Let’s party like it’s 2025! Nothing takes our minds off the stresses of the real world’s ghouls and goblins like pretending to be a ghost, zombie, pirate, princess or superhero in the All Hallows’ Eve hijinks of the holiday we know as Halloween. Especially if we have the license to eat candy or drink purple fluid to slake our thirst after our door to door “threats of trick or treat.” With all that masked mayhem in the cities, towns, and county seats of the country, the forces of ICE and Homeland Security won’t know which to turn. The INSURRECTION they conjured out of thin air will suddenly become real, only to disappear shortly after sunset. And before troops can surge to all points involved.
Portland ICE protest—October 11, 2025—gives people an opportunity to wear costumes early
How many people in America will celebrate Halloween? Across the country 132.6 million households purchase about 745.8 million pounds of candy during the Halloween season every year. This works out to the weight of 33.9 billion bats or 62.16 million jack-o’-lanterns. Also only about 20% of people don’t celebrate Halloween at all. While I don’t eat loads of candy, I also don’t expect to micromanage other parents. My folks put a limit on our consumption back in the dark ages, plus we only went to a single neighborhood. Once we made the circuit of our city block and arrived home, we were done. The concept of “haul” was nonexistent in the days when dinosaurs lurked in the shadows, along with actual ghosts and other scary creatures.
Vintage Card, reminds me of the Headless Horseman
Most Halloween shoppers (79%) anticipate prices will be higher this year, specifically because of tariffs. Despite these reservations, nearly three-quarters of consumers (73%) plan to celebrate the holiday, in line with last year’s 72%. Top holiday activities include handing out candy (66%), dressing up in costume (51%) and decorating their home or yard (51%).
Economist’s Pumpkin, noting the scary prices of everything
Also, chocolate costs more because of cocoa prices, which have soared in recent years, have hit record highs amid adverse weather conditions, pest outbreaks and supply tightness in West Africa, which produces around three-fourths of the global supply. Cocoa futures have remained choppy but overall eased this year, falling from $8,177 per metric ton at the start of January to around $7,855 in August. That compares with $2,374 three years ago. Your basic Hershey Kiss is up 12% in price. If your favorite chocolate seems a tad lean on the chocolate, remember a warming climate means pests, droughts or floods, and fungi, all of which impact growing food.
Medium Pumpkins are the Best Buy
Even if candy costs more, it continues to be the most popular purchase, with total spending expected to reach $3.9 billion. Across other categories, 71% plan to purchase costumes and spending is expected to reach $4.3 billion. Another 78% plan to purchase decorations, up from 75% last year, and will spend an estimated $4.2 billion in total. And 38% plan to purchase greeting cards, an increase from 2024’s 33%, with total spending estimated at $0.7 billion.
Picasso: Blue period, The Family of the Blind Man, 1903
Compared with last year, more people also plan to carve a pumpkin (46%), throw or attend a party (32%), visit a haunted house (24%) or dress up their pets (23%). October also means our art class works on a pumpkin still life. This year instead of making a realistic rendering, we looked at Picasso’s different styles. He began as a classically trained artist, and then broke all the rules of realism with cubism by fragmenting his subjects into multiple surfaces or flat geometric patterns. Later he did return to a “balloon” neoclassicism, but reverted once more to flat patterns of color. Picasso was always reinventing and responding to the creative genius within him. He didn’t feel constrained to continue to produce art to please others.
Our pumpkin paintings reflect this creative energy. Gail S chose various red hues and deconstructed the pumpkin, as well as imagining it from above. She added some gourd shapes to the mix.
Gail S’s Deconstructed Pumpkins
If Picasso had an orange period in addition to his blue and rose periods, my pumpkins would fit right in. They certainly look like his balloon neoclassical period! I confess I spent more time visiting with a stranger who graced the church door and who seemed to need to talk, but could not find her words.
Cornelia’s Orange Period Pumpkins and Leaves
She didn’t want a pumpkin muffin either, so we let her sit. After a bit, I began to talk about how some of my well meaning friends give me advice that doesn’t make any sense. Like if I make one small mistake, they think I’m ready for assisted living!
“What are they thinking?” was Gail’s response.
“Exactly, this comment says more about them than me. I ignore it and go on. Some folks are perfectionists.”
We painted for a while and then I spoke up again, “You can’t please everyone. If you make A happy, B gets upset, or if you make B happy, then A is upset. Group C is just contrary and nothing ever pleases them. I try to make God happy and let people know that is my only goal. I’m not here to choose sides in their puny fights.”
I must have said something that helped her out, for she said she now felt strong enough to deal with her day and its problems. We thanked her for stopping by and wished her well. We didn’t have much attendance in art class, but if there had been more people, this lady might not have felt free to be with us. God must have provided this quiet space for this woman who had an unvoiced need that day. We aren’t always open to the human needs of those on the margins, but we should recognize they struggle with the same need for autonomy and authenticity as everyone else does.
Another vintage Halloween card
Speaking of pumpkins, the Wôpanâak are a Native American tribe from the eastern coastal region. Their language gives us the loan word for the ubiquitous fruit that “grows forth round,” also known as a Pôhpukun or pumpkin. Marion Webster posits the derivation of this word as follows: “alteration of earlier pumpion, modification of French popon, pompon melon, pumpkin, from Latin pepon-, pepo, from Greek pepōn, from pepōn ripened; akin to Greek pesseinto cook, ripen — more at COOK.”
Of course, this pedigree prefers the Eurocentric derivatives because Native Americans were once considered savages, and therefore unworthy of their historic contributions to our language. We know better today and celebrate the gifts and graces of all persons who contribute to the vast melting pot of the great stew we call America.
What a dull soup we would be if we were just the pale watered down broth with no pumpkins or spinach, no tomatoes or onions, no garlic (to ward off werewolves), and no corn, beans, chicken or beef to provide substance to our stew. We need a variety of spices to make a good soup, just as we need a variety of people’s to build a great community.
Some people go all out for Halloween
One night a year, we can dress up in the costume of our shadow fears or our innermost desires. We get to act like our inner child. We carve our pumpkins with scary faces and put them on porches decorated with all sorts of ghoulish things. The Halloween holiday is cathartic, for it allows us to share with others our innermost selves, an act many of us have difficulty doing.
Worst Halloween Candies
If we eat a bit of candy here and there, it’s ok. It’s one night, and we can plan for this. The goblins do not win, for they are not real. They are here today, and gone tomorrow. I usually set my candy haul into the freezer where I can’t see it. Out of sight, out of mind. I have a piece now and then, “for medicinal purposes,” as my nanny would say, when she took a nip of the bottle stashed in the linen closet. Always with a table spoon, a measured dose, of course, because she “didn’t drink.”
Always go for the Chocolate!
If it helps to keep your cravings in check, you do what you have to do. I just ask, remember our life is short upon this round ball, so don’t rob yourself of the joy of this time. Find something to celebrate daily. On Halloween, we can celebrate our inner child. Even better, we can give the gift of magic to a small child by entering into the fantasy of the night.
Joy, peace, pumpkin spice, and magic,
Cornelia
USDA List of Retail Prices for Fruits and Vegetables, page 11, pumpkins.
Steps in drawing a Geometric Still Life: sketch, refined sketch, shadows, intense shadows and cast shadows
We are back in art class again on Friday mornings at Oakland United Methodist Church. Our first lesson is in solid geometry, but it’s not a math class. Art is more like learning a visual two-dimensional language to be able to render three dimensional objects on a flat plane. This isn’t as easy as you might think, but once you learn to see in perspective, you never can unsee it again. Art class is like an old fashioned one room schoolhouse, in which a teacher has students of varying ages and experience levels to instruct. I provide one lesson and modify it for each student according to their needs.
Gail S.—Pencil Drawing of Solid Geometry
The first day of class, I had three brand new students and one who has done this exercise at least three times before. Two others were out doing family obligations, just as I was missing in action last week due to attending my niece’s graduation ceremony for her MBA in Business Administration. Life and family watershed events are always important to make our presence known. The life of the artist is as important as the art itself. We aren’t just people who make beautiful objects for others, but people who make life beautiful by being present at their most important moments.
Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1666-1668.
When we look at the painted floor in the Vermeer painting above, we know in our minds these stand for black and white square tiles. If we take a moment to closely observe them, we realize these are more like diamond shapes. This optical illusion is the result of perspective. Perspective comes in multiple forms. Linear perspective has one-point, two-point, three-point, and multi-point vanishing points. Aerial or atmospheric perspective uses color, clarity, and value as objects overlap each other and recede into the background. There’s also reverse perspective in which objects are larger as they grow more distant and foreshortening, in which nearby objects are emphasized.
Pop Tarts from the Pop Tarts Bowl Toaster Trophy in 2024
Can we teach all of this knowledge in a single two-hour lesson? Absolutely not. Michangelos aren’t turned out like pop tarts from a toaster. In the Renaissance era, a family would place a youth between the age of 7 to 14 with a master artist to learn the trade. This child would do the chores of the studio and learn to grind the pigments and mix paint. Then they would progress to drawing and composition. After a training time, they might get to do the backgrounds of the paintings or the landscape. After eight years, if they were any good, they would be entrusted with an entire commission. Then they would venture out on their own or take over from their master’s studio.
Cornelia—Purple Geometric Forms
I started taking art lessons when I was eight years old from the city parks and recreation art teacher on Saturday mornings, and then after school from a former art teacher in town. My grandmother was a portrait and still life painter. I have been taking or teaching classes for over seven decades. Art is not a skill or a product a person can ever perfect. It is more like a journey of faith, one in which we are always going on to perfection, but by the grace of God, will only be completed at our last day. Even at my age, I have more than a few “needs improvement works” left to create.
Tonya—Black and white Geometric Forms
The more you know, the more room for improvement you can find. I always ask students to first find three positive critiques of their work to praise before they begin to talk about their “improvement areas.” In this lesson, if they drew all three shapes, used two distinct colors for light and dark, and used up the space on the canvas, rather than drawing an inch tall image, those are positive points. Then they can point out their troubles.There’s enough negativity in this world. We need to overcome that in our own lives. What we learn on this canvas will carry over to the next one. Then we will find new opportunities for improvement yet again!
Marilyn—Geometric Forms in Aqua
No one who gets a significant health condition finds making a wholesale change overnight easy or achievable. This is why people who try extreme diets like Whole 30 that restrict too many foods discover they can’t stick with it or must continually start over. People looking to make lasting, healthy changes must start small and focus on progress over perfection, according to nutrition coach Brady von Niessen. “You start feeling so good about them that you can’t even imagine not doing them.” The same principle applies in art. Over time, a student’s skills will improve if they trust the process. Rome wasn’t built in a day!
Jeanne—Geometric Forms
Another important aspect of art class is relationships. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, “The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being.” As a teacher, I try to help each person find their own creative voice, rather than trying to copy an idea of what “good art should look like.” Beginners in tennis don’t get to play on the same courts as Wimbledon or the US Open, or at least not at the same time as those who claimed the trophies! As Picasso once said, “It took me my whole life to learn to draw like a child.”
I consider this first class a success for each student. First, I got to hear some of their stories, which helps to build relationships. I got to hear their fears about not being perfect—none of us are perfect, but as United Methodists we are all going on to perfection in love by God’s grace and that’s the only perfection we concern ourselves with in art class. Can we love ourselves and give ourselves the grace to come up short? As the great Leonardo da Vinci said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
I look forward to next week when we mix colors for the color wheel for the first time students. The returning students will get a lesson that uses geometry and mixed colors also. The more seasoned students project is a step up because they have more experience, so they have a greater challenge.
The one room art schoolhouse meets at 10 am on Friday mornings. It’s never to late to join.
I had Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion (ACDF) neck surgery at the end of March to correct a damaged disk. A very fine surgeon removed it, replaced it with a new one, and fused it for strength. Two days in the hospital and I went home to recover. I was tired for several weeks, but I soon felt well enough to start painting again. Each week thereafter I could see improvements in my hand steadiness and mental focus as the pain left my body and my healing progressed. I had been through physical therapy and shots in the neck for a year since my original injury.
The old saying about boiling a frog by raising the temperature of the water gradually also applies to pain: if it rises incrementally, you don’t realize how much you’re tolerating. I feel like a new creation, for I have a new lease on life. Most importantly, I have my sense of humor back. I know this is true, for one morning a friend sent me a funny meme. I laughed so loudly, my Apple Watch gave me a High Decibel Warning alert! Silly watch, you’ve never heard my joy.
As part of my ongoing creation series in the studio, I’ve been working with the imagery from the beginning of Genesis (1:6-8)—
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
I also had in mind the creation imagery of The Gospel According to John (1:1-5)—
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias III.1; The One upon the throne, Rupertsberg MS, fol. 122v, manuscript illumination, 12th CE.
These two texts, one from the Old and one from the New Testament, remind us the Triune God has always been creating our universe and our earth. From this we understand what the Trinity has created, it will be by the same love, desire, and compassion the Trinity will sustain creation and renew creation in the proper time. Humanity is a cocreator of beauty alongside the Holy Trinity. While our works aren’t infinite or perfect, we humans hold the desire to create and surpass our best works, even as the Creator of all things saw all the work before the creation of the first human beings as “good,” but the creation of humans in God’s image as “very good.”
Too often our Christian theology hinges on some form of “sinners in the hands of an angry God,” rather than the doctrine of “God so loved the world.” This dualist contrast of sin/redemption versus love/renewal is a difference of viewpoint between those who focus on judgment and those who focus on grace. The old story of “God loves me in spite of my fallen and wicked ways” doesn’t make sense to a new generation who has gotten affirmations for all their efforts. As part of the old generation, that traditional story barely made sense even to me and my generation. Between 2000 and 2020, Gallup reported church attendance for people born before 1946 declined 11%, attendance for Baby Boomers declined 9%, attendance for Gen X declined 12%, and the facts aren’t in yet for the Millennials or Gen Z. Moreover, speaking only to “personal salvation” is not on most younger people’s minds. They are more interested in the great causes of justice for the weak and the oppressed, and in liberation for the unjustly imprisoned, just as Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah (4:8-9):
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Hildegard of Bingen is a good person to help straddle this dilemma. After all, Hildegard is one of the only four women whom the Catholic Church has recognized as a Doctor of the Church. Only thirty-six other figures in the history of the church have earned his great honor, which Hildegard belatedly received rom Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. This title recognizes the outstanding contribution a person has made to the understanding and interpretation of the sacred Scriptures and the development of Christian doctrine. Only four on the list are women (Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, and Hildegard of Bingen). The definition of the term “Doctor of the Church” is based on the three requirements a person must fulfill to merit inclusion in the ranks of the “Doctors of the Catholic Church”:
1) holiness that is truly outstanding, even among saints;
2) depth of doctrinal insight; and
3) an extensive body of writings which the church can recommend as an expression of the authentic and life-giving Catholic Tradition.
Born the tenth child in an era where a family practiced tithing or giving a tenth of everything to God in every aspect of their life, Hildegard was ‘given to God’ and taken to live in an abbey, as a nun. There she learned faith and healing, and studied medicine, natural science, music, and writing. She wrote ten books, two volumes of which are well known: Physica, a book on natural science, and Causae et Curae, a book of medicine and remedies. These two works hold most of Hildegard’s musings on the relationship between science and faith, along with her scientific observations and medicinal remedies. Scivias, Hildegard’s main theological work, stands for “Scito vias Domini,” meaning “know the ways of the Lord.”
Her knowledge came from visions of light, what today some have called debilitating migraines, which confined her to her bed for days. Hildegard spoke of her visions of light, just as migraine sufferers often report an extreme sensitivity to light, or seeing strange light patterns, in the middle of an episode. Her science was advanced for the 12th CE, but we don’t study Hildegard for her scientific truths. She is more important for her theology and spirituality about creation and God’s love for all life.
When God created the world, God pronounced God’s creation “good.” The world in which we now live is obviously corrupt and fallen, so many people have given up on it. The same was also true back in Hildegard’s time. The secular and religious empires of the West were at war. The Crusades tried to wrest the Holy Land from the Arabs in great battles resulting in mass carnage. The growth of cities’ merchant classes also threatened the established order of the powerful.
It was an uneasy time for all the people, just as it is today when the cultures of the east and the west are wrestling for dominance, great powers still try to expand their territories, and technocrats challenge governments worldwide for power. Once again it is “the times, they (were) are a changing,” as Bob Dylan, the prophet of our age sings for every age.
Hildegard speaks of God not only creating, but also being in the world. This is what we call Panentheism, which comes from the Greek words pan/all + en/in +theos/God. Panentheism considers God and the world to be inter-related with the world being in God and God being in the world. Panentheism affirms both divine transcendence and immanence. We can both experience God through the natural world, while God is also beyond our normal experience. Hildegard experienced God in both the world around her, even though she lived a secluded life, and she also experienced God through her visions. (This is not pantheism, which makes creation into the god or accepts the equality of many gods.)
Hildegard von Bingen: The universe (or the Cosmic Egg), from Scivias, an illustrated work by Hildegard von Bingen, completed in 1151 or 1152, describing 26 religious visions she experienced. Liber Scivias (Sci vias Domini = Know the ways of the Lord). The book, Codex Rupertsberg, disappeared during WW II. Transparencies are from a faksimile, copied by hand by some nuns from 1927 to 1933. (Plate 4 fol-14r—The universe (or the Cosmic Egg)
“I, the fiery life of divine wisdom,
I ignite the beauty of the plains, I sparkle the waters,
I burn in the sun and the moon, and the stars.
With wisdom I order all rightly.
Above all I determine truth.
I am the one whose praise echoes on high.
I adorn all the earth.
I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.
I am led by the Spirit to feed the purest streams.
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.
I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work.
I am the yearning for good.
Invisible life that sustains all,
I awaken to life everything In every waft of air.
The air is life, greening and blossoming.
The waters flow with life. The sun is lit with life.
All creation is gifted with the ecstasy of God’s light.
In doing good, the illumination of a good conscience
is like the light of the earthly sun.
If they do not see me in that light,
how can they see me in the dark of their hearts?
I am for all eternity the vigor of the Godhead.
I do not have my source in time.
I am the divine power
through which God decided and sanctioned
the creation of all things.
With my mouth I kiss my own chosen creation.
I uniquely, lovingly, embrace every image
I have made out of the earth’s clay.”
I resonate with Hildegard not only because her theology speaks of God’s love for everything God created, but also because God desires for all creation and humanity alike to come to a state of perfection. Even when I was a nonbeliever, creation always called my name. I’ve always felt a peace and wholeness when I looked upon nature. The beauty of the sky, the changing colors of the seasons, and cloud patterns fascinate me to this day. Now I can read Psalm 19:1 with a heart of faith:
“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament (dome) proclaims his handiwork.”
Hildegard of Bingen’s final and greatest visionary work was the Liber Divinorum Operum, the “Book of Divine Works.” Each of her recorded visions elaborates the dynamic Word of God, present before and within Creation. The Word first became a human being to bring the Work of God—humanity and by extension all creation—to perfection. This grand vision is the culmination of Hildegard’s entire theological project and represents her most mature formulation of the themes central to her thought.
Hildegard believed the fundamental human vocation was to understand both ourselves and all creation as the work of God, and our place as cooperative agents of that work. Also in this “Book of Divine Works,” Hildegard considers rational understanding as the means to know our Creator and properly fulfill the work for which we were created; the relationship between humanity and the rest of creation as microcosm and macrocosm; and the eternal predestination of the incarnate Word of God irrupting into and unfolding through time, as revealed in both Scripture and the life of the Church. Our Library of Congress has a fully digitized copy of Hildegard’s final tome of 353 magnificently illustrated pages, which is accessible at the link at the bottom of this post.
DeLee: Christ Offers the Word, acrylic on canvas, 8” x 10”, 2025
Nature has always revealed the presence of God to me, not just the in the act of creation and the beauty of nature, which I see presented daily from sunrise to sunset, but also in the transits of the stars in the night skies. From the myths of our ancestors trying to make sense of their world to our current search for the mysterious ninth planet (sorry, Pluto, I still love you, even if you’ve been demoted to a dwarf planet), and to the great nebulas and galaxies beyond our Milky Way, we humans have experienced God among these other mysteries.
While we believe one day we can know all the unknowns, we nevertheless awake to discover we stand on the precipice of yet more mysteries and the need to refine our former truths. The more we know, the more we discover we’ve barely scratched the surface of the depths of what can be known. This search for knowledge is what keeps the curious alive and ever on the quest for the outer boundaries.
Hildegard: Scivias III.1: The One upon the throne. Rupertsberg MS, fol. 122v.
The creative mind believes a heart touched by God’s creative spirit has unique insights to give to the world, which needs beauty to confront the mess we can see outside our doorsteps and on our nightly newscasts. Creating an icon is one way to pray and enter a holy space. The circle stands for the halo, but also to identify the image portrayed as a holy or important figure. When I need to recenter myself, I always paint an icon. I pray twice—once in the act of painting and again in observing and meditating upon the image of the icon. This icon has not only the halo of Christ, but the cruciform halo, which serves to differentiate the Trinity from the non-divine saints, dignitaries, and angels. It appears on images of God the Father and the Hand of God, Christ and the Lamb of God, and the Dove of the Holy Spirit.
Rebecca Boyle describes the science of creation in “The Universe’s First Light Could Reveal Secrets of the Cosmic Dawn:”
Everything started in the tremendous burst of energy known as the big bang. Within a few seconds the universe cooled enough for the first protons, neutrons, electrons, and photons to spark into existence, and within a few minutes those building blocks came together to form the first nuclei of hydrogen and helium. After about 380,000 years, the universe was sufficiently cool for those protons and neutrons to grab free-flying electrons and form the first electrically neutral atoms. For the first time, photons stopped colliding with free electrons and were able to flow through the universe. This process, confusingly called recombination—it was actually the first true combination of atomic components—released the cosmic microwave background (CMB) light that pervades all of space. The most detailed map of this background is from the Planck satellite, a European space observatory that launched in 2009 to study this light.
DeLee: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” —John 1:3
I made this second creation painting during this healing time by intuitively wrapping strings around the stretched canvas. Then I took assorted sizes of plastic lids which I couldn’t recycle, but I was “needing to find a use for them” before I relocated them to the trash heap. I belong to the generation of “waste not, want not.” (Yes, my nannie had the famed ball of string and one of tinfoil also.)
As I placed the various sized circles around the canvas, I thought of the many hours my childhood friends and I would pass the leisure of our hot summertime days with scribble challenges. One of us would make random marks on a paper for the other to decorate or to discover a magical creature of our imagination. As we grew older, these became more developed into different textures and patterns. As I painted the circles and straight lines, I saw the bright cross amid the heat of the great power of creation, with all the elements created in that first burst of light.
Hildegard: Liber Divinorum Operum II.1: The Parts of the Earth: Living, Dying, and Purgatory. Biblioteca Statale di Lucca, MS 1942, fol. 88v (early 13th CE.).
As Hildegard reminds us, “Humankind, full of all creative possibilities, is God’s work. God calls humankind alone to assist God. Humankind are co-creators. With nature’s help, humankind can set into creation all that is necessary and life-sustaining.”
One of our last days in the art class I teach at a local church to adults who are willing to pursue the challenge of treading beyond their comfort zones, I was fooling around with a compass and a straight edge. It wasn’t a ruler, but I found the center of the canvas with the compass intersections instead. I used a piece of cardboard as my straight edge. I ended up with multiple intersecting lines, all of which I left on the surface.
When I got home, I found them interesting. These I pursued, but not all of them. The art is in deciding which ones to ignore! While painting, I reflected on God’s creation. The Holy Trinity has always existed and has always shared the work of creation. Also, there is no such entity as a “Holy Binity” or just the Father and Spirit only. The Son has always existed and has always shared the work of the entire Godhead, which we often refer in a shorthand as “God.”
DeLee: The Dome of the Waters, acrylic on canvas, 10” x 10”, 2025
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. —Genesis 1:6-8
As I painted more, the dark blues above the light blue represented the waters above the “firmament” of the pale cerulean sky. When it rains, the holes in the dome of the sky let the water leak out, or so I’ve heard the old folks say. I never heard their explanation for why it doesn’t rain all the time, but perhaps “angels are involved.” They might be busy plugging the holes in the dome with their fingers, but God must have many angels working hard on our behalf.
The area below is in greens for all the growing and thriving things. There is an upside-down dome, or a Cheshire Cat smile pale green eighth moon shape for the underground water sources. All the intersecting compass marks are the energy signatures, which God’s power unleashes when God makes a new thing or renews an old thing. If we are sensitive to God’s creative spirit, we cannot help but be in awe of the magic and mystery of not only the minutiae of nature, but also the grandeur of the cosmos.
The great landscape photographer Ansel Adams was one of the voices of those who found inspiration in nature, especially our national parks. He spoke the same sensible words for our age: “As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes and seas, and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.” (From a speech to the Wilderness Society, May 9, 1980).
The natural world is meant for humankind to care for, tend, and enjoy with respect, just as we would care for a beloved partner. Not everyone sees the world with the eyes of God, who so loved the world—both the humans, the creatures, and the earth itself—God gave God’s only Begotten son to save the world, “For God did not send his Son into the world (kosmon|κόσμον) to condemn the world (kosmon|κόσμον), but so that the world (kosmos|κόσμος) might be saved through him.” (John 3:17) What God created, God loves and will sustain. Can we do anything less and still be faithful to God’s calling on our hearts?
Joy and peace,
Cornelia
U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time
Trans. by Nathaniel Campbell, from the Latin text of Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Divinorum Operum, ed. A. Derolez and P. Dronke, in CCCM 92 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), pp. 47-9. (Musical Score)
International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies: Karitas habundat
The Book of Divine Works. | Library of Congress: Fully digitized copy of Hildegard’s final tome of 353 magnificently illustrated pages, late 12th century CE.
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 documents,” or the weekly tv series videos. The aliens arrive on earth and spirit away the crew to fight against their enemies. The actors protest, but discover their true selves through this challenging situation. They not only play heroes, but they become heroes. They have to surrender to their former false selves to become the best and the truest of who others have known them to be.
We are not a people who believe in surrender. If our back is against the wall, our inclination is to fight all the more. Most of us believe in climbing upwards, not in moving downward. Taking a lateral move is just as bad as a demotion for most people’s egos. If you talk to any clergy person during appointment season, many are hoping for a church with a bigger steeple. While if you talk to their congregations, they’re hoping for preachers who wants to stay for a while. Obviously between moving and staying, someone is going to be disappointed. Someone will need to surrender to a greater plan.
I remember in my early days I got my nose bent out of shape because my church asked for a new pastor. My bishop at the time was frank with me: “I don’t have anyone to send here. You need to suck up your feelings and make sure this church is ready for next year!” Elders vow to be ready to pray, preach, move, or die at a moment’s notice in the United Methodist Church. We also vow to stay if necessary. I didn’t want to surrender to my bishop’s authority, but I decided to make sure when appointment season rolled around again, she could send any average pastor in my place.
I also knew other experienced clergy had thought I’d been “over appointed” straight out of seminary. They had told my superintendent they “deserved that appointment” where I was. My answer was often on some days, “I’ll trade you straight across, no question.” Those were the suffering days, but then would come the days of joy and grace, and I’d forget my rash willingness to hand over my charge to another sight unseen. I was truly glad for the nearby presence of an older, more experienced clergy person who would buy me a coffee and doughnut. He helped me keep the perspective of the long view, rather than the immediate moment.
DeLee: The Cross Upsets Earthly Powers
In this Holy Week—the time between joys of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday—we find the events of Holy Thursday’s foot washing, Good Friday’s Crucifixion, Holy Saturday’s Vigil, and Easter Sunday’s Resurrection. In between Thursday and Friday, we find the stories of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter’s denials, and other tales of suffering.
Modern folks don’t usually like suffering. We want to treat a slight cold virus with an antibiotic, even though antibiotics only work against bacterial infections. All we end up doing is causing more suffering by creating antibiotic resistance. In worship services, “to save time,” we omit the third verse of the old hymns, which most often contain the sacrifice and blood of Jesus on the cross. People who visit churches on the Sundays during Holy Week go from the Palms proclamation of Jesus as messiah to the risen Christ on Easter. They avoid all the turmoil, suffering and drama of the week in between.
Tim: three crosses at sunset
In real life, because we avoid dealing with our dark sides and personal brokenness, we often project those same bad qualities onto others, which we then “other and marginalize.” All the “isms” of the world have scapegoats that represent their own dark side. The work of “identifying and accepting one’s shadow” is the process of assimilating “the thing a person has no wish to be” [Collected Works of Carl Jung: CW16, para 470].
Jung saw quite clearly that failure to recognize, acknowledge and deal with shadow elements is often the root of problems between individuals and within groups and organizations. It is also what fuels prejudice between minority groups or countries and can spark off anything between an interpersonal row and a major war. This certainly speaks to the time in which we now live.
Post surgery photo: still groggy
I recently had anterior cervical fusion surgery on my neck due to a herniated disc that was causing numbness in my arm and fingers. It also was causing pain, but I wasn’t aware of how much pain I was experiencing. The story of boiling a frog by gradually turning up the water it’s in is true. If your pain gradually increases by fractions, you think it’s just a 3 on the 10-point scale. However, I was having difficulty doing my ordinary work, exercising, and making decisions. Writing, which was once easy, became a chore. A concrete brain full of pain signals effectively blocked my ability to think creatively. I was trying to think through a sludge of cold molasses.
My scar is healing nicely 25 days post surgery.
The good news is after surgery I have my former brain back, such as it was. I also have a set of plates and screws in my neck, so I hope I don’t set off the TSA scanners in the airport the next time I fly somewhere. I also have a scar on my neck, so I guess I’ll trade in my Wonder Woman costume for a pirate costume for Halloween. At least I’ll have an authentic scar for the day.
Mike: suffering heart pierced by cross
The prophet Isaiah reminds us Jesus is the suffering servant,
“He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (53:3-5)
The Jewish people hoped for a messiah king, who would be a warrior hero in the style of King David. They hoped to restore the independence of Israel as a nation faithful to God and free from outside rule. Jesus was an unlikely messiah, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 21:22-24–
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Even today this apparent weakness in the face of power is a message popular society doesn’t grasp. Even the people closest to Jesus, the early disciples first sought power and status in the coming kingdom, until Jesus disabused them of that notion and said,
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3-4)
Olive Tree from Gethsemane
The best example of suffering in Holy Week is Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. There under the twisted trunks of olive trees, Jesus wrestled with his will and his mission. Being fully human, he would not choose to die on the cross. Being fully divine, he could only fulfill his Father’s purpose. Perhaps in this struggle he thought back to his wilderness experience before he set off to preach good news to the poor and release to the captives:
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” (Matthew 4:8-11)
Gail W: watercolor of Palm Sunday
Our temptations come in many forms, but mostly we can sort them into three general categories: money, sex, and power. I personally think power is the overriding category and the others are mere subsets. Anything that knocks us off kilter or disrupts our sense of security is a threat to our feeling of power and control. This is likely why Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are popular attendance days, while Good Friday doesn’t seem very “good” to the average person’s mind.
Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (closed), c. 1512–16, oil and tempera on limewood panels, 376 x 668 cm (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France; formerly in a monastery hospital treating skin diseases).
As the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians (2:5-11):
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Grunewald: Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1515, Resurrection of Christ—part of the same altar.
May your Easter season be blessed and you find ways to meet Christ in the poor among us,
In most adults, learning and thinking plateaus and then begins to decline after age 30 or 40. The old adage, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty” takes on new meaning in regards to creativity. People after this age start to perform worse in tests of cognitive abilities such as processing speed, the rate at which someone does a mental task. The slide becomes even steeper after 60 years of age. We also notice a similar learning decline in children after summer vacation, which results in the fall semester becoming a “reteaching opportunity.”
As one who is also “growing long in tooth,” I have passed this yardstick by a mile. I notice I have a “slower processing speed” in my creative writing. I don’t consider it a reason to quit, but a reason to better organize my other time-wasting behaviors (social media, newsletters, newspapers, etc.). I can always ignore cleaning the condominium! Creativity before housework, is my motto.
Housecleaning Meme
We often think older adults are on a downward slope with unrecoverable loss. “Use it or lose it,” the saying goes. Recent research suggests we need to apply a more hopeful mindset and vocabulary when discussing older people—much like that used for childhood or early adulthood. Decline, as we so often see it, may not be inevitable. In fact, learning a new skill and practicing it for three months has shown benefits beyond the the practice time.
Adults often have limited time or resources, so if we encourage learning a new skill, this may help them step out of their comfort zones. In people’s later years, many personal and societal changes—such as moving out of state to be closer to family members, switching jobs or coping with physical distance from loved ones—make learning new skills necessary to adapt and succeed.
For example, taking a class to improve technological skills could aid seniors’ success in an increasingly digital world, such as helping them use Telehealth or online banking platforms. Learning new skills in an art class allows a person to express their feelings and solve problems in creative ways. Each person can find their own path to success in artistic practice.
Potholder Loom, just like the one I had back in the day.
Our art class is trying a new thing: weaving. We have been painting for quite a while, so this is really a hands-on project. Some of us had the benefit of making woven potholders as children, or weaving newspaper “sit-upons” at summer camp. The technique isn’t unknown, but making a creative design interpretation is how we take our basic skill forward into a stimulating and creative brain challenge.
DeLee: Woven Paper on a Stick (Earth and Sky)
We could just repeat what we already know, but this doesn’t build us new neurons in our brains. If we keep the same old paths and don’t create new ones, we aren’t flexible when we meet new situations. Since we live in a rapidly changing world, building a brain capable of rapidly adapting is important to live independently and vibrantly for as long as possible.
I remember how my Daddy could only use the old tv remote to change the channel for the original non cable stations. When “Murder, She Wrote” came on the cable channel, my Mother had to use the cable remote to change the station for him. His Alzheimer’s disease prevented him from learning new skills, but he remembered all of his previous medical training and could diagnose his condition and boss the emergency room doctors when he was admitted to the hospital for a fall. Our brains are a mystery indeed.
Mike jumped the gun on Valentine’s Day and created a woven heart. These were big in the Danish and German communities and very popular in the 19th century in America. During the Civil War, soldiers made many of these in elaborate forms to send to their loved ones back home.
Unknown Artist: Affirmation Weaving
The brain is a fantastic and mysterious organ. If we make a habit of learning something new every day, of whatever interests us, we have the opportunity to keep our lucidity for a longer time. We also we meet the quickening changes of modern life with a steadfast heart and mind. We stress less when we know we can adapt and change in our own lives. We don’t have to be the people who say, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” We can teach and we can learn, but we might need to be more patient with the old dog. In some corners, we call that “grace.”
I watched my Granddaughter’s Daddy Daughter Dance
Our group was in and out during the several weeks devoted to this project. One of us was sick, one was grieving the death of a beloved pet, another had pressing work issues, and the teacher went to Florida to see her granddaughter get married. Amazingly, life goes on. People dropped in for spiritual support, which is a side benefit of the community of art class. I managed to get mine mostly done, and Gail S. finished hers completely. Sometimes life interrupts our best intentions and we move on. We will learn new lessons on the next project.
Gail S’s “Eye of God” weaving
Gail S’s “Eye of God” weaving incorporates yarns from two different mop heads, some sticks, and a bird feather. Gail almost always keeps a realist focus in her works, so her eye of God has a bird feather to mark the pupil. The upper field of grey and white mop yarns represent the cloudy sky, while the blue yarn stands for the water and the brown for the land. God watches over all of God’s creation. Gail S’s love of the outdoors and all of nature is evident in all her work.
Cornelia’s Cross on a Hill (unfinished)
I also recycled some old paintings and cords which I’d used in the preparatory work of other paintings. In addition, I used some recycled strips of Amazon shipping parcels as well as a wire shape which once belonged to a butterfly wing. In repurposing these items into the weaving along with two old brushes bound together with a God’s eye, I invoke the renewal of life after death.
We people of faith have two opportunities for a renewal of life after death. The first is by our profession of faith in Christ and his life, death, and resurrection on our behalf for our salvation. This gives us a living faith in this world. The second renewal is for the resurrection from death itself. This gives us a life beyond this world. Our faith is worthless if it doesn’t change us for our walk upon this world. If we don’t have the heart and mind of Christ within us, and if we aren’t earnestly seeking to be made perfect in the love of Christ daily, our United Methodist heritage tells us we’ve not yet been converted.
Yet Christ desires to save all, as John records in 12:32, Jesus tells the crowd,
“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Not just some people, or only the best, or even just us United Methodists, but ALL people. Most of us aren’t able to understand such a wide ranging love, for we live in a world of tribal loyalties. If we look at creation, which is God’s first work, God loves that which God created. God loves everything God created. We humans are the ones who choose sides and introduce boundaries and hate into God’s singular creation. The world or Kosmos is the creation first and then the people in it.
Today we tend to ascribe “world” to the “culture,” or secular society in general, but its plain meaning is creation and the human presence, for good or ill. The ancient Greeks and Romans divided the world into the material (bad) and the spiritual or mind (good), but the Jewish theology conceived the unity of both as part of God’s gift to humankind.
In the fifty-fourth chapter of On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a sentence that has echoed down through the centuries even into our own time as a brilliant summary of the Gospel. He wrote this: “God became man so that man might become god” (54:3).
This doctrine is called theosis or acquiring the whole nature of God. We United Methodists call this state Christian Perfection, or “a heart so full of love of God and neighbor that nothing else exists.” Our Wesleyan heritage was influenced by the Wesley brothers’ deep love for the Greek Orthodox fathers of the early church. To focus only on fallen nature is to deny the power of God to redeem us and all creation and to make all things new. We humans and nature aren’t more powerful than God!
If we cut off part of our God given self, we deny the incarnation of Christ, who became human for us that we might become divine. We need to remember what John 3:16 so succinctly states:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Art is a way to open our eyes and hearts to a new way of seeing spiritual truths. Art is also reflective of the artist’s soul and spirit. A sensitive viewer can read the tale of trauma or the struggle for survival in an artist’s body of work. More than this, we can listen for their voices straining to be heard. Most people have been silenced and conformed to the “cause no trouble, don’t get out of step” mantra of the public school system training our youth for the workplace.
In art class, we can lose our fear of being different because being different gets rewarded! Being original gets an attaboy or attagirl. I find such joy helping people find new courage and creativity they didn’t know existed within themselves. My students keep me young too. I feel blessed beyond measure.
Joy and peace,
Cornelia
To Stay Sharp as You Age, Learn New Skills | Scientific American
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” —John 1:5.
Work in progress: Light Shines in the Darkness
Some of us can hear these words with hope, two thousand years after John’s gospel was first written. These words come as a ray of hope, like a flashlight’s beam bursting into a collapsed mine to let imprisoned workers know help and life-giving oxygen is on the way. For the people in the first century who lived under the Pax Romana—the peace of Rome—not everyone had the same rights and privileges as the citizens of Rome. The conquered lands, including the nation of Israel, were under military occupation and suffered brutal taxation and unfair application of the laws.
More importantly, obedience to the emperor and the empire was required, which for the Jewish people meant making a sacrifice in honor of the emperor. Because this act would acknowledge a human being as a god, the Jews were between a rock and a hard place. If they denied the emperor, they were unpatriotic. If they sacrificed to him, they committed blasphemy against their God. After all, we find one of the great commandments in Exodus 20:2-3:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land ofEgypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”
We take religious freedom and expression as a given here in the United States, since the first European settlers to these shores came here with the express purpose of worshipping God in their own way. Unfortunately, they also persecuted the next groups who arrived and who worshipped differently. After gaining independence from England, America has been one of the few nations of the world in that one of its core values is to honor every faith tradition and allow each person to worship freely (or not) God as they want.
Insisting on the priority or preference for one religion isn’t historical or grounded in our constitution. We find this in both Article VI of our Constitution, which prohibited religious tests for federal office holders, and in Article I of the Bill of Rights:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
In this present time, when certain groups of Christians (Christian Nationalists) want to claim an alternative history of our national origin and our national destiny, they also are trying to rewrite our history to make it fit their purposes. This elevates their religious group above others and gives them preference over other Christian denominations as well as other faiths and nonbelievers. When these other groups become persecuted or marginalized, the whole suffers, while a few prosper.
The situation was much the same back in the first century CE, when tax farming was a corrupt practice in the Roman provinces. A family bought the rights to a tax area, collected whatever they wanted, and gave the due to Rome. The rest they kept as profit. No wonder folks hated the local tax collectors: they were not only greedy, but they colluded with the occupation. The priests in the temple made sure they never rocked the boat, so they could keep up their rituals and practices of the law, both scriptural and secular.
Therefore the people yearned for a savior, a messiah. In every age, in the stillness of the night, in the darkness of despair, when hope was flickering to an ember, a voice of a prophet would arise. These prophetic voices weren’t often heard, but occasionally one voice would pierce the gloom like a bright light in a dark cave. When a prophet speaks a true word from God, people recognize it as true because it speaks the truth of God, reminds people they belong to God, calls the people back to God, and tells them the consequences of their resulting behavior. Prophecy isn’t just about fortune telling.
Poets are often the prophets of their age. The first stanza of William Butter Yeats’ Ode speaks both toward that first century past and to the second coming:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”
Final State: The Light Shines in the Darkness
If we lose hope, if we give up on the hope of redeeming our world and ourselves, we will fall into despair and nihilism. These emotions are not good. We won’t listen for the still small voice of God in the dark and quiet spaces anymore. We won’t hear the voice of God in the weed growing in the crack in the pavement of the sidewalk as we go about our daily tasks. We will fail to hear the promises of new hope and new strength when the crocuses pop through the snow next spring.
Art and poetry keep us connected to the magic and mystery of the Spirit of God. A steady diet of news and television is a soul killer. If you find your attitude going south, I recommend you limit your news consumption to two hours or less per day. Replace those other hours with sunlight, exercise, cooking, a new hobby, fiction reading, journaling, or whatever. If you keep getting drawn back into the distressing activity, remember to let go, and return to a better activity. Optimism and a sense of hope will carry us further than negativity will. As Isaiah 6:13 says,
“Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump.”
Or as my daddy always said, “Don’t let the bad guys grind you down.” Of course, this sentiment had some bad medical school Latin he and his friends translated when the going got tough and the sleep got short in his younger days. “While I breathe, I hope,” is “Dum spiro spero,” in Latin. It’s been one of my favorite sayings. Night doesn’t last forever, and morning will come. Dawn will break! There will be a new day and a fresh opportunity to do at least one thing better. To make a difference in one person’s life, to make a difference for the good for someone, somewhere. I may be just baking cookies to bring to overworked volunteers somewhere, who are doing good for others, but I can bring a bright light to someone’s day today. I don’t have to save the entire world.
If I can be a ray of light for someone today, I might give them hope. Hope is a gift. We should share it freely. Then hope would grow and “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2).
Joy, peace, and light,
Cornelia
Faith of Our Forefathers (May 1998) – Library of Congress Information Bulletin
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 because we had no living person who knew the ancient language. After the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in Egypt with its three languages depicting the same text, the race was on to translate the pictographic writing.
Rosetta Stone, British Museum
In art school my fellow students and I worked in our shared studio classes daily, but sometimes we never made any progress. Then the day would come when the light bulb clicked on in one of our brains. When we took a break, instead of giving everyone’s work a cursory glance before going out for a snack, we would linger and take in the special magic of a unique vision. Where does this special insight come from? Is it a visitation from above? Or a piercing of the soul by divine artistic insight? Sometimes I think the rare and the strange shock us out of our ease and complacency.
Picasso: Self Portrait, oil on canvas, 1907.
Art historians divide Picasso’s early periods into his Blue Period (1901-1904), the Rose Period (1905-1907), the African-influenced Period (1908-1909), and Cubism (1909-1919). Some art historians call Picasso’s African Period his “Proto-Cubist” or primitive period. It lasted from 1907 to 1909. Picasso was 24 years old when he saw an exhibit of African art at the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro. He experienced a “revelation” and began to explore African art further. African masks and sculptures strongly influenced Picasso’s art for several years, when he began to paint in sculptural forms, earth tones, and in flattened sharpened shapes.
Pablo Picasso in his Montmartre Studio,1908, via The Guardian
Picasso had first seen an African mask at Gertrude Stein’s home. Recalling his visit to the Trocadéro Museum of Ethnology (now the Musée de l’Homme), Picasso said of the museum:
“A smell of mould and neglect caught me by the throat. I was so depressed that I would have chosen to leave immediately. But I forced myself to stay, to examine these masks, all these objects that people had created with a sacred, magical purpose, to serve as intermediaries between them and the unknown, hostile forces surrounding them, trying in that way to overcome their fears by giving them color and form. And then I understood what painting really meant. It’s not an aesthetic process; it’s a form of magic that interposes itself between us and the hostile universe, a means of seizing power by imposing a form on our terrors as well as on our desires. The day I understood this, I had found my path.”
That path led Picasso to what he called his “periode nègre” (black period) or African period. It lasted only a few years, to 1909, but it turned Picasso into an avid collector of African art, masks, and sculptures that inspired him for the rest of his career.
Picasso: Woman with joined hands, 1907, Paris.
In our art class we chatted about how these masks inspired Picasso. Picasso used a palette of earthy tones, overlapping browns, and yellows with dark reds. By using Cubism, he explored a simplified geometry and the redefinition of perspectives. He tried to reveal objects from a different vantage point—from the mind, not only how the eyes perceive them. His Les Demoiselles d’Avignon signified a radical break from the naturalism that had defined Western art since the Renaissance, derailing former notions of what art was supposed to look like.
Picasso: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), oil on canvas.
People criticized Picasso’s two-dimensional women as unfeminine, for their confrontational demeanor was a complete departure from the traditional depiction of female beauty. Artists and critics alike received the work negatively and saw its menacing sex workers as promiscuous and unfit for Paris salons. Picasso rolled up the canvas, considered scandalous even amongst his innermost circle, and stored it in his studio for years to come. Yet this groundbreaking painting influenced his future works.
As Thomas Merton wrote in No Man Is an Island:
“In an aesthetic experience, in the creation or the contemplation of a work of art, the psychological conscience is able to attain some of its highest and most perfect fulfillments. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Picasso broke through the accepted boundaries of Western culture and discovered his true spirit in through the voices of the ancestors speaking from the African past. He met the other and found himself. By bringing the African masks into his studio, Picasso lived out the message of Hebrews 13:2—
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
As artists today, who seek to find their own true self and unique voice, we must both find ourselves and lose ourselves. We must lose our preconceived notions of who we should be and discover our true selves. Some artists use this as license to be caricatures of an artist, but actual artists have work ethics because they have obligations to galleries and clients. Looking like an artist and being an artist are two different things. Finding our true selves is not only a task for creatives, but also a lifetime journey for all people engaged in spiritual growth. We all can recover the image of God, which is our true self, by both God’s grace and our cooperation in doing good to all.
We artists are not here to make pretty pictures, but to break down the boundaries between our walls that keep us estranged from God and neighbor. We are not as bold as Picasso! Most of us are not risk takers. Willingness to leap out in faith is what marks a famous artist. That same riskiness is what marks the prophets of the Bible. Prophets never praise the status quo, but remind the people of the nature of their God:
“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18)
Isaiah 1:17 reminded the people of his day, “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.” Jesus will pick up this same voice in Matthew 25:40, “And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”
So how will we find our unique voice and creative expression today? The more we steep our heart and mind in the great spiritual writings of the ages, particularly those of whom have come through great suffering or difficulties, the closer we will come to understanding our own challenges in life. These hardships are not hurdles or barriers to our progress, but refiners of any weakness that needed to be strengthened.
As my teachers always said, “We test you, not to see how ignorant you are, but to see what we failed to teach well.”
I always liked their attitude better! I did not feel so dumb when I missed the right answer on their tests. I always liked art better, for more than one answer could be correct. If we work within the parameters of the assignment, we can interpret the art with our own vision and style.
Our recent class with the African masks was a big diversion from our usual method of working. First, the masks are from a different culture. They are as much of a culture shock to us as they were to Picasso. He had the privilege of buying them in the Parisian curio shops, so they sat around in his environment. We only had images. The mystery of these objects might not connect to us as they did to him.
Mike’s Mask
Mike brought several masks from his home collection. He decided to paint one that spoke to him. Like Picasso, he had an emotional connection to this mask. He made a successful rendering of the object before him. Unfinished, he would bring it back to the next class.
Tim’s First Layers
Tim worked on a mask representing his wife. He first painted his background with a dark wash, then began drawing a lighter design on top of it. The contrast of the dark and light without the middle tone was difficult for me to look at, but he seemed to be enjoying getting the big shapes down. I often let people work without jumping into change their activity. I figure they will learn more from going down a dead-end road by themselves than if I stop them before they go there. They will ask about this, and we will talk about it. They will not do it again. A little suffering leads to learning if we do no harm to the body.
Gail’s First Layets
Gail S. understood the concept of simplifying the faces into a mask. She chose a photo of herself and her granddaughter. With two mask shapes, she had multiple decisions to make. As with the others, her work was unfinished at the end of class.
This was a difficult and challenging lesson for everyone. Asking students to make an emotional connection and render the object also was aspirational. It also gave me an opportunity to see where they were on this learning journey. I will not issue this sort of challenge again for a while. I was afraid I had been boring them, but maybe not. I may need to bring brownies next Friday to make up to them. For some, they may be “grief snacks,” while for others, they will be “encouragement food.” If my bunged-up shoulder permits, I will indulge in grief baking. Otherwise, I will just eat the chocolate ice cream in my freezer, and ask for understanding.
Cornelia’s Trump Portrait
I painted a Trump mask to get my emotions out and not have them bottled up inside. If we dislike an attribute in another person, it is because we have that attribute in our own life. I can get incredibly angry, but I bottle it up and it hurts me. I do not often let anyone else see it, so it can make me sick from holding it in. Whenever someone calls you a name, I remember the old song my parents taught me when I was a child:
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Anger is a difficult emotion for many people, especially for women. It is a “culturally unacceptable behavior,” for we have always expected strong emotions from men, but this expectation is changing over the generations. Proverbs 14:29 reminds all of us,
“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but one who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”
The Old Testament often speaks of God’s anger, but this is because God’s people keep finding other gods to worship instead of the one true God. Psalms 145:8-9 reminds us of God’s true nature:
“The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”
The hidden mystery is in plain sight. It is the word of hope we hear: We are not sinners in the hand of an angry God. We are all beloved and God’s everlasting grace is redeeming us always. When things fall apart, God works to reframe and renew, even if we have difficulty recognizing God’s new creation or wanting to take part in God’s plans for the new heaven and the new earth.
Joy, peace, and recovery,
Cornelia
Historical Influence of African Art in the Modern Art Movement – ARTDEX
The first bright light of creation must have been an awesome sight. Of course, only God was there to see it or hear it. The earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. Genesis 1:3 tells us, “Then God said, “Let there be light;” and there was light.”
John Martin: The Creation of Light, Mezzotint, 1825, Royal Collection of the Arts, London.
I have often wondered if God’s creation of light was accomplished with sound. If at one time only darkness existed, then suddenly light appeared, would this sudden change happen like an atomic bomb flash? Not with the bomb’s destructive evil and force, but with the creative and life-giving energy of God’s power and love. While scripture tells us we hear God’s voice in the sheer silence (1 Kings 19:11-12), this is after God has created everything which we humans might worship instead of God. When God first created light, what was the power behind God’s words?
George Richmond: The Creation of Light, Tempera, gold, and silver on mahogany, 1826, support: 480 × 417 mm, frame: 602 × 539 × 66 mm, Tate Gallery, London.
Maybe no one cares, for if no one is in a forest to hear a mighty oak fall, can we say it ever made a sound? Just because human beings weren’t created yet does not mean the light did not come into existence or make a noise. We might as well say bombs are not leveling towns in Ukraine and Gaza merely because we are not running from the falling bricks and dust. Yet, we can see the pictures on television and know these facts as true.
We are in a trickier situation when we try to find information to prove the existence of the creation of the first light and the facts of its origin. We are certain light was created, for light now exists. Tracking light’s history to its birth story is the challenge!
The Creation of Day and Night, by Francisco de Holanda, De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines, 1543.
When the Old Testament says God created light, the ancient readers understood this word to mean a special light, not the light of the sun, moon, or the stars. God created these lesser lights on a later day, so they possess a different form of light from the first light. The early Hebrew philosophers distinguished between chomer, matter, and tzurah, the form or function of an object. A raw material has chomer, matter, but once it’s made into an object, it acquires the form or tzurah.
Michelangelo’s The Separation of Light from Darkness, (c. 1512), the first of nine central panels that run along the centre of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
At the beginning of creation, nothing had form. It was all matter. Then God created the Ohr Ha-Ganuz, or the Hidden Light. This special light played a critical role in Creation. Just as regular light allows us to see and relate to our surroundings, the Hidden Light enabled the different elements of creation to interact with one another. It dispelled the initial state of darkness when all objects were isolated and disconnected from one another. Through this special light, the universe’s myriad objects acquired purpose and function and were able to work together towards a common goal.
About 13.8 billion years ago, our universe ballooned outward at an incredible speed. Everything we see today, which was once packed tightly together, expanded in a roiling mass of light and particles. It took 380,000 years for this hot, dense soup to thin and cool enough to allow light to travel through it. This first light, dating back to the formation of early atoms, we call the cosmic microwave background and we can still detect it today.
Creation: Bright Beam, stage 1
The Advanced Simons Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile is on the forefront of research for detecting cosmic microwave background radiation to give us a better picture of the early universe, its evolution, and the many phenomena within it. Beyond the cosmic microwave background, they will hunt for and study the birthplaces of distant stars, the contents of interstellar dust, exo-Oort clouds—spherical shells of ice and dust at the edges of solar systems—and several other phenomena. But, given the unique capabilities of this observatory, they are also open to finding some unexpected and unexplained puzzle pieces in the universe that we did not know we were missing.
Creation: Bright Beam, stage 2
Before there were any stars or galaxies, 13.8 billion years ago, our universe was just a ball of hot plasma—a mixture of electrons, protons, and light. Sound waves shook this infant universe, triggered by minute, or “quantum,” fluctuations happening just moments after the big bang that created our universe. The question we first asked, “Did the creation of light make an audible sound?” is related to the “cosmic wave background radiation” that the observatory in the Chilean desert is seeking.
Although scientists call this moment the Big Bang, it was not a loud explosion. Instead, it was more like an imperceptible humming because this first moment happened when the universe was denser than the air on Earth and sound waves could travel through it. This covered the first 100,000 to 700,000 years. As the universe cooled and expanded, the sound waves grew longer and and the sounds lower. As the universe continued to expand, the wavelengths became so long the sounds became inaudible to the human ear.
NASA Sound File Magnified of Big Bang Microwave Radiation
For this sound file, the patterns in the sky the Planck Observatory observed were translated to audible frequencies. This sound mapping represents a 50-octave compression, going from the actual wavelengths of the primordial sound waves (around 450,000 light-years, or around 47 octaves below the lowest note on the piano), to wavelengths we can hear.
Creation: Bright Beam, stage 3 in the studio
Maybe as you read this, you wonder, why do artists have an interest in science? This is an attribute of artists from Leonardo in the Renaissance down through the Impressionists who studied the play of light and atmospheres on surfaces in the 19th century. Today we know the speed of light means we are always seeing a “late arriving sunbeam.” The speed of light gives us an amazing tool for studying the universe. Because light only travels a mere 300,000 kilometers per second, when we see distant objects, we’re always looking back in time. If we the universe clock backwards, right to the beginning, and you get to a place that was hotter and denser than it is today. So dense that the entire universe shortly after the Big Bang was just a soup of protons, neutrons, and electrons, with nothing holding them together.
Lentil and ancient grains pasta soup, held together by melted cheese—metaphor for the early universe
The moment of first light in the universe, between 240,000 and 300,000 years after the Big Bang, is known as the Era of Recombination. The first time that photons could rest for a second, attached as electrons to atoms. It was at this point that the universe went from being opaque, to transparent. The earliest possible light astronomers can see is the cosmic microwave background radiation. Because the universe has been expanding over the 13.8 billion years from then until now, those earliest photons were stretched out, or red-shifted, from ultraviolet and visible light into the microwave end of the spectrum.
Today we have tools unavailable to the 15th or 19th centuries, but what we have in common is the human mind. Because we are created in the image of God, we have the same desire to create and shape our world and to understand our place in it. For some people, they find placing their trust in God’s absolute power over all creation and events as a way of understanding the problem of good and evil in the world. This justifies suffering and allows them to ignore the plight of the poor. Prosperity religion, which preaches the good prosper and the bad suffer, is a classic example of this theological belief. We United Methodists believe in doing good to all people, as often as possible, with all the means we can. As the gospel says in Matthew 25:37-40—
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
We know Jesus as the Light of the World (John 8:12)—
Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
Perhaps this ancient light of creation has not yet reached everyone who reads these words. I can only guess they ignore even the voice of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (58:10):
“If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”
The sun will always shine when we help others. The light of Christ will burn bright in us to burn away our gloom and despair when we give a hand to others who are in need. Their lives will be brighter in turn. We often turn away from people in hard circumstances because we do not want to face the prospect that we one day might need a hand up. This strikes at our self image of invincibility and self sufficiency. We keep remembering “God loves a cheerful giver.” If we think only of this part of the verse outside of its context, we might think God only loves the giver. God also must love the one in need to provide the blessing for the giver. As we read in 2 Corinthians 9:7-8—
Cornelia DeLee: Creation: Bright Beam, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”, 2024.
“Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”
As an old mentor of mine taught me, “Don’t do all the work for your people. You’ll rob them of the blessing of serving the Lord.” None of us can replace the eternal light of Christ, which has been traveling to us since the dawn of time, although the Light has been with God since before time began. This Light is even now permeating the universe, in a prevenient journey to the furthest distances of creation. There is no place the Light will not go before us. Even as we attempt a return to the moon and hope to go to Mars in the future, the light of Christ has already gone before us.
If this does not give you hope in what many think is a dark and despairing world, refocusing on the Light with us instead of the darkness that always seems so near might help to change your attitude.
In times of cultural change and uncertainty, some faith-based communities turn to apocalyptic literature to find meaning, if not solace, for their suffering. Other communities of faith look forward to a future of hope and joy, even though they live in the same circumstances.
Apocalyptic literature is a genre of writing that appeared during times of crisis or persecution. It often presents a vision of the end times and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Apocalyptic literature has several major characteristics:
“The supreme manifestation of Satan in this world is war.” By William Blake, 1805, apocalyptic painting with tempera, gum, glue, and chalks, Tate Galleries, London.
Dualism: Apocalyptic literature often portrays a cosmic battle between good and evil forces, highlighting the struggle between light and darkness.
Symbolism: Deeper meanings and abstract concepts are represented by symbolic language and imagery.
Eschatology: Apocalyptic literature focuses on the end times (Greek eschatos last, farthest) and the ultimate judgment of humanity, exploring themes of divine justice and the afterlife.
Pseudonymity: Many apocalyptic texts attribute their authorship to famous figures from the past, using pseudonyms or false names.
Visions and Dreams: Apocalyptic literature often includes visionary experiences and dreams as a means of conveying divine messages and revelations.
The future is fixed and decided in apocalyptic literature, whereas with prophecy, people can change their future by repentance and restoring their relationship with God.
Since John was already in exile, “The Revelation to John” doesn’t bother to hide his authorship for his safety. He does claim it’s a vision of Christ mediated by an angel. It also checks the boxes of good vs evil, symbolism, the end times, and a fixed future. The actual date of this future isn’t revealed, however.
An interpretive mistake many make is to take this letter written to encourage the persecuted churches of the first century and project its message into our modern-day society. The symbols which were meaningful to John’s audience are for that historical context alone. Reinterpretations of these signs to make them relevant to our current geopolitical situation is bad scriptural interpretation.
Plate 12, First book of Urizen, by William Blake
What we can do is ask, “What can persecuted communities or suffering societies of the past teach us about resilience, hope, and faith?” Some will focus on God’s destructive forces to eradicate evil and harm. Belief in God’s power to overcome evil is a source of deep comfort for people without power. These are often the ones who feel excluded from the halls of power, but also those who believe their privilege and place is slipping away.
God’s fridge would be covered with photos!
Both these groups forget they are beloved of God, just as God loves all God’s children. Sometimes we forget God’s refrigerator is large enough to have the photographs of all the people of the world on its door, along with all our latest art works also. If that’s a humongous refrigerator, then that gives us an idea of the expansive reach of God’s love, mercy, and grace for all creation.
The First Day of Creation, by Francisco de Holanda (1545), with caption, “Let there be light.”
A negative outcome of this dualist, apocalyptic belief is extremist beliefs about the end times. Unfortunately, some extremist pastors have convinced their followers to end their lives to meet their predicted apocalyptic end of the world. The leader creates the fiction of an evil out-group to bind the members more closely to their cult and proclaims apocalyptic themes to brainwash their members. Numerous mass suicides worldwide have occurred as a result, including 914 people of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in San Diego, California, committed mass suicide by poisoning to coincide with the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet, considering this a signal for their exit from Earth. Others have given away their entire nest eggs to apocalyptic cults because “no one will need money in the new creation.”
Paul Klee: Clarification, 1932, Oil on canvas, 27 3/4” × 37 7/8” (70.5 × 96.2 cm), The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1984 Accession Number: 1984.315.54
Some of us prefer to focus on The New Heaven and the New Earth instead, as found in Revelation 21:1-4—
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.”
Stage 1—strings and base colors
What a day that will be! The last time God destroyed the earth with a great flood, God placed a rainbow in the sky as a promise the earth would never be destroyed again by water.
Leonardo da Vinci said, “Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.” For some people, the only “good art” is representational art, or art which faithfully describes a landscape, portrait, or still life. With abstract art, colors carry emotions and shapes to form pleasing patterns for the viewer. What will the new heaven and the new earth look like? Revelation 21:11 says “It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal.”
Stage 2—addition of gold and silver washes
While many today think of heaven as an earthly paradise, this concept is a Persian idea of an enclosed garden, much like the original garden of Eden. We tend to imagine a heaven as being a better place than the world we know, but imagining an altogether different world is next to impossible! Luke 20:27-38 is Jesus’ answer to the law-abiding Sadducees about how relationships work in heaven, and a reminder to us heaven isn’t just a perfect earth.
When I think of the providence of God, which is grounded in creation and is always recreating the face of the earth, I remember God’s promise to Noah in Genesis 9:11-13—
“I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth….This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
Stage 3—Added circles and more gold and silver washes
It is this cosmic rainbow of colors, the spiritual energies which most of us cannot see for the overwhelming ordinariness of daily life. We race from chore to chore, dash from task to task, and drop exhausted at the end of our days. We long for a better life, but we’re stuck on a galloping treadmill trying to keep our feet under us. I long to walk rather than run through my days. When I was younger, older people told me to slow down. As I hit middle age, I heard I would soon start slowing down. Now that I’m inching closer to 80, slowing down is finally becoming a reality!
Vincent Van Gogh said, “Paintings have a life of their own that originate in the soul of the artist.” We cannot see the new heaven and new earth unless we stop our busywork and allow God to attend to the business of our spiritual life. When we see the first glimmers of the new heaven and the new earth, we’ll realize how imperfect our world is and begin to help change it for the better, one small act of kindness at a time. This is soul work.
Sometimes that kindness first means being kind to ourselves, when we admit we can’t say YES to everything and everyone. When we admit we actually need eight hours of sleep for our health and a daily quiet time, and we can stop to study the flowers in the cultivated gardens of our neighborhoods and in our parks.
Cosmic Rainbow—acrylic on canvas, 24” x 30”, 2024.
Then we can be a beautiful rainbow, God’s light in this world for good, and bring the hope and joy of the end times to these times. We then will bring the radiance of the new heaven and the new earth to this present age and to these yearning people.
Joy, peace, and rainbows,
Cornelia
what are the five major characteristics of apocalyptic literature – brainly.com
Middle English paradis, paradise “the Garden of Eden, heaven,” borrowed from Anglo-French paradis, borrowed from Late Latin paradīsus, borrowed from Greek parádeisos “enclosed park or pleasure ground” (Xenophon), “the Garden of Eden” (Septuagint), “the abode of the blessed, heaven” (New Testament), borrowed from an Iranian word (perhaps Median *paridaiza-) cognate with Avestan pairidaēza- “enclosure,” nominal derivative of pairidaēz- “build a barrier around,” from pairi- “before, around” (going back to Indo-European *per-i, whence also Sanskrit pári “around, about,” Greek péri “around, in excess”) + -daēza- “heap up, build” (occurring only with prefixes), going back to Indo-European *dhoi̯ǵh-éi̯e-, iterative derivative of *dhei̯ǵh- “knead, shape” — more at PERI-, FEIGN
NOTE: As an independent derivative of the verb, Avestan daēza- “heap, pile (of earth, stones)” has been compared with Greek teîchos (neuter s-stem) “wall, fortification,” toîchos (masculine) “wall of a house or enclosure,” Sanskrit dehaḥ “body,” dehī́ “wall, embankment,” Oscan feíhúss (accusative plural) “walls.” For a Germanic derivative from the same verbal base with a different sense, see DOUGH.
In the dead heat of summer, our gardens aren’t putting forth the fruit of our planting. Maybe the animals of our neighborhood have made their too frequent nightly visitations, so our harvest is skimpy. We can forget God is a both a creating god and a recreating god as well. The first words of the alternate NRSV translation of the Bible’s first book Genesis (a word meaning “origin”) are—
First stage: string, fabric scraps, and under painting
“When God began to create…”
In the old KJV, Genesis 1:1 reads—“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”
I appreciate even more the next verse from Genesis 1:2—
“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.”
Alternate translations read— “while the spirit of God or while a mighty wind” swept over the face of the waters. This reminds us nothingness and darkness aren’t problems for God, who is able to bring glorious light to any situation.
Psalms 139:12 speaks of the nature of God:
“Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
I’ve lived for over half a century with chronic depression, so I can recognize darkness, not only in my own life, but also in the lives of others. Most of my ministry and even my secular work was done with a calling to bring others to the light of hope and confidence that anything was possible.
In art classes, I asked my students to trust in ABC—Attitude, Behavior, and Consequences. If they had a Positive Attitude, they would have Positive Behavior and work on their assignments. If they worked, they would see Positive Consequences or Improvement over time. Asking people who’ve been told they can’t do art to believe they can learn even if they aren’t “talented” is a big ask, but if they have faith in this promise, they discover it’s true.
When I sold insurance, I asked people to trust in the idea of making a small sacrifice now to prevent a greater loss later. Also, if they had no loss, they shared in a community to underwrite the group losses and keep the cost of protecting their own property low. Not everyone has the light to see this benefit of community, but for those who do, I could help keep their consequences from being a disaster.
Second stage: overpainting, printed circles, and added ruler lines
When I entered the ministry, I discovered congregations who had lost their faith in the God who could make something out of nothing This began with the creation story, the choosing of the nation of Israel to be God’s people (even though they were once no one’s people), and feeding them in the extended wilderness wandering before they arrived at the promised land. The Bible is full of examples of God’s providing more when people have too little to sustain them: Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, the feeding of the crowds with a few fish and loaves, and the water turned into wine. These modern people didn’t have a “recreating faith” that God could work in their lives today, just as God had once worked in the lives of others in the days of Christ.
That is what we call a “dead faith,” or as John Wesley put it in his notes on the New Testament at 2 Timothy 3:5— “An appearance of godliness, but not regarding, nay, even denying and blaspheming, the inward power and reality of it.”
It’s dead, because the Spirit isn’t at work in it. I used to tell my beloved evangelism professor, the late Dr. Billy Abraham, the first place we needed to do evangelism was in the local church, because folks hadn’t heard the good news. If they weren’t excited enough to have a living faith, they wouldn’t go out and spread the good news to others.
I’ve never been a cheerleader, although I did have some time in my high school pep squad. I was more often involved in making the football banners and pep posters for the other sports activities. Also debate team took up much of my time. One of the best practices I learned in debate was positive points sell better than negative ones. Also, it’s better to make the same point over and over with different facts and examples.
When I say our God is a creating and recreating God, I can point to the beautiful verses of John 1:1-5—
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
In the beginning was the Word
As believers in the Holy Trinity, the Word made flesh is Christ, so he was co-creating with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit from the beginning. By virtue of the incarnation, Christ takes on our flesh to redeem us and make us whole again. This comes to completion through the cross. When we place our faith in Christ’s act of love for all creation, we are made one with Christ, and one with God. The Holy Spirit brings us ever closer to the true nature of Christ, until we’re perfected in love of God and neighbor.
I painted on unprimed canvas, just to see what would happen. Also, because I knew the paint surface would be different than the usual texture on the primed canvas. After I painted several different colors in blocks with the scrap pieces of cut canvas used as “masking tape,” I decided to use a mix of iridescent gold and silver acrylic paints to glaze over the under painting. I also added some circles and straight lines. I’ve collected a few jar tops recently, I used some string elements, and I had a school ruler left from my last teaching job back in the 1980’s. (Yes, I keep things. They are tools of the trade. My Sears Craftsman staple gun from art school finally died after half a century of use.)
I’ll be working some more of these experiments for a while. Creating and recreating our lives is what keeps us new every morning. As someone who has been renewed and recreated more than one time can attest, along with the prophet Jeremiah,
“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (29:11)
Joy and peace,
Cornelia
John Wesley’s Notes on The New Testament, 1755:
2 Timothy 3:5—“holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them!”
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