Celebrate
Food and beverages make things special.
That was probably what led me to this position of looking to lose weight~ to make a moment special, to celebrate that moment, to dig it up out of the trench of the Ordinary, there was Coca-cola and chocolate!
And you probably know enough about me by now to realize that I celebrated that way every day, and often!
With a desk job, and a life that keeps me in the car on errands for quite a while after work, I was up against it, anyway. I guess it was bound to happen that I would have an issue with my weight.

Why is my weight-loss stuff here on this blog?
Because it became a spiritual thing, very quickly.
Nothing I tried worked. I tried limiting my calorie intake to less than 1,000, usually around 700 (I'm small, and my job has me chained to a computer all day, so I figured I didn't need so many calories~ a lot of that came from colas and chocolate!).
That didn't work~ after a few months of it, I was still the same.
So, I tried exercise with that. First yoga, then after a time, walking. 4 miles, about 5-6 days a week.
On the advice of someone, I started consuming more calories.
Nothing happened ~ just better tone in my legs.
I got tons of advice, plenty of people were eager to get half the facts, then tell me what I did wrong! What we do to each other, in the fight against excess weight, is just amazing!

(I have to take time to say here that friends like the Wilsons were really wonderful to have around, because they were simply supportive~ they listened, and they sympathized, and they asked questions, but they didn't "coach". Truly, a gift. I've learned through their example what to do when faced with another person on the weight loss/better health trail!)

I was addicted to colas, and I wasn't going to be able to cut back on my consumption of them, on my own. God knows I tried~ and I let others in on it, telling them of my troubles, gaining a sort of support group/accountability thing (accountability, by the way, never seems to work for me, for any aspect of my life! I think I've got too much independent hermit blood in me, for that)~ it didn't work. God was going to have to help, if I was going to do this.

So, I asked.
Nothing happened.
So, I asked again.
That time, it was given. In Amazing amounts!
I went almost 360°, in the turnaround, right away (Yay, God! You really can do everything, even help me change my mind and will, against my addicted instincts!). I'm telling you, it was remarkable~ and actually took me by surprise, it was so big a change, and so sudden, so thorough!

I have the option of "feasting" on my days off~ Coca-cola, junk food, stuff like that.
But really, I'm surprised how far-reaching the changes God wrought in me have shown themselves to be~ I'm suddenly preferring (not just choosing out of duty) dark cocoa (which is exceptionally good for you) over regular chocolate! Who woulda thunk?
And I would rather have 2% milk with a little dark chocolate syrup in it than anything else, when I'm not in the mood for water (eventually, I hope that my preferences will include fresh fruit juices more).

The closest I get to junk in my beverages is Diet Mt. Dew. I like drinking a bit of that on the weekdays, but I find a little is enough. (Thank you, God!)
My long term goal is to get as healthy as possible, in my food~ a judicious mix of fresh fruit, veggies, whole grains, dairy, and meats, with a little of the oils that are best for you, like olive oil.

Weigh down
Although this change was brought about because I dislike excess weight on me (and I DO!), it's turned out not to be all about "fat".
It's come to be a lot about optimum health.
I want to take better care of my body, because I believe that excess weight on me is a sign of an off-kilter attitude at work inside me, and I want to address that.
I want to eventually have very, very little toxins in my food and in my body, sticking to raw fruits and vegetables as much as possible.
But that's definitely a long-term goal! :) Being a country girl at heart, my hillbilly soul adores a good fried chicken leg!
God and I will reallyreally have to work patiently on that one!
Will it make me slender and toned and in great health?
Eventually. But I'm trying to be patient with the results, as well as the habits.

You can go for "thin" or even "fit", and not be concerned about mental/emotional/spiritual health, but my concern is the combination found in a healthy existence~ mind/body/soul. I want to give respect to each area of my life, comprehending fully that God gave them to me to tend, just as Adam and Eve tended the garden.
This is my own 'garden' ~ I can let God in, and help make it a paradise, a little Eden, or I can fill it with toxins, poisonous things. No sense trying to forget the body and just tend the soul, or just fixate on the mind and set aside the body, etc. It's all been given to me to tend and care for, to glorify God. It's an opportunity to participate in something sacred.

I want to see that my meals are sacred, and that there are better ways of celebrating than with an excess of junk food!

I've borrowed the "Weigh Down" book from the library, though I will be keeping my focus on my own plan with God.
I decided I didn't want to put too much focus on the weighing scale, so I've chosen to only weigh myself once a month. And I only do exercise for fun (like walking~ I really enjoy walking) or when my body is telling me that it really wants me to. I usually end up doing crunches in my bed before sleep, because it feels good on my ab muscles, and I work out with hand weights while I'm in front of the tv, because I enjoy it in the sense that building my muscle tone makes me feel better, stronger.

Branch out
An interesting by-product of all this change in perspective is that I've gone back down in my TV viewing ~ I used to not watch tv, then I started watching a few shows, maybe a total of 3 hours a week, nothing much.
I decided that it made me unhappier to see all those slim, fit, gorgeous women on there, they were pushing products at me too much, pushing an ideal too much, pushing greed and materialism, and when I looked back at my time spent viewing shows on tv, I found a vacuous, deadened sound.
The tv viewing wasn't adding to the quality of my life.
My life.
I read recently (was it Fr. Richard Rohr?) that we spend so much time living outside ourselves, we forget to pay attention to what's going on inside us. We compare and compete, and there's no room for love, with that (yeah, it was Richard Rohr who wrote that).
I don't believe I look at my life, really. My life, just as it is, what it could be, all on its own.

You might remember that I once talked about how my projects would turn out better if I took what I had to work with, and worked with that, letting God guide me and inspire me to use the materials and aspects at hand to create the best that could be gained from it.

I'd like to take that into all of my life! I've been so busy for so much of my life with comparing, I don't think I've actually looked at my life with a completely clear eye, not for a long time.

I believe it was a turning towards this new perspective that made me decide to endeavor to get rid of toxic things lingering at the edges of my life~ in my food, in my habits, in my outlook.

So, tv was cut down. But to keep from getting too over-the-top on it (again, to guard against arrogance), I watch one tv show a week. I can watch as many dvds as I want (no commercials going on, in them~ and I usually walk away from a dvd viewing with the feeling that I've gained something good while I watched it). For that reason, dvds are allowed to happen to me! Movies on tv, I will watch, if I happen to catch them.

Horizons
Again, I can't emphasize enough, this is a long-term goal for me, I want it to happen gradually and permanently, and with God's help, every step of the way. He's definitely hands-on, in this project!
It's an ongoing project that God is turning into a transformation.

Wordless Wednesday

This is what I hope for
"...a time of glad living with summer suns and skies, a time of keen delight in wholesome things; a time of renewing and deepening of old friendships; a time in which she had learned to live more nobly, to work more patiently, to play more heartily."
- L. M. Montgomery, "Anne of the Island"


* * *

I'm sorry I've been so busy, I haven't written much here, lately ~ be assured, my mind is still churning and I'm still thinking about God and life and all those things, and you'll get more out of me, yet!
But give it time.

I walked my little feet off
Another rewarding sojourn to the Cincinnati Art Museum ~

Go here to read about it.

Seventh Sense
I found an interesting article on the Christian mystic experience often called Practicing the Presence of God. I wish I knew this woman~ it would be nice to have this as a common bond with someone else.

http://www.innerexplorations.com/forum/infused.htm

This experience is so thorough, and changes so much, inside~ it changes everything, because it's hitting on a level that is too foundational and basic to miss much. This is an impact to end all impacts, really. I think someone who has experienced it, too, would be able to relate to the myriad passages and changes I've gone through, as a result of this seeking quest for the eyes of God.

Not quite a vision quest
I didn't want my experience with God to be built up only on secondhand information (even if it did come from people far more saintly than myself) or on dreams and visions, either ~ I wanted to know God for myself, in ways that went straight in, ways that were integral and primordial, that hit the soul and the heart and the mind~ my whole being. As direct a link between God's heart and mine as I could possible endure. I'd spent all my life believing that Jesus was my personal Savior~ I wanted to know Him and all the rest of God, personally, as personally as I could. I reallyreally wanted to get to know God better (and better and better and better and...).

Having had plenty of visions before (and one dream that was obviously From God), I was skeptical of its authenticity. Not that I thought I was being hood-winked; just that my own mind and outlook colored the imagery~ I could see that others had visions that were in tune with what they knew and "expected", too. We are sort of more in the driver's seat, during visions, than I was willing to be satisfied with. I wanted the whole God experience, undiluted~ and I still do.

Brother Lawrence said that constantly seeking for God, remaining ultimately 'unsatisfied' with what we're given in our experiences of God, is very much a part of our continual growth. We can never draw right into the Center of God, there is always a deeper layer to go, because God is infinite. So, part of this journey is to accept gratefully what God is giving of Godself, but then saying, "no, that isn't God~ and that isn't God, and that isn't God~ these things are all from God, but they are not God."
A noble occupation for a person to take up.

If I accept these beauties and graces and blessings as the ultimate experience of God, or if I accept the warm fuzzies of a good revival experience or the grueling good-works of charity work or any other aspect as the ultimate experience of God, there I will stay, stunted in my spirit.

We have to keep climbing closer, keep looking and looking for the Center of the Whole Creation, the Divine Center of it all that is God.


But weight! More to come~
I've been changing my mind in other, more 'superficial' ways, as well~ the changes in my healthstyle have been almost 360°~ I've been challenged by my general bad eating habits (plus my sitdown office job, always infamous for making people gain weight) ~ my weight has been gaining on me!
In my twenties, my tendency was towards being underweight (I don't eat when I'm upset, and my life could be very upsetting, back then) I've been in a tug-of-war battle with it for about 8 years, now, but it wasn't until I involved prayer and a change of heart ~ in other words, got God actively involved~ that I've begun to feel that I've been finding answers.
I'll share the plan God's helped me devise for better health and fitness with you, soon.~

Figured as much~
"Scientists have found that daily meditation lowers anxiety, improves brain function, and even reduces your biological age! One study found that people who meditated for more than five years had a biological age averaging twelve years younger than nonmeditators. In another one, scientists taught meditation to a group of people in an old age home. Another group did word games. The meditators scored higher on low blood pressure, mental health - and improved ability to learn. When the researcher returned in 3 years, a third of the residents had died, but none were the meditators. The word meditation literally means "good medicine". - Naomi Judd, "Naomi's Guide to Aging Gratefully"

Too cool
Did you see this, yet?
Amazing.

New leopard species found

Yeah, I watch movies. Don't you?
Just a note to say I watched both "A Good Year" and "The Holiday" for the first time, recently.
"A Good Year" made it to my Top 10 Faves list.
Love it~ good plot, lighthearted attitude to it, actors that convinced me (can't get much better than Russell Crowe), and great scenery.
I enjoyed the gardens and the villa, and the landscape of Provence.
I also enjoyed the winemaking/vineyard theme weaving through it all.

"The Holiday" was good for eye-candy-for-girls. Definitely chocolate for the brain. Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz have both gotten kudes for their acting, I don't have anything to add to the praise given them by other, more authoratative voices, and I really like seeing them in films; but I have to admit, Jack Black doesn't do it for me. However, it was good to see Rufus again (haven't seen him since "Cold Comfort Farm" and "Dangerous Beauty", I don't think), and Jude Law almost convinced me, in his nice-guy role. Almost.
And of course, I adored the houses and gardens, and adored seeing Eli Wallach!

I also re-watched "Sweet Home Alabama", and actually found a ripe soil for my soul, in that one.
I don't remember getting so much out of it, the first time around, but this time, my spirit and brain went to town on it, just ate it up~ it was definitely used by God, in helping me over a myriad of things that have been floating around in my head.

Seduced by good art?
Being way-into design, I find myself often wondering where the love of Things-Designed becomes shallow and materialistic, and where it is only a fresh, good, creative energy in my life. Good design often costs lots of $$$, and is often bent on being very sort of hedonistic and status-conscious, so I often feel guilty having interest in it.
And I often feel less-than, to others, because of my lack of new things.
And I often feel lacking in the really good taste I want to have~ so much can be done, when one has good taste at hand!
And I often wonder if anyone is going to care about my character,
no matter how good it may get,
and I will never measure up to the media's standards,
nor the standards of many in design/art,
and I wonder if it's too frivolous and absurd to long for beautiful design, in clothes, in furniture, in anything that will take up space in my life,
and I wonder if it's wrong to want beauty.
And I wonder if I will regret not spending the long hours that success demands, what seems like too much time away from life, from family, to be worth it, for me. Will I change my mind about that, when it's too late?

But this movie, along with other influences layering in front of me, brought me to a sense of what I have achieved in my life. It doesn't look like much, but many don't even have the opportunity to do what I've done, and many will never know even what I've known of success in life.

For the obstacles I've faced, I now realize, I and my God have pulled off a small miracle, together. You or my neighbor or anyone else might be able to do more, and go farther, but I see now that for what I had and what I was up against, I did very well. I hope to continue doing very well.
More than that, I hope to glorify God with my life.

The second half
I kind of fought against God's will, through most of my life, up till the last couple of years.
It was my own desires and ambitions that counted! Not God's hopes for me~ MY hopes for me!

Last night, I decided to make a real commitment to doing it God's way, in the 'second half' of my life. I've come to the place in life, at 40, where I believe He can do amazing things with the time I have left, if I do it His way, as much as possible. I trust Him.
And I can't wait to see what God will do!
I know there will be pain in life, but I have an excitement about what He could do, if given free rein in my life; I don't believe He'll lead me through nothing-but-pain.

Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I feel there will be a good balance, a life with not just trials, but an abundance of love, laughter, beauty, grace, and an ever-closer, exquisitely rewarding relationship with God.

Looking through the keyhole
And after all, I do have one key, probably the most important key of all, to a truly fulfilling life ~ to seek God's eyes with mine, to look and look and look for Love above all else.

This leads me to peaceful waters and breathtaking, unimaginable discoveries, things that make life sing and thrill the blood. I truly can't imagine those treasures ahead of time, or even fully recall the beauties I've seen in the past, while completely under God's wing. There is just the humming, misty memory still glowing through me, when it's done....

Wading into the Unconditional Love of God, I know through experience, is its own reward~ a very generous, surprising, astounding one, at that.

Odd how many places Divine Wisdom can pop up out of....anything that comes our way can teach us more about God, if we look for it, while giving Him the benefit of the doubt.

If we look to find a great God, our cup will flow over; if we look to be vindicated in our view of a narrow God, our cup will be thrown out of our hands, leaving us empty and surly and chilled, discontent.

Blue-eyed
And the blue-eyed gypsy was sent
Whirling down to earth
By her Creator Who had made
The sky blaze with stars at her birth,
Who had escorted the sun
From Time Immemorial
Across the arc of sky
To her pearly dawn,
To her bed of waning rose.

With sin in her eyes
And the wind in her skirts
Swirling, always swirling
Like the river, always swirling~
Till the Hand upheld calmed it all
And set her down before Him.

"A gift of wings does not mean always
To be tasting freedom's tongue tip.
There comes a time when rest must come
When wings stop beating
And winds stop whirling
And waves stop rippling
And quiet rules the day."

Repose is sweet to those who have
Tasted high moonlight.

Sting
Well, here's exactly what I'm talking about, in the post below ~

I did a fun flyer for my work, we'll be celebrating March Madness (basketball season, to all of you who don't know). I was given carte blanche on the design, just told what text to put it there, what they wanted the flyer to say.

I had a ball designing that thing! I chose a retro theme for it, all 50's retro, with the drive-in movie screen saying, "Visit Our Refreshment Center" and Mr. Hotdog was there, etc.
You know, there isn't a whole lot of authentic 50s pop culture stuff, out there on the 'net.

It sure looked like a fun time in our history, though! Things were polite, but exuberant and "new".
Fun stuff!


The downside
After extensive google-searching, I found a photo online of a high school basketball team from that era, along with a photo of their cheerleaders, and put them on there, too, like they were old snapshots. Again, slim pickin's, online. I took what I could get!

My friend, Max saw it, and, being an Apache, noticed right away that there were no minorities in the flyer! Just a white high school team and Mr. Hotdog and his food cronies.

I felt terrible. I hadn't meant to leave out other races, and I hadn't really noticed, there were so many 50s drive-in movie food cartoons going on, and only two photos of people.

We have an African American girl working here, a really nice girl, and I felt bad. But it was too late to scour harder until I dug up photos of other races from the 50s, they'd sent around the flyer, already. I would have put them on there if I'd come across them, but I didn't, and I didn't even notice, and it's too late, now.
I feel terrible.

I can feel it coming
You might recall me making a passing reference to my next retreat, and how I'm thinking it's going to be as good in its own way as the Breakthrough retreat I experienced in 2005.
'Good' as in excellent growth for the soul, and for my relationship with God~ that doesn't have to mean 'enjoyable'. It could well be that the retreat will turn out to be a harrowing time~ but, as I the spirit confide in God, I believe it will be just as wonderful as the other one was!

I really hope so. At any rate, I really hope there is another Breakthrough in my spirituality. I feel the need!

There comes a time when you have to get serious about the thought of not relying on looks or sex appeal, anymore, you will get old~ it occurs to you, under your skin, absolutely hits you where you live, that you will undeniably get old, if you keep on living! And how long can we stretch out our youth, even in this day and age?
But a beautiful spirit is beautiful always, and is always a good and peaceful place to live in.

Rocky road
I'm at the bumpy stage where I love more than I did, and yet my love is not as selfless as I would like it to be. Much happiness somehow meshes in together with much sadness, and I am thrown about on the waves of the inevitable joys and pains inherent in this life.

This would be a very awkward stage indeed, if God were not giving it some grace, somehow!
As it is, I suffer (this makes me think of the old matchmaker lady in "Fiddler on the Roof" saying, "we suffer~ ohh, we suffer!")!
I suffer, oh, how I suffer!

:D

Heh. Well, I do! It's just been made not so piercing. God is shielding me, to some degree, and pains and sadnesses don't go as deep as they would, in me (Yay for God, for being so nice to me!).

Well, gee, actually, it is no-fun, feeling heightened warmth for people, yet at the same time, wishing and hoping they'll love me just as much!
And all the pain in the world~ it can be too clear for endurance! Vulnerability is just part of it, the price we pay for being truly alive.

Yet, I have too little of that alignment with God that would let me view the world and its sufferings through Divine eyes, thereby gaining the complete endurance to face it all.
Love is Its own medicine, if there is enough of It.
I need more of that Love in me.

A rambling down a side path
You know, I really want to start calling God "God/Love" or "Love", and "It".
But to call God "It" sounds awful to me...
However, to call Love "It".....that sounds better, very fitting.

And I think we just don't connect the two in our heads, enough~ God and Love.
God=Love.
God/Love.
We make Love mean things it was never meant to stand for, just as we do with God.

We associate things with God that It was never meant to stand for.
~ There; how was that? Was using "It" to describe God, too shocking?

It's a big change for me to call God "Love", because so few get it that I'm talking about GOD when I say 'Love'. Yet, I feel a need is in the air for this change, this higher association with Love. So many cast that aside, in their dealings with God.
Sigh.
Semantics suck.

Back on the main path
Anyway. About my upcoming retreat.
I don't know when it will be, but I am soooo starting to chomp at the bit for it to be here! My anticipation and hunger for it slowly creeps up on me, inside.
As it should be. That anticipation and growing hunger is part and parcel of this kind of growth. God gives us the spiritual hunger, and then gives us the spiritual food.

But I find it doesn't satisfy for long~ Love won't let us stay static, where we are. We have to keep growing in It. (there. was that a shock to your system? I said "It", again.)

Intuition
I suspect this upcoming Retreat will be as deep and mysterious as the song I automatically used for the beginning title of this entry.

"I can feel it coming in the air tonight.
Oh Lord.
I've been waiting for this moment
For all my life
Oh Lord.
Oh Lord."

No 'Wordless Wednesdays' here!
I really do believe~ in fact, it would be more accurate to say I've been convinced~ that God wants us to be happy.

I draw away from my times together with God in a lingering state of conviction about certain things. I learn more about Him through my silent restings in God; and in doing so, learn more about everything else.
One could say I am misguided to lean on my discernment and experience so much, but when it gets right down to it, you fill in the blanks for yourself. The bible doesn't tell everything, and most of us who really want to love God with all our heart/mind/soul, want to know more about God than what we've read or been told.
We want to know for ourselves.
We want to experience what God is like.

I come away from God's Love feeling certain that we should be happy. Not out of ignorance or dumbness or shallowness~ not the happiness that can be attained through worldly things, so much as the joy of a seasoned soul, a soul that has learned to be grateful.
Like, for real grateful, not just as in duty-bound.

There is a real happiness that comes from letting God in~ I don't want to call it "joy", because we often have to use that word to describe feeling ok when times are bad. Joy has no connection with or dependence on events, while happiness (say it with me!) depends on happenings.

You could be happy
But when life is not ruffling you up, what goes on in a mind that has chosen to stay under God's wing can only be called happiness. Things brightly sparkle, there is often a glow to even the most commonplace moment. There is Happiness to spare.

My one complaint (if it can be called that; and I'm spoiled enough to call it that) is that when people ask, "how are you?", my first instinct is
'oh, now I can burst forth with all this great stuff and tell someone all about it, express it and get it all out! How cool!'
~ but then, I find myself with a list of things that have happened or things I've done that really sound inane for me to be so excited and happy over!
"Yeah, I saw this neat movie and I watched some birds eating bird seed and they were so pretty, and my kids were talking last night, and they were so sisterly and close, it warmed my heart, and there was a fabulous sunset and I cleaned up and organized some, in the living room....!"

Um....whoohoo.

It just doesn't cut it. I can't even express my state of being through talking about God, because words in general, even the most eloquent, fall flat. No event can frame this happiness perfectly, or even adequately, and that kind of frustrates me. I await the looks from my friends that tell me they're trying hard to understand and share in my excitement and contentment, but, well, tidying up the living room cabinet and practicing my guitar and working on The Book and buying a Kalmia shrub?
They understandably find it hard to find the happyhappyjoyjoy in any of that.

And yet, I am inexplicably, exuberantly happy, most days.



This is a photo that Max the SuperApache Guitar Teacher took, during my lesson~ don't I look happy? And doesn't it look like me and Lady are getting really comfy with each other?
I adore working on music~ jamming with another musician, even when you're as newbie and suckie as me, is tons of fun!

The Where I'm From template
(This appears on both blogs)

I am from antique watering cans, from Oreos with bologna sandwiches for lunch and the heavenly scent of honeysuckle on the air.

I am from the three bedroom brick ranch with a carport and a slab of concrete for the front porch that smelled wonderful when the rain hit it on a Summer day.

I am from the marigolds my cat smelled like, because she always took her nap there, the tiny sparkles of flower petals in bright sunlight.

I am from “it’s the best Christmas tree we’ve ever had!” and laughing stoicism, from Emma Caroline and Minnie Mae and mysterious Gustave.

I am from the endurance and independence and solitude of the secretive Kentucky hills with its warming veins of clay and cold underground springs set deep in it.
From “add a little blue to your black paint to make it look right” and “if a snapping turtle bites ya, he won’t let go till it thunders”.

I am from Southern Baptist chicken dinners. Paper plates loaded down with good food and old, standard hymns being sung as dust motes float like calm, enchanted fireflies in the shafts of sunlight among the pews.

I'm from Northern Kentucky’s mix of German, Irish and Scottish blood, from homemade biscuits baked every morning and good meat packed in thrilling dry ice (just add water~ instant fog!) from my dad’s work.

From my 5-year-old grandfather taking care of his whole family when they fell sick with the fever, the beautiful bright pink dresses my grandmothers wore in their caskets because they loved color so much, and the exquisite cottage gardens of my mother.

I am from the tidily arranged hope chest of my paternal grandmother and the rabble-scrabbled photo albums of my mother, all the old family photos I would love to scan, but noone wants to part with long enough to let me scan them!

I am from evocative, lush woods like rainforests in Summer, creeks that found their way into my heart, a love of nature and quiet, haunting fields filled with small, hard stumps of harvested tobacco plants, resting under clear starlight, playing in my dreams. I am the lone, large tombstone of a non-family man I did not know, who died long ago on the dusty/muddy road (dust like talcum powder) leading to my grandparents’ farm, and the rare wildflowers that grow nowhere else in the world but the Ohio Valley.

Art and inspiration
The last painting I did was one I simply had to do.
I had had a falling-out with painting~ it became too hard and too unrewarding to bring out what I was seeing in my mind. I ended up not liking to paint or draw. I renounced it, and looked to other, freer art forms to express myself. Bottom line, I was more relaxed and got more enjoyment out of other mediums of creativity.

But there came a day when an image popped into my head, built from a fragment of a dream I'd had, and it burned in my brain till I just had to paint it.

And I couldn't wait even one moment~ leaving it off was torture by the minute!
I grabbed the biggest painting I had, and proceeded unabashedly to paint over it.

That's why you see lumps under it.~



Because the painting wasn't about achieving a standard, so much, and was inspired by God, the work was not as hard as my other paintings had been. I kept going unabated till I'd finished it.

It is fitting that the painting has imperfections showing up under its 'skin'. It bothers me to look at those lumps, just as it bothers me to see my own imperfections.
I've been given something holy, and have had to put it on top of something lumpy and imperfect, because I had nothing else to put it on.
My imperfect nature may not be the best canvas for Christ's love to be projected onto, and that makes the gift doubly wonderful, to me. ~ He gives me His love freely, all He has to give my soul is given unstintingly, despite my undeserving, messed-up nature.

In this painting, i went back to simple forms to tell the bible story, a pivotal moment in the New Testament.
The murky sky was for some reason of high importance to me~ it was surely a dark and muddy sky, furiously lit by strange fire, the time Christ was tempted by Satan.
While Satan has a singe of sooty air coming from his skin, as if he has been burnt sleek and shiny, like oily black coal by the fires of torment and deception, with a helpful snake curling 'round his jaw, Jesus is mysterious, with an inner glow to His skin and a very human instinctive fear against the roaring wind, against splatting on the ground far below. But you see, He's bravely fighting the instinctive fear to tell Satan, with an authoratative swipe of His hand, to get lost.

I eventually donated this painting to the Price Hill Church of Christ, because they were the church that showed genuine appreciation for it when I "loaned" it to them.