No Fall From Grace

It follows us and wraps us in opportunity and possibility. Like the smallest seed that rests in the winter ground remembers the spark of light that will cause it to grow and reach again toward the moment of its birth. Grace: the kindest gift of our Creator. We never fall away from it. In our darkest place, it speaks and there is light. When the Creator dreamed us, grace was the breath of life that made us. There is no fall from grace.

Image and Words by C. Robin Janning. All Rights Reserved.

The Divine Parentage Of Flowers

My eyesight isn’t very good. My "soulsight," I hope, is better. I think it might be improving, as today I understood, for a moment, the inherent divinity of Family.

I was not instructed by my dear Father, not my Sister, not my Brother. It wasn’t my Priest or my Spiritual Director. It wasn’t my deeply loved husband or my dearly loved friends. It was paint.

The process of painting is my meditation. As I work out issues of color, hue, transparency, or translucency, other issues declare themselves to me.

"The Divine Parentage of Flowers," a mix of paint and paper, spoke to me of relationship. I understood, in an abstracted glimmer of grace, the human relationship to the Divine parent. Now my sister is not only Carol, but also Rose, Geranium, and Fig.

Garden and Gardener, we are related. As I wrap up the garden, stung by the edges of frost and Fall, I have no regret, only confidence. The garden like the gardener will go under covers for awhile, tended by divine promises and permissions.

Image and words by C. Robin Janning. All Rights Reserved.

Fall

Fall
©2007, by Jan Neal. All Rights Reserved.

Grace Falls

"At your feet, O Christ, we lay
your own gift of this new day;
Doubt of what it holds in store
Makes us crave your aid the more;
Even in a time of loss,
Mark it, Savior, with your Cross."
Words: William Bright (19thC)
adapted/Music: Sunrise (18thC)

Into the day comes doubt, into the desert creeps fear.

Is this, after all, a gift worth offering? I struggle. Who am I to offer this—smudge of paint, hint of line, color. Am I blinded by a desire to give or enlightened by His gift?

Hard days, dark nights. What comes through, what gets us through is practice. Practice makes the eye and hand move through the darkness until light appears on the surface and grace falls on both artist and art.

Image and words by C. Robin Janning. All Rights Reserved.

Synchronicity

Wake my soul with all things living
thanks be giving to the Source of life and day
Sunlight comes and gone confusion,
night's illusion, like the starlight
fades away.

Music: Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn (18thC)
Words: Baron Friedrich R. L. von Canitz (17thC)

Creation and Recreation

Photograph, Creation
© Frank Logue, All Rights Reserved

You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth. Psalm 104:31

I like to think of artist as co-creators who work with the raw stuff of creation to forge a vision of not just what is, but create a unique view. Art speaks in a mytho-poetic way to show the deeper reality or the possibilities that lie hidden. But for this to work, the artist must not just create. The artist must also make room to be recreated. As Christian artists, we must make room within our lives for the Gospel to break into our lives in such a way as to show us the world anew. In that spirit I offer two photos from recent travels in Italy and France. These were both taken in Rome and in that eternal city, we see people in two different piazzas involved in creation and recreation.

Photograph, Recreation
© Frank Logue, All Rights Reserved

Comments and photographs by The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor + King of Peace Episcopal Church, 6230 Laurel Island Parkway + Kingsland, Georgia 31548 ;www.kingofpeace.org; http://kingofpeace.blogspot.com/.

Memory

Time in that creative place of the soul can be as exhilarating as drinking in the dry clear air that lifts you up into a sky of uncountable stars lying high above the desert. Or it can be like drinking fire with no respite, no cool water. Time in the extreme. Ecstasy or agony. A gift that keeps slipping through our fingers.

But there’s another gift we’ve been given. Memory. Indeed, this gift allows us to stop time. Not forever, of course. But as we step into the desert, searching for what to take forward, we can take a piece of time, hold it up and examine it for light and dark, faith and hope. It’s ours, after all.

We can leave memory tarnishing on some forgotten shelf, or we can polish it and use it as a guide for continuing our creative journey.

As seen above: "Trying to Stop Time"
by Rachel Weaver Rivera
Acrylic on Canvas, 40 x 30 inches

Words: "Memory" by C. Robin Janning