Reflections on a Christmas message

 

Reflections on a Christmas message...

 

Yesterday’s question from the pastor was why are we so often “unprepared” for this day, this season which we know comes at the same time, the same day each year; it does not change with celestial signs or seasons. We marvel at how quickly it comes upon us on the same day, in the same month, with the same season and without fail. Despite all we do, it inevitably comes.

Some of us rush headlong chasing the days as if we might somehow lose sight or be left behind if we do not keep up. Others try to hide in the months, weeks, days preceding pretending that we can somehow eke out another hour to hold its coming at bay. And some simply create ways to ignore it all together or push it aside chasing other pursuits. Yet, it still comes regardless of the means by which we approach it, this celebration of new life, of hope, of grace and joy. Christmas happens despite all our racing forward, denials, or ignoring.

It is a day set aside to remember and rejoice over a “gift” freely given by our Creator to draw us out of darkness into light, into relationship once again with Him. It is a time to reflect on the bountiful harvest He has provided in our lives, the richness and beauty of all He has created for us. It is a season of opportunity to leave darkness, sin, behind as we embrace His light and truth. It provides a time to share all this with our families, friends, communities.

Christmas brings us face to face with loss and gain, sorrow and joy, want and wealth, tears and laughter, darkness and light, while we struggle with the knowledge that WE are the reason for this season. We are are why He was born, lived as and among us, and sacrificed all so that we would have life abundant through a restored relationship with our Father. Christmas was never, nor is it for the Christ. It is for us to regain hope, experience joy, and know peace through the mending of our broken relationship with God.

However we choose to celebrate the season or day does not diminish the truth of the meaning behind the celebration. Beyond celebration we express thanksgiving acknowledging all that we have had, now hold and will have provided by our Creator. It is a time when we seek and release joy, discover unexpected moments of that joy in each day and help those held by darkness see a ray of hope while remembering that our griefs prove how blessed we have been and that hope is restored as we allow new joys to enter in, not erasing the past but extending our blessings.

Yet, in this season of good will and celebration, are we prepared to face the “day after?” Will we live as though it never happened? Will we carry a part of it with us for a time until, like forgotten New Year’s resolutions, we let it fade away? Will we grieve over it’s passing, never fully understanding its meaning? Or will we allow the gift to be magnified in and through us as we make our way through another year?

The true meaning of Christmas is never changing. How we choose to express, celebrate or even ignore it all is our choice and our understanding of the truth that does not change despite us. 
For God so loved the world, each one of us, that He gave us His only Son, the Christ, as a living sacrifice for us to restore our broken relationship with Him.

We are the reason for the season. Christ is our gift, freely given. The gift is ours to accept or reject, but the love with which it is given cannot be diminished nor denied. It is eternal. When we learn to humbly and graciously accept the gift, then we can fully experience the joy of seeing God magnify it through us and others.

Gone Nautical

Don't know what's got into me, but it seems I've gone nautical. Appropriate subject for water mediums, I guess.

 This small yupo work was part of a "Float Your Boat" (Tracy Budd - Teacher) class attempt. There's a mate I hope to finish before too long.

I don't know if I like making the papers that lie underneath or playing with simple shapes to create an abstract out of something real. Still working on this one.

 Got more "baking" in the studio.

Does My Memory Serve Me?

Is it the memory that serves me

Or is it the other way ‘round…?

For the greater part of those shades

That falter in and out of reflective moments

Seem more fantasy than actual reality.

And I often ask myself

Who’s recollective thoughts are these?

Additionally,

Many question the validity of circumstances

Conjured up yester-tales

from my mind’s storage facility

which I must confess is rarely tended to,

dusted off or wandered through.

Because,

To tell you the truth,

It is a great effort for me

To muster up the energies

Required for walking in the present…

Not that I have anything against yon Past,

But as I’ve stated,

It seems more fiction in the re-telling

than a factual account of  history.

And there it is;

Perhaps it may be true of any recounting,

That what is imprinted

 

On one’s neural tissues

 

Is merely our translation of a moment

Drawn by memory’s hand

To fit perception’s cubby holes where

Our histories lay waiting

To be knocked from their hiding places,

Perhaps shared or pondered and then set to rest

Again.

But not the same,

No never the same,

Because that’s the funny thing about

Re-reading the story some time later;

I’m never quite the same person

Experiencing that moment.

And so I ask,

Can I truly revisit the past?

I wonder,

But isn’t that another tale all together…

 

2013 Summer Update

Took 3 works to Bath County this past month for the annual juried show. While the mixed media works did not catch the judges eye, they did catch the fancy of two persons who bought Diatomic Uprising and Nevermore - YEAH! All in all it was an absolutely beautiful time for the artshow and for visiting Bath County. We stayed at the lovely Monterey Inn just up the road and wandered through the pastoral backroads enjoying the cool temperatures, soaking in the hot springs - baths and picnicing along the roadside. We will definitely be back in this area again.

The Unabridge Naked Truth About Grandma

The Completely

Unabridged,

Naked Truth

About

Grandma

Inspired by the work of a fellow artist during a class taught by Tracy Budd at the Studio School in Roanoke, VA.

This

is the totally unabridged

An’ naked truth

‘bout Grandma…

I know

‘cause she’s mine

An’ I’m hers…

So she tells me all the time,

Like, while she’s pinnin’ her privatey thangs

Onto the saggedy wire

That cuts ‘cross the space

Twixt the two

Tenement buildin’s

Down on Lower South Side.

It’s real near the river.

Near the river

is where Grandma used to work.

The man Momma’s seein’ now Says,

“She used to work IT

Reeeal good.”

An’ I believes him

‘cause Grandma always says,

“Give it yer best, or don’ give it at all.”

She gived me a pair of old shoes, That momma says

I can’t wear outside;

“They’s jest fer dress-up,

IN the house.”

It’s OK,

I can’t walk in ‘em,
Jest yet

But I’m practicin’.

I seen anuther pair sorta like ‘em,

Only with spikety heels that’s a lot longer den mine

At Grandma’s.

They’s reeeal red,

Redder ‘n the far-trucks that’s parked on Front Street,

But not as red as the long, sequin-dy gown

That sparkles when I let the light into Grandma’s chifferobe,

Where I’m not supposed to

Peek.

But sometimes I do.

I seen pictures in there, too.

Grandma used to dress reeeal nice,

An’ she filled that sparkle-dy gown Riiight up!

You can tell the men in those pictures

Liked it  …A lot

An’ her

Stuff

Didn’t hang like it does now.

I heard Grandma say so,

Once.

I think she still looks pretty good,

For a grandma.

I hear-d som-a the old fellas

Out front-a the closed up mercantile say as much,

They says stuff like,

“Dat woman…

Still got it…yesss, sirreee.”

They say some other things,

But Momma wouldn’t like me repeatin’ it.

So I won’t.

There’s times I think grandma jest hangs out her privatey things

To make people below look up.

‘Cause lotsa times she ain’t wearin’ nuttin’,

Specially ‘round’ the house.

She likes to stand at her winda

Catchin’ a cool breeze ‘n

Starin’ down inta that space

Betwixt the two buildin’s

Naked

All bared up

‘Cept for them red shoes.

Those times

I think she fergets that I’m there.

She gets a kinda

Smile on her lips.

Den she’ll hum a tune,

Or sway her hips

Back ‘n forth, back ‘n forth,

Til she gets tired or remembers I’m there.

She’ll slip her purpledy dressing gown over her shoulders

An’ then slip off those shoes,

Rubbin’ hard at her toes,

Shakin’ her head,

Laughin’ ‘bout somethin’,

I don’t know.

If I ask,

She’ll just say,

“Child, you is too young for my stories…

Someday…

Someday we’ll talk,

But not just yet.”

You can bet, I won’t let her ferget that.

She usually makes me get her biters off the mantel piece,

Then tugs one of my braids, when she slips those yellowin' teeth into place.

Some mornin’s she fixes me mush before we do the shoppin’.
I only like Grandma's mush.

She takes her liquidy “med-cine”

From a cup.

I know what

“med-cine”

Really is.

My daddy used to buy it at the licker-store,

Before momma made him leave.

Grandma says hers is for the arthee-rightus.

It sure does loosen her up good.

Sometimes,

when she’s all good an’ loose,

We turn up the music

Reeeal high.

An’ we dance ‘round the room like hootchy cootchy mamas,

‘Til we lie in a heap,

Her warm, perspired arms wrapped ‘round my skin ‘n bones,

Laughin’
'Til tears spill out an’ down our cheeks.

Momma wouldn’t approve,

So we don’t tell her.

There’s lots of

Stuff

We don’t tell momma,

But sometimes,

I think momma’d like to dance

An’ just “hang out”

Like Grandma.

I seen her open her shirt by the bathroom winda before

To let the cool breeze

Fill her up with a little smile.

But she don’t stand there fer long,

An’ she don’t smile much.

Grandma says,

“she’s a differnt kinda bird,”

Not like me

Or her, 
“Which is probly a good thang.”

Momma goes to church.

Grandma don’t,

But she knows a whole lotta that bible right by heart.

She keeps hers tucked inside the bedside table drawer

With a little silver flask,

Three pairs of glasses,

An old piece of lace wrapped ‘roun an old prickly stem,

An’ pieces of dried up petals,

An’ a picture of somebody I don’t know

In a uniform.

On the back it’s got writin,’

“Remember me when I am gone

I’ll be your dreams until the dawn

Though days may pass with me afar

My love is twinkling in the stars.

Forever yours, Henry XO”

I can’t ask Grandma ‘bout it

‘Cause I’m not supposed to be a nose-a-body.

Seen her lookin’ at it late at night, when I peek in 
Quiet like on my way to the bathroom.

Sometimes she’s talkin’ to it,

The picture,

Sometimes she just stares,

But every once in a while,

She’s all dressed up in that sequin-dy dress

Dancin’,

Holdin’ tight to that picture

Of a uniformed man

Who’s called Henry, XO.

In the mornin’ she’ll be back at the winda

Maybe, naked as a jay-bird

With her feet in those high up heels

Pinnin’ her privatey thangs to the wire

That runs ‘twixt the two tenements down on Lower South Side,

Near the river,

Where Grandma’s lived

Forever.

An’ where I am learnin’

The Unabridged an’

Naked truth

About Grandma.        

More of Dons Doodles to Enjoy - these complete the group I've selected for Lois and mom to put up at the library.

Doodles By Don

Doodles By Don

These are original ink drawings by Don Campbell, St. Petersburg, Florida.

Don Campbell resides in a residential care facility suffering from dementia in St. Petersburg, Florida. In his early years, he began doodling images when listening to philosophical, spiritual or other teachings. It kept him centered and allowed him to sit still during such moments, a lesson teachers might take when dealing with young minds that also can wander during class time. While doodling for some may take their mind from the lessons at hand, for others it helps them absorb and order what they are taking in.

My mother, a long time friend of the Campbells, was aware that Don doodled but had not been aware of how prolific and talented he was at such drawings until she was offered one of his works. I became aware a few years ago, when she pointed out that the drawing on her wall of two lovely figures was a work by Mr. Campbell.

Then, on a visit just recently, she asked me to look at a few of the drawings that have collected in the Florida garage over the years. I was completely amazed, first at the number of drawings and then at their unique beauty and quality.

His wife and family do not have the time nor the interest at this time to preserve and present the works, so I was asked if I'd like to help compile some for a local showing at the public library. I immediately said yes, and then realized the daunting responsibility I had just undertaken. Not really knowing the man and having only just recently seen any of his works, I was going to try to select from a random assortment of works, a collective representation of his "doodles". I was also shown a very brief selection of some of his writings, which served to direct me a little in my selection process, but after that it was strictly my own artistic eye and preference that prevailed. I am attempting to catalog the works and have begun the process for the family of archivally preserving the small works, averaging 6"x8", but they have a lot of work themselves getting the hundreds of slips of paper properly stored. I have suggested that they take copies of the artwork or a disc that I am making to a local gallery as well, where some may be shown during a First Friday event. I do hope that one of the local venues will see the value in sharing this St. Petersburg artist's work with the public. I think we've found a local treasure worth recognizing.

If you'd like to see more of Don's works, I will be posting the rest of the collection I currently have in another post. I can also be contacted at tjarticulates@gmail.com. I do not have permission to sell at this time, though we are working on that possibility with Don's wife. I am also working on the possibility of his signing more of the works and/or a limited number of prints. Please feel free to give positive feedback on the artwork. They are both fun and thought provoking, but don't try to take them too seriously. The artist certainly doesn't and didn't when he doodled them. They were a way of coping with sitting and listening. They were a process to ordering thoughts racing through his mind. Now they are for your enjoyment and pleasure.

Sincerely, Terri Miller