , while Christ is worshipped. The image isn’t holy, but the person represented is holy. In this sense, every icon points to the ideal form of Christ in the spiritual world beyond us and the icon acts as a window or a wormhole opening so that spiritual world can enter into our sensible and material world here. The more we live with an icon, the more our hearts and minds are tuned to the silent harmonics of the hymns of joy, peace, love, beauty, generosity, and compassion. This is because we become open to the truth of Christ in a mystical way which supersedes our own personal beliefs and experiences. We lose our attachment to the world of dualisms and enter into the world of union with the divine. We are undergoing theosis. Theosis is more than just salvation and divine pardon, but is rather the process of spiritual transformation that culminates in mystical union with God. It is a cooperative work of the Holy Spirit and the believer that results in this union.
After 12th Century Vatican Icon
Art has a way of affecting the energies of a human being. It’s well known how certain colors affect mood, so designers use these techniques to create appropriate spaces in buildings. Public art adds to the charm of a city and likewise, destroying green spaces can render a city to grimness. Having art in one’s home or office elevates it above the ordinary.
Even artists who aren’t painting icons, but are making landscapes or abstractions can be said to be seeking a platonic form, one which only they may see in their own mind’s eye. We keep looking for the next challenge, the creation which comes closest to our imagination. We artists keep on going, however, for each new work not only refines our imagination, but it also moves us closer to our desired goal. We’re like long distance runners who always seek a new personal best!
Resurrection Christ
The icon makes a claim on our lives as we return its gaze. In the silence, Christ asks, “Are you going onto perfection in the love of God and neighbor?” We take a silent stock of our lives and our interactions in prayer. Most days we agree with the apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians (3:12):
“Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected— but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me (NET).”
In the long summer evenings, after an extended car trip, and way beyond the too many times I’d asked my mother and daddy rabbits, “Are we there yet?” I would get their firm reminders I wasn’t to bother them any more, for they too were hot, tired, and daddy had to pay attention to the road. In the gathering darkness, I’d rest my blonde curls on the door near the open window. We had God air conditioning back then. We rolled down the window glass of our old Pontiac and drove as fast as the road would allow.
Go Faster!
I’d watch the darkening shadows as the landscape passed by this opening, noticing how the kudzu vines changed the trees into strange and monstrous shapes in the growing gloom, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of these apparitions. I was certain if I did, they’d begin to make their way toward our family car. I think I was at the age of magical thinking, for I believed I could keep these haints at bay by my will alone.
The soft flup flup of rubber tires half melting on the overheated concrete road, combined with my brother rabbits’ body heat in the seat beside me, and the enforced silence of our parents who’d had a long day with their hyperactive bunny brood finally had an effect on my eyelids. Try as I might, I would fall asleep at my watch, only to be awakened by my daddy’s sing song voice as he tickled my toes:
“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home. This little piggy ate roast beef, and this little piggy had none! And this little piggy cried wee-wee-wee all the way home!”
I’d rub my eyes as he picked me up to carry me into the house and into my bedroom. On the way, I’d always say,
“I see the moon, and the moon sees me, God bless the moon, and God bless me!”
Perhaps this is a generational gift in my family, for when my own dear bunny child was small, we repeated these same scenes until she was too heavy for me to carry. The moon blessing dates from 1784 and the little piggy rhyme is even older: 1728.
That latter date is when horses and carriages were banned from Boston Common. Since I went to school in Boston, I can attest no horses, carriages, or cows are now on the grounds of the Common, which is now a 50 acre public park. The Common dates from 1634, when William Blaxton sold the remainder of his land to the Puritans, receiving six shillings or more from each shareholder to purchase the land for this public land. This was the site of the Boston Massacre, in which five people died. One good thing about going to school in an historic community, everywhere you went, you weren’t far from history.
When I think of history, I think not only of the stories we pass down to the next generation, but also of the stories we weave for ourselves. How do we remember our childhood or our families of origin? This is a generational gift of privilege, for those who lost their families when they were young may not have memories to weave together. Refugees from wars and violence might not want to recall traumatic experiences. Yet Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, is remembered as “My ancestor was a wandering Arameam” (Deut 26:5).
Some of us choose to write about our better days, for they outnumber our bad days. Everyone has imperfections, but each of us rabbits are still going on to perfection with the help of the good God above. Perhaps when we see the beauty of the full bright moon against a dark, clear night, our heart leaps inside and says,
“I see the moon, and the moon sees me, God bless the moon, and God bless me!”
For some of us rabbits, nature brings us closer to God than anything else. The majesty of the summer thunderclouds rising in the heated air, and giving way to either refreshing rain or flashing floods, reminds us once again of the powers of God unleashed in God’s creation. The rainbow after the storm is the promise once again of that covenant made so long ago: the earth will never be destroyed by floods again. In the rainbow, in the light of all the colors, we hear God’s promise of love and care for God’s creation and God’s creatures.
DeLee: Blue Moon
I’m looking at a full super moon tonight, July 3, but August will have TWO super moons. Looking ahead to September 29, we’ll have our FOURTH super moon in a row. The moon on the 31st of August will be a blue moon. This is the second full moon in the same month. We won’t have another blue moon until May, 2026. This is why things that don’t happen often are called “once in a blue moon” events.
Once upon a time, we were agrarian people who eked out a subsistence living on the land. The persistence of The Old Farmer’s Almanac and other ancient weather wisdom lore is proof you can take the bunny out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the bunny. Yet as our alphabetical generations accumulate beyond the boomers, like Lucy on the Honeymooners, we often “got some explaining to do” to make ourselves understood.
Sirius in the Night Sky
We can count the “Dog Days of Summer” among the sayings folks don’t understand today. The term has nothing to do with the four legged creatures known as our best friends, but instead, it’s an astronomical term. The name comes from Sirius, the Dog Star, which rises before dawn. We find it on a vertical line below the three stars of Orion’s Belt. Sirius was named from the Greek Seirios, which means ‘glowing’ or ‘scorcher.’ This is an apt description of the warmest days from mid July to mid August.
Crepe Myrtle Bark Peeling in the Heat
Aratus, a Greek 3rd BCE poet wrote in his astronomical poem Phaenomena, (p. 328 ff, trans. Mair):
“A star that keenest of all blazes with a searing flame and him men call Seirios (Sirius). When he rises with Helios (the Sun), no longer do the trees deceive him by the feeble freshness of their leaves. For easily with his keen glance he pierces their ranks, and to some he gives strength but of others he blights the bark utterly. Of him too at his setting are we aware.”
These Dog Days of Summer in the ancient Mediterranean were marked not only by heat, but also by drought and pistelence. This year, with an El Niño weather pattern, wild fires, floods, and extreme heat have settled on the area due to a heat dome, which the European meteorologists have named Cerebus, after the three-headed dog guardian to Hades. The ruins on the Acropolis now close from noon to late afternoon to prevent heat illness.
Porch of the Maidens, Acropolis, Athens
Although the ancient Greeks and Romans believed Sirius was the reason for summer’s intense heat, we know now that star is too far away to affect our weather. What does affect our weather today is the result of human activities. Back in the Eemian period, around 116,000 to 129,000 years ago, the earth’s axis was tilted more towards the sun than now. This caused our northern polar region to be warmer and grow trees, which kept snow from accumulating. As a result, the earth’s temperature was 2 degrees C hotter than preindustrial levels, while today’s temperatures average 1 degree C warmer.
Today, we have evidence of geographic drift caused by climate change in our crops. Areas once known for coffee or wheat are shrinking, moving further north or to higher altitudes. We also see shrinking polar ice sheets, which cause ocean levels to rise. More water, combined with more heat leads to more intense storms. We also have rivers of wind, aka the jet stream, which lock in the heat domes. These can persist for days, while the rest of the earth gets flooding and storms.
Not a Watermelon Chart: Similar to the National Weather Service’s heat index chart, this chart translates combinations of air temperature and relative humidity into critical environmental limits, above which core body temperature rises. The border between the yellow and red areas represents the average critical environmental limit for young men and women at minimal activity.
Extreme heat is the number-one weather-related cause of death in the U.S., and it kills more people most years than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined. Despite the fact that extreme heat has been the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the United States over the last three decades, the federal government has repeatedly declined to declare extreme heat a federal disaster. The US government has never issued a federal disaster declaration for an extreme heat event in the three times it’s been requested, even as heat domes and long, uninterrupted stretches of 100-plus degree days have claimed lives in cities and states across the country in recent years.
The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2010 and the month of June alone in the USA has broken over 1,000 high temperature records. The combination of El Niño, a warming ocean current, and climate change is the cause. The excessive heat in the oceans are causing coral diebacks, which have negative implications for future hurricane shore losses, since coral reefs break the incoming waves.
We bunnies can blame the Stafford Act for this. Natural disasters in the USA are handled by FEMA—Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, PL 100-707, was signed into law November 23, 1988 when Congress amended the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, PL 93-288. Named for the Vermont senator who was instrumental in its passage, this is one of the 100 laws a President can use to declare a national emergency or disaster. Former President Trump used it to declare the COVID pandemic an emergency. It’s this Stafford Act that defines “Emergency.”
According to Congressional laws, a disaster emergency is “any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, Federal assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States in a Major Disaster.
The act defines “major disaster” as any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, winddriven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the USA, which in the determination of the President, causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under this chapter to supplement the efforts and available resources of states, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused thereby.
Fires of Mordor have nothing on Phoenix Heat
To get heat relief, it will require an Act of Congress. In plain speak, we’ll see snowfall before heat relief legislation becomes law in today’s divided and polarized congressional body. In the last century, we bunnies weren’t thinking about climate change, extreme weather events, or even naming our winter storms. Perhaps next summer we’ll begin naming our extended heat waves and treat them with the same seriousness as we give to hurricanes and blizzards.
In the meantime, this bunny has set her AC to cool and is keeping the ice bin filled and the tea jar full. I’m feeling the siren call of the school supply aisle, so I’ll find a cool morning in mid August to go buy ink pens, notebooks, and some postynotes. A bunny who keeps learning will always stay young. Building new pathways for the neurons is like cleaning out the clutter in our brain box.
Write now, Edit later. The stories are more important than the form.
I always recommend picking up a new skill or renewing an old one, for not only do creative activities give us an opportunity to focus on something other than how hot it is, but also we can enjoy our progress as we continue to work. If you’ve ever wanted to write about your family history, begin now, for the day will come for all of us when we won’t remember the ones we love. This bunny hopes you have bunnies who love you and honor you for who you’ve always been, even if you become the “one who comes to kiss me every afternoon at 4 o’clock.”
Pluto: Now a Dwarf Planet
I’ll probably go buy my journal supplies on August 24th, and sit in my favorite coffee shop for a bit to drink in memory of Pluto, who was worthy enough to be a planet for my generation,but has been demoted to a dwarf planet because it hasn’t cleared its neighborhood of other objects.
I look forward to cooler breezes, falling leaves, and Pumpkin Spice lattes. See you in September!
Our next to last art class before summer break was right before Memorial Day. I had my last cataract surgery on the Tuesday before, so Mike gave me a lift into class. I wasn’t quite ready to drive yet. I thought we’d be finishing the work we began last week, but that wasn’t on the program for the class. Time for an audible.
John Wesley wanted his clergy to be always ready at a moment’s notice to “pray, preach, move, or die.” We art teachers have always been able to think on our feet and pull a project out of thin air. High school debate team extemporaneous speaking events are excellent trading grounds for this life skill.
Childe Hassam (1859-1935): Flags on the Waldorf, oil on canvas, Amon Carter Museum, Ft. Worth, Texas.
Memorial Day is one of the official days for displaying the American flag. Arkansas Flag & Banner has an informative paragraph (6d) at the link below on the days to display the flag if you aren’t flying it daily. The origins of Memorial Day are shrouded in mystery, since at least 25 sites claim to be the first to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. From Columbus, MS, on April 25, 1866, to Boalsburg, PA, in 1864, cities north and south claim the fame of being first to decorate soldiers’ graves.
On May 5, 1866, Waterloo, NY, held a ceremony to honor local veterans who fought in the Great War. Businesses closed and citizens flew their flags at half staff. Other sites were not citywide or were one time events. As a result, in 1966, Congress declared Waterlo, NY, the “birthplace of Memorial Day.”
Frederic Edwin Church: Our Banner in the Sky, ca. 1861, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Civil War took the lives of 750,000 men, not counting those who lost limbs or minds as casualties of the war, according to J. David Hacker, a demographic historian at Binghamton University, who has raised the estimate of how many deaths there were in the American Civil War from just under 620,000. One of every four soldiers failed to return home. If this devastating war took place today, 7.5 million people would have died in the fighting. As a reminder, the scourge of COVID-19 has killed 1,123,836 people in the United States alone since 2019.
Of course, as our ability to preserve life improves, our reverence for life increases. We just disagree at which point in time life should be honored and respected, and which lives are worth honoring and respecting. Perhaps we’re just a people given to disagreement and division by nature, or our old wounds from this ancient conflict continue to fester and boil, so we pick new battles to fight with words, rather than blows.
1908 Decoration Day Card
America lost 1,190,085 total service members’ lives from 1775 to 1991. The ongoing Global War on Terror has yet to be accounted because it isn’t finished. Although they underestimated the number of Civil War casualties, this one home grown conflict was responsible for about half of the war deaths of all American service members. It was a cruel war, in a brutal age. Things we take for granted today—dog tags for identification, mobile army surgery hospitals, anesthesia, sanitary camp conditions, humane treatment of prisoners, nutrious rations, and other civilized practices—weren’t part of the Civil War experience. In the American Civil War, twice as many soldiers died of disease as from hostile action.
World War II was the first war to have more deaths caused from the battlefield than from other causes. Greatly improved public health in armies has lowered the toll of disease to a fraction of what it was in earlier centuries. Modern military medicine has now allowed larger and larger armies. In short, military medicine, while greatly improving the care of the individual soldier, has enabled nations to have bigger armies and greater wars. We see the unfortunate consequences of these improvements in the current aggressive Russian attempt to takeover an independent Ukrainian democratic state against its people’s will.
After several years together in our art class, Gail and Mike are both now open to making an artwork that presents an idea or an emotion, more than a representation of a form. Not everything has to be a photorealistic rendering of an object before us. We do this often enough to build our skills of seeing and drawing, but we also need to build our expressive skills also. As an example in the spiritual life, we can spend our days in intercessory prayer, but we also participate in contemplative prayer or meditation to exercise the less analytical ways we can meet God in prayer.
Mike: Freedom Flag
Mike went on vacation recently and had the opportunity to take an art class with a different instructor. He suggested Mike give up his dedication to the small brush, a comment I often make. Now he’s excited about the freedom of the large brush and is exploring this new tool and technique.
Gail’s Flag
Gail mixed the reds and blues to make violet, as if the colors of the flag were washing into to one another. Many artists have changed the colors of the flag, but kept the design, or they kept the colors and destroyed the design. This is artistic license or creative interpretation. We make our statements with our images. She also changed the stars into circles by using a sponge to put down the paint. It was a good day for experimenting.
Cornelia DeLee: Gold Star Family Flag, acrylic with mixed media on canvas, 2023
I came home to finish up my painting with memories of visiting Civil War battlefields on my mind. I thought of those ancient days when families were able to identify their loved ones only by the special knit patterns of the socks on the bodies, or by the last letters to relatives pinned into their shirts. The Gold Star Mothers began during World War I when the mothers of fallen servicemen united to share their grief. By 1928, it was an official organization and the bereaved families were recognized with a pin.
Jasper Johns: Two Flags, lithograph, 1981, Phillips.
When I lived in San Antonio, I ocassionally visited the various military hospitals in town. There I saw the photos of the Medal of Honor recipients and read the summaries of their noble deeds. I always renewed my dedication to my less dangerous occupation afterward. Those who serve are a different breed from an ordinary person such as I. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln said it best in his 1863 Gettysburg Address:
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Gordon Parks, American Gothic, Washington, D.C., 1942. Photo : Courtesy Gordon Parks Foundation
Amanda Gorman’s excellent 2021 inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” has a section which echoes the sentiments of the post Civil War era, when Memorial Day celebrations first began:
We are striving to forge a union with purpose To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another We seek harm to none and harmony for all Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew That even as we hurt, we hoped That even as we tired, we tried That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious Not because we will never again know defeat but because we will never again sow division Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree And no one shall make them afraid If we’re to live up to our own time Then victory won’t lie in the blade But in all the bridges we’ve made That is the promised glade The hill we climb If only we dare.
Howard Finster: Not Just A Piece Of Cloth, 1990
On this Memorial Day, over 150 years later, the wheels of justice are setting the sentences for the insurrectionists who attempted to impede the peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected government of the United States. We do well to remember the prescient words of Frederick Douglass, who said at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day in 1871:
“We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers.”
At 3:00 pm on Memorial Day, let’s pause for a moment and remember those who sacrificed body, mind, or life to keep our nation free, or to bring freedom to a nation that so desperately yearns for it.
Joy and Peace, and thanks to those who keep it for us,
This week as I recovered from cataract surgery, a memory from my childhood finally surfaced. In the late 1950’s in my hometown, I had met an artist who could barely see to paint anymore because of her vision loss due to cataracts. Doctors hadn’t yet invented the modern replacement lenses and use of small incisions for implantation. Complications back then were common, rather than rare. I can still remember my dad’s response to my desire for contact lens, “What? Put a foreign object in your eye? You’re asking for an infection!” Perhaps this was why I worried myself to exhaustion while waiting for my first surgery.
Unknown Artist: Inlay in the Form of an Eye, Glass and gypsum, Egypt
As it turns out, I can now see my television set without my glasses and I read my iPad with my untreated eye. I’ve always had my glasses within arm’s reach of my bed or my chair for over sixty years. It feels strange not to put them on first thing in the morning.
If there were things I could not see before, I could always feel them if I were still enough to notice their subtle movements. Most of the time I, as many others do, stress over what “might happen,” instead of being present to the moment in which the important stuff is actually happening.
Luke Howard: Graph of wind, rain, and temperatures from 1815-1832
After I worried myself into an exhausted heap on my couch, I woke up in a different mood. I realized I’d been going “from house to house” to borrow a cup of trouble for a cake I didn’t need to bake or eat. It was going to be a decadent cake with multiple layers and a. rich icing. If it were autumn, I’d probably get first prize in the cake competition at the state fair.
Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963
But no one needs a Trouble Cake. I saw all my ingredients were as nothing, for I had a great doctor, people who would care for me, and this was a new age in medicine. Moreover, the Spirit of God would sustain me in my recovery and remind me my wellbeing depends on following my doctor’s instructions. As we read in John 3:5-8 NRSV—
Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Sometimes we need to feel the wind and not try to know from whence it comes or why it goes, but merely thank it for arriving to be with us in this present moment.
Utagawa Hiroshige: Yokkaichi: Mie River, 1833-34
Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti
Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.
Sometimes we need a fresh wind blowing through our hearts and minds to get a new outlook on life. We can’t be wedded to the past like the old farmer who said of the new fangled plow he saw at the farm supply store, “My daddy plowed with a two pronged plow, so a two pronged plow is good enough for me.” He never bought the new and improved three pronged plow.
Bernard Evans: Cannock Chase – ‘When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, and they did make no noise’, circa 1885
Much like the church that can’t recognize the fresh movement of the Spirit moving through the world today, if we can’t feel that wind, maybe cataract surgery would help us see the movement in the leaves.
Joy and Peace,
Cornelia
NOTE: The Greek word for Spirit and wind are the same: πνεῦμά. Strong’s Greek Concordance 4151 pneúma – properly, spirit (Spirit), wind, or breath. The most frequent meaning (translation) of 4151 (pneúma) in the NT is “spirit” (“Spirit”). Only the context determines which sense(s) is meant. When used with Holy, the word is Holy Spirit, not holy breath!
Utagawa Hiroshige: Yokkaichi: Mie River (Yokkaichi, Miegawa), from the series “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi),” also known as the Hoeido Tokaido, wood block print, 1833-34, Art Institute of Chicago.
Luke Howard: Graph detailing prevailing wind directions, rain depth, and mean temperature over a period of eighteen years, 1815-1832, in London. The Royal Society.
Bernard Evans: Cannock Chase – ‘When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, and they did make no noise’, circa 1885, watercolor. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney, Australia.
Unknown Artist: Inlay in the Form of an Eye, Glass and gypsum, Egypt, (9/16 × 1 13/16 × 3/8 in.), 1540–1070 BCE, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA.
Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963, National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.
Aristotle said in his Poetics, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the external manner and detail, is true reality.”
He spoke mainly about poetry, which was the highest art of his age, but his words also apply to the fine arts. Today, many people are still mesmerized by artists who practice various styles of realism, but they overlook the artists who show us the realities of emotion and inner vision.
The good news about art.
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” said the spiritual writer, Thomas Merton. Some people use art as a cathartic exercise, and pour out their inner emotions on the canvas or their chosen media. Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings and Van Gogh’s late works are good examples of emotional expression. We all know folks who have a project going in their garage. They go work on “that worthless piece of junk” to focus their attention and energy on fixing something on which they can make a difference, instead of getting tied up in knots about things they can’t change and must accept. Gardening and knitting are also good hobbies for focusing this energy.
We know our nervous system grows to the modes in which it has been exercised. This is what we call building a habit over time. Just as a child doesn’t walk straight out of the womb, they have preparatory skills that must be acquired by stages as they grow. Exercising their muscles by rolling over also helps to strengthen their necks to hold their heads up. Crawling leads to pulling up, and that leads to letting go to learn balance.
Each time a child repeats these movements, he or she will simplify the movements required to achieve the needed result, make them more accurate, and diminish fatigue. In this, they’re building habits that bring them closer to walking. Rushing them to achieve “early” walking actually puts them behind cognitively.
Not only are there twenty five body parts in a baby’s body that are used in the crawl movement, but crawling also strengthens the hip sockets, so the baby will have a strong platform on which to stand. Crawling helps the corpus callosum, which is a band of nerve fibers between the hemispheres of the brain. Criss-cross crawling on the knees and hands stimulates the corpus callosum to develop in a balanced way, facilitating the hemispheres of the brain to communicate. These cross lateral movements work both sides of the body evenly and involve coordinated movements of the eyes, ears, hands, feet, and core muscles. This helps support cognitive function, problem solving, and ease of learning. Exploring the floor in a baby proofed home allows your baby to achieve his or her optimal potential.
Gail’s Painting
“Practice makes perfect” is only as true as the practice is directed in a true direction. This is where a teacher, a parent, a coach, or a spiritual guide comes into play. Only one who’s been led well can lead others with grace. We don’t tear down the learner, but ask questions, give guidance, help them see alternative paths, and allow them a safe place to explore their choices.
Art class isn’t brain surgery. No one will die if the painting isn’t successful, and no one’s salvation is at risk if the painting doesn’t come out the way we hoped it might. Art class is a safe place to take risks, unlike jumping from a tall tower without a parachute. Learning to accept failure on our canvases and coming back next time to try again is a mark of resilience and courage. Every time we fail closer to our target, we realize we’re gaining on it! We never say I CAN’T in art class.
Crawl before you Walk or Run
The sad reality is we can teach and expand the horizons of young people up til the age of 25 or 30. After that, they seem to lose energy and desire to learn more or to change. They “habitually” repeat their previous acts, for good or for ill. We’ve all heard the old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Those of us who are no longer young have sometimes been accused of being set in our ways. Some of us are afraid we won’t excel at a new challenge, for we’ve always been held to a high standard of achievement. Since none of us will be the next Georgia O’Keefe or Leonardo da Vinci, we can set that worry aside. They both had more years to practice than we have left in front of us. Instead, we should give our remaining time our most focused attention, so we can get the most from our experience.
My high school chemistry book had the same information in it which my daddy’s college chemistry book covered. He was amazed I was learning “advanced” ideas at my young age. In 1982 R. Buckminister Fuller introduced the idea of the “knowledge doubling curve.” Up until 1900, knowledge doubled every century. By 1945, knowledge doubled every 25 years and by 1982, it doubled every year. Some say it’s now doubling twice a day! The newest computer we buy off the shelf today is already obsolete.
We can’t train our students for the jobs of today because these jobs likely won’t exist tomorrow. We need to train people to be lifetime learners instead. Luckily, we don’t have to know all things, but we do need the skills to find the knowledge and sort through the best sources for the best possible information.
1930-2006
Today, knowledge we acquire in high school, college, graduate school, and our last job may already be obsolete. (I’m one who still grieves the loss of Pluto as a planet; it exists but is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt). This is especially true in fast moving fields like technology. As futurist Alvin Toffler wrote, “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
This means all of us will need to become lifelong learners or we’ll risk losing touch with an ever evolving world. Maybe we think our brains can’t handle something new, for we’ve heard about the effect of aging. Cognitive process studies with older brains show learning, memory, and problem-solving in humans are often less efficient in these areas.
However, it has recently been established that dogs show many of the same kind of age related changes that humans do. A study in Vienna showed that older dogs learned new tasks just as well as younger dogs, although they took longer to do so and required more repetitive corrections. This aptitude is also known as “resilience training.”
I think it’s also important to know why we want to keep our brains agile as we move into our later years. John Wesley was fond of repeating William Law’s summary from the Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection,
“Do all the good you can, to all you can, by any means you can, as long as you can.”
Because Wesley was better known than William Law, this quote is now attributed to Wesley alone. We Methodists have made it our own, however, and have carried its banner around the globe in our world wide mission efforts made possible by our Connectional ministries. Wesley thought enough of Law’s writing to reprint 19 editions of his work.
My late mother, at the age of eighty, learned how to use a laptop computer. She was motivated because she wanted to see emailed photos of her grandchildren, but then she realized she also could find recipes. When a child in her hometown needed a Mercy Flight, she used her new skills to get him transportation to an out of state hospital for treatment. I occasionally had to reteach her on how to double click quickly on her icons, rather than slowly, but she finally caught on.
iPad drawing of pear and apple
If we want to keep our brains agile throughout our middle, silver, and golden years, we always need to try new things. Doing art challenges makes our brain build new neural pathways. Every time we look at a still life or a landscape, we have to make multiple decisions: what shapes do I see—circles, squares, triangles, or rectangles; how do these shapes relate to one another on the plane of our canvas; what is most important; what colors will I use; what emotions do I want to express; and where will I begin?
Eventually, we will find our “style.” We don’t find a style by copying another’s work, but we create enough works until our hand becomes one with our spirit. Since God has placed a special spark of God’s own creative Spirit within each of us, eventually we’ll experience the joy of being one with God when we are in our painting moments. As Paul said to the Romans (8:16):
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
Last Friday we had a simple still life as our inspiration. Half our class was out sick with spring pollen troubles, but it was good to see those who could come after a two week hiatus. After a brief show and tell to get us inspired by other artists’ takes on the subject for the day, we got started. I reminded everyone not to make the fruit too tiny, so it wouldn’t get lost on the canvas. I believe everyone succeeded with this goal!
Mike’s painting
Mike painted his whole canvas with one brush. This gave the fruit a certain texture with contrasting colors, and the background, which was in a close value, didn’t show much brush strokes or texture. I like the perspective he chose, which brings the viewer in close to these fruit.
Gail tried a larger canvas with bolder colors than she normally uses. It was more dramatic and stronger in contrast than usual, while she kept her smooth strokes of paint as usual. She also took a view from above.
Cornelia’s Fruits
I stuck to a traditional rendering of the still life, since I do many abstract paintings in my own studio. I’d call these two Day and Night, for the Apple is quite awake and the Pear seems to need a little nap. It’s a study in contrasts: red and green, blue violet and yellow orange—a color wheel study masquerading as a still life.
Next week we’re in the season of Lent. As Christ turns his face towards Jerusalem, we’ll begin a study on the icons. This will be accessible and interesting. You’ll end up with your own icon for your personal worship center also.
Morse Peckham, author of Man’s Rage for Chaos, believed “Order is humanity’s freedom; but the rage for order creates its own limits on that freedom.” Art, he maintained, enabled the artist to fight that rage, which destroys what it would create. Only the rage for chaos can balance the rage for order.
Stellar Bones: Aries zodiac sign. Horoscope. Illustration for souvenirs and social networks.
As one who was born under the Aries sun, with an Aries moon, and a Virgo rising sign, I fully understand this rage for chaos and order within my own body. I somehow always have fifty-eleven projects and and even more ideas I’d like to accomplish, but I too have the same limits as all other people: we all have only 24 hours on any given day. Some of these moments must be given to the life giving nurture of the body, which carries our great mind and imagination and the hands which do our good works. Some days the balance scales of Virgo call my chaos into order, while on others my Aries excitement causes the balance to quaver. This tension shows up in my work.
Venus and Saturn at Early Sunset: follow the line of the building
I mention my astrological signs, for once in ages past, people believed the stars ruled their lives. The heroes ascended into the stars—Sagittarius, the archer, while other constellations were named for animals or the humans who were turned into animals, such as bears and swans. Some got their names for resembling objects—the dippers, while others were named for legendary persons—Cassiopeia’s chair and Orion’s Belt come to mind. In the time of dark skies, our ancestors could pick out these sky patterns with ease. Light pollution in our cities makes these shapes harder to discern every year. Our national parks may be the only places our city dwelling future generations will be able to see the night sky in all its glory.
The Ancient Greeks believed the gods ruled their fates. The writer Pausanius listed the many shrines to the deities in Athens, including “in the Athenian market-place among the objects not generally known is an altar to Mercy, of all divinities the most useful in the life of mortals and in the vicissitudes of fortune, but honored by the Athenians alone among the Greeks. And they are conspicuous not only for their humanity but also for their devotion to religion. They have an altar to Shamefastness, one to Rumour and one to Effort. It is quite obvious that those who excel in piety are correspondingly rewarded by good fortune.”
Altar to an Unknown God, Athens, Greece
The apostle Paul even noted the Athenians had a temple to an “unknown god,” just in case they didn’t cover their bases with offerings to all the other deities (Acts 17:23). Yet, you already know him, he said, for
“The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” — Acts 17:24-25
Our creation story in Genesis 1:1-2 begins with familiar words:
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
Milton addressed the same Spirit of God, which was at creation, in his epic poem, Paradise Lost:
“And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th’ upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread. and with mighty wings outspread. Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad’st it pregnant.”
William Blake: Temptation of Adam and Eve, Pittsburgh Univ.
God is always creating order out of nothingness, but human beings have a tendency to create disorder wherever they go. We aren’t God, or even “as gods,” as the first humans hoped to be in the garden when they ate that fateful fruit. Even knowing “good from evil” doesn’t seem to keep us from our propensity to engage in chaos. I don’t live in a messy home, but because I put away some of my projects when I lose interest, I can forget where I “hid them.” I know what they look like, I can find others like them, but I might need several days to find the intended object of my desire. I’ll put all of these in ONE PLACE when I’m done with them. This will guarantee I’ll lose them all at once the next time I go looking for them!
Frank Hinder: Bomber Crash, 1941
In art class, we began our projects by thinking about the contrast of order and chaos. The emotional experience of the disruption chaos brings to our sense of order can change our perception of our position in the world. When Frank Hinder was serving in World War II, his bomber was shot down. As part of his therapy, he painted his memory of that occasion. That chaos in his life got channeled into a painting, for art allows us a safe haven in which we can experience cognitive dissonance.
Most of us wouldn’t willingly chose to experience such an event first hand, but we can imagine it in art, poetry, music, or fiction. This is why we exercise our creative freedom. Dealing with raw emotions in paint or other media is better than stuffing them inside, from where they can fester and harm us, or worse, break out and inflict terrible wounds upon others. We seek to center our emotions and focus our energies in a more balanced, positive manner, much like the renaissance genius, Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo: Virtuvian Man
Lauralei is finishing up a drawing and is going to work the famous Leonardo Virtuvian Man into it somehow. I can hardly wait to see this. Virtuvian Man is a classic Renaissance image of order: Leonardo saw the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and his Vitruvian Man drawing as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body were an analogy for the workings of the universe. That’s seeing order in the many details.
Mike has been called away from class the past two weeks to take care of courthouse business. He has a 9/11 work in mind, if the judge ever lets him go. He has many images in his mind, so simplifying the many into a few might help him get his ideas out of his head and onto the canvas. He’s got business to attend to, however, so all things will come about in God’s good time.
Gail’s Painting of Creation
Gail chose the first day of creation as her inspiration. The tiny words are photocopies from a child’s Bible, which are plucked from the first chapter of Genesis. They read more as white directional or linear strokes than actual words, but I have a major cataract in my right eye, and my judgment on readability is suspect at the moment. Others may be able to see the words better than I. She used a sponge on this canvas, a new technique for her. She also wants to use gold leaf flakes to finish it out, so she may yet have another step to it.
First Work: Overhead View of Ancient Jerusalem
This small square painting began from an image of an old Jerusalem map with the surrounding walls of the city. This site was destroyed numerous times over the centuries, notably in 587 BCE by the Babylonians, in 70 CE by the Romans, while the walls were destroyed by the Muslim Calif in 1250 CE, but Suliman the Magnificent rebuilt them in 1538-1541 CE. In addition to the sacks of war, earthwakes and other disasters have rendered the era of Christ to the deep basements, which are only accessed today by descending narrow, spiral staircases. The era of the prophets of the Babylonian Exile are deeper yet. The famous Western Wall of the Herodian Temple, rebuilt after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, is only the upper third of the structure.
The people of Israel believed God’s favor rested upon them because of their proximity to God’s Temple. The prophets were quick to remind them, “They were to be holy, as God is holy,” for the Temple wasn’t a magic token like a rabbit’s foot. The book of Joel probably was written in the post exile period, around 350 BCE, but could be as early as 650 BCE, due to its description of an eclipse. The prophet reminds the people:
“So you shall know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.” (Joel 3:17)
When the king and his court, the learned priests, all the educated tradespeople, and anyone who had any skill or knowledge was taken into slavery far distant from the sacred land where they worshipped their tribal god, the people had to wonder if God was still their god in this foreign land. Would God hear their prayers? If they could no longer offer sacrifices or make the required pilgrimages to God’s altar, were they faithful to their god anymore? In their grief, they wrote Psalms 137:4-5:
“How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!”
During the Exile, the Hebrew people developed the synagogue as the focus of their worship of God and the study of scripture, as well as a place of prayer and fellowship, and the site of life’s transitional rituals. In 538 BCE, Babylon fell and the Jewish exiles eturned to their homeland to rebuild the walls and the temple. For the people, the earlier promise of God from the prophet was finally being fulfilled:
“Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” —Joel 3:13
Back home, both the synagogue and the Temple prospered, but when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, all of the pious acts transferred to the synagogues and the homes of the faithful. Never again were sacrifices made for Passover, but the thought of the Holy City remained. The closer one came to the Mount where the Temple once stood, because the area was more holy, so the person coming near had to be more ritually pure. They may have chanted from Psalms 125:1 in unison as they made their ascent:
“Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”
God’s Love Flows Beyond The City Walls
Today, Mount Zion is holy to the Muslim faith, for there Mohammad is said to have received the words of the Quran and also to have been lifted into heaven from here. This is also the traditional site of the Binding of Issac (Genesis 22), and it’s holy also to Christians because this is the temple where the boy Jesus was found in “his father’s house” (Luke 2:41).
The three great monotheistic faiths have fought for generations within their families of origin over who has rights to be included in the family, beginning with Abraham and Sarah’s attempt to fulfill God’s promise of an heir by using the slave woman Hagar. When God showed up to announce the birth of Isaac, it was unbelievable. When Sarah had her promised child, Hagar and Ishmael were sent out to die in the desert. God saved them, however, but the two blood relatives haven’t gotten along since.
Christians accept the promised messiah, but those years of crusading and crushing the “Muslim infidels” have left a bad taste in their mouths for us, and for some of us too. We all keep fighting, even though we’re all branches off the same tree. We all claim the same holy sites and we’ll fight over them “till the last dog dies.”
As Jesus reminded the Samaritan Woman in John 4:21 & 23:
“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”
Remember the lesson of the exile: God is everywhere and not fixed to one altar or site. The same God who led us through the wilderness also leads us through the ups and downs of our daily lives, wherever we find ourselves. No disruption or chaos can move the steadfast God of love and mercy from our side.
Joy and peace,
CORNELIA
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Astronomical Myths, by John F. Blake, 1877.
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