Just Now

I just had a great moment with God Himself.  It was so sweet and simple, but so meaningful to me I decided to run inside and get it all down so I won't forget.

I was outside in the back yard working on what for me passes as a tan.  I just have to say what a marvelous thing it is to be outside in sunny spring weather, mid 70's, when most people are shivering through mid winter.  I'm not boasting, just grateful.

Anyway, as I was soaking up some rays I was catching up on my email.  I read this brief prayer in a ministry newsletter:

Lord, show me. How can I receive more of you?

So, I asked Him.  And I heard Him say

"Consider those poppies."

Near where I was sitting, there is a raised flower bed that is currently filled with new poppies.  They sprung up just a few weeks ago, and now they are from 6 to 10 inches tall I'd guess.
So I sat and stared at them a bit, my mind buzzing with it's usual jabber.

I wonder what He wants me to consider about those poppies? They really are growing aren't they?  I wonder what it is about the poppies He wants me to see? Poppies, poppies, poppies, new poppies, growing poppies, poppies in the sun...

Then it occurred to me that I needed to shut up and LISTEN.  So I asked God to help me be mentally quiet so I could hear Him.  Sometimes, shutting up is the biggest challenge I have with prayer.

"What are they doing?" I felt Him ask me.

Again with the mental buzz saw: What are they doing?  Well, engaging in photosynthesis I suppose, and sending their roots deeper into the soil.  I suppose they are engaging in all manner of necessary functions for life and growth, and probably turning their leaves slowly to follow the path of the sun...

"Yes, but what are they DOING?"

Well, um, they're just, um, not actually doing much at all. They're just still. Soaking up the sun.  Receiving. Receptive.

"Yes."

And then it was crystal, bright and clear as the sun.  I wanted to know what I was to do to receive more of the Lord.  And the answer is so simple...receive more of Him!  It isn't in my doing at all, but in my receiving.

As I considered those poppies only moments ago, I realized they weren't really trying all that hard.  They were growing like fury, but all they had to do was simply receive.  What a restful thought!

But as Graham Cooke often points out, we must labor to enter that kind of rest.  To receive more of the Lord, we must be like those poppies.  We must be still.  We must be in a position and attitude to receive, yes, but that doesn't involve running around trying to find the best place, the correct formula, working up the proper spiritual mental state.

While I looked at the poppies, I saw a comical scene of them jumping up out of their soil and running around on spindly little root legs.  They were scampering around, looking for the best plot of soil, the best patch of sun.  How silly would that be!  And counterproductive, too.  All that running around out of the soil, searching for what they needed, when what they needed was to be in the soil, in the sun. And resting there.

So I think I get it.  I want more of the Lord. Excellent.  He is right here to be had.  All the time.
What I need, then, is to be like those poppies.  Be still.  Receive all that I need.  The Lord fills the air around me all the time, like the sunshine.  All I need to do is settle down and tune in.  It will require some focus with my mental (and sometimes physical) restlessness, which may be challenging at times.  But receiving from the Lord?  That's easy :0)  Thank you, Jesus!

Tricky List

We've got trumpet, graffiti, synthetic, lamp, and rocking chair.  Voila...

Frogs and Fathers

Here are my rough sketches from the project Romney and I are doing together.  5 (used to be 6) randomly generated words, one sketch that includes all of those words somehow, and in 3-5 minutes.

This sketch is based on the words bath, accident, perfume, tide, and father.  I chose to interpret father as priestly father and perfume as his censer of incense (the thing that went flying in the air) because its main function is fragrance.  Hopefully you can kind of see what happened in my sketch...

Oh, and the thing full of water is a baptismal font.


The next set of words are frog, anchor, monster, flirt, and Egypt...

Veterinary Surgeon of Steel

Our words from which we had to develop a quick sketch are italicized in the description below, which is the verbatim text I sent to Romney to describe my creation.

"Hahahahahaha!!!! Veterinary surgeon of steel! He is male! Behold, a steel girder in the background.  This vet is also a veteran: Note his patriotic eagle tat which sadly resembles a pigeon.  Forgot the turf, but at this point why mess with perfection."

Glass Planet

What do the words brick, graph, gears, sale, planet, and blame have in common?

Not a darn thing.

These words were generated last night by a random word generator.  My challenge? To sketch an image that incorporates all six words, and in just three to five minutes.

Romney and I made up this "game" last night.  The rules are pretty simple: Each night, find some kind of connection between the randomly generated words and sketch it--fast.

Why, you might ask, would people do such a thing.  Well, Romney and I are each involved right now in trying to uncover and restore our respective passions in life.  We have each discovered that we are and always have been truly passionate about art and being creative.

What we also discovered is that it can be tough as a creative person to get past those inner critics that want to shame us into putting away our pencils and paper, that tell us what we're doing is dumb and will never be good enough and so on.  Those kinds of voices make it really hard to get started when you're staring at a blank page, let alone finish a project.

So our game and its rules were invented to circumvent those nasty "demons" that want us to do anything but express ourselves as artists.  I personally feel that there is real evil in this world, and it hates creativity.  I also firmly believe there is a real force of Good, and part of that force that is imparted to people is the desire to create.

Romney and I are artists, plain and simple.  That doesn't mean I think I'm an artistic genius (pretty sure Romney is, though).  But more and more I am thinking it means that I am denying myself and my Creator if I don't make the most of what talent I have been imparted.

So, our challenge is to embrace passion once again in the field of art.  We are off to a simple start with this game, but we believe it can be a springboard for inspiration and maybe some major projects to sink our teeth into.

Last night was Day One, and we have committed to do a quick sketch with different random words every day through the end of February.

Here is a rough (and quick!) sketch of the image those six words painted in my mind:

What I saw was a glass planet filled with turning gears.  Very steam punk-y.  And a graph behind showing depreciation.  There is a sale tag marked "Clearance," and a brick has been thrown which has shattered the glass.  Who is to blame?  That is the question the image is meant to evoke.

Here is some closer detail.  Obviously, this sketch is very rough, and nothing that would hang in the Louvre. And really, that's the point.  The rules take the pressure off to be brilliant.  Just do it, and do it fast before you can start to doubt yourself.

Quite to my surprise and delight, I found this really inspiring. That image of the glass planet filled with gears and mechanical complexity really intrigued me, so I'm going to play around in Photoshop today and see if I can more fully develop the image of what I saw.

I'll keep posting the results of our game just for fun, and if I wind up creating something more serious from it I'll post that, too.  Thanks for taking a look, and have a wonderful day!

Gobsmacked

The British have the best words for everything: "crisps" sound so much more delightful than potato chips, "knackered" conveys more exhaustion than American words for tired, "washing up liquid" seems cleaner than dish soap, and the list goes on. My favorite Briticism of all describes exactly how I am feeling today--

Gobsmacked.

It means stunned, astonished, slack-jawed with disbelief--as if some plonker jolly well smacked you right in your squidgy gob.

Monday night, things went decidedly pear-shaped between Romney and I.  As shared in my previous post, I was too bewildered by the skidding halt of our relationship to really process much.  The Tuesday that followed was one of the most incomprehensible, grief-filled 24 hours of my life. Evidently, it was no picnic for Romney, either.

We got together last night to talk over what he had been going through since our break up.

What he shared totally took my breath away.  To sum up, the sense of crisis he felt Tuesday after our break up led him to spend all of Wednesday seeking God, who came through dramatically with life-changing epiphanies.  Many things were revealed to Romney, including that he and I belong together, that our relationship is worth fighting for, and that--perhaps most miraculously--Romney really is genuinely in love with me.

There was much he shared that will remain just between the two of us, things for us to treasure and pray about and thank God for as a couple.  I can share this much with confidence: because of Romney's encounter with God, the specifics of what he shared and how he shared it, I know beyond all doubt that our relationship is deeper, stronger, and more blessed than it could have been without the heartache of its demise and the soul searching that followed it.

I'm beyond stunned, more than overwhelmed, and brimming with unspeakable awe.  It's been a roller coaster, these last 72 hours. I know it's probably overreaching, but I wonder if the 3-day time period could be more than a coincidence. I can't keep from thinking about the theme of resurrection.  Monday our relationship flatlined, Tuesday it was dead and buried, and Wednesday it was revived to more life than it had ever had. God can take something beyond hope and so breathe Himself into it that it not only comes back to life, it transcends its former state and rises to a more glorious level.

It's too bad that Godsmacked is already taken by the band, or I could claim I came up with the term to describe that feeling you get when God totally tonks your life and straight away your sixes-and-sevens are transformed to smashing brilliance, you spawny blighter!

I will close out this post with the scripture that has been ringing in my head like a beautiful bell all day...

"Behold, I make all things new."

Woman loses 170 pounds overnight!

So Romney is gone.  He is leaving Tucson tomorrow, but he has already left me behind.
I have been through break ups before, and this one was perhaps the least dramatic as far as emotional discharge.  Our year-long relationship simply vanished with one brief statement, zapped into oblivion by this little incantation:

"I love you, but I'm not in love with you.".

I can share this here, confident that Romney won't see it.  To illustrate his statement, Romney loved me enough to encourage me to start a blog, but was never interested enough in my thoughts to ever bother reading it.  There are many other examples. In fact, I knew the truth of Romney's statement before he did.

Of course this is for the best, and I don't harbor any bitterness toward Romney.  He needed to come to this realization, and he needed to be brutally honest with me--and most of all himself--about his lack of passion for me.
Even so, I feel like shit.  One year down the toilet, so many sacrifices and dreams and affection brought to nothing.  And all because I'm just not...enough.

I know there is nothing to be done for it.  I'm not what his heart desires, and there is no helping that.  But I will grieve in my own way.  I don't even know what that will look or feel like. The analysis will undoubtedly come later, but for now I'm just stunned, standing here bewildered and blinking.

I left Romney with my blessing.  May God grant him the desires of his heart.  Amen.

And here is another day, morning coffee and planning my activities and yammering away on my little blog.  I will keep going through the motions.  "Just keep swimming."