A Complete Simple Joy

There are few joys as complete as that first glance up to see the intricate tracery of the forest first detailed by dawn. 

water Worship...form Worship

Water.  However it comes, torrential rain or spring shower, it is still one of the four or five greatest ideas to have ever been conceived.  As a concept and a creation it is a definitive declaration of A Creative ONE.  That level of creativity is worthy of our worship.  As an artist I am continually aware of the difficulty of making art, a creative concept plus exquisite execution.  Art just doesn’t spontaneously occur or evolve over time and water is to rain what form is to sculpture.  Because form is so profound, we as sculptors realize that sculpture is just an infinitesimal small response of gratitude for forms existence.

still from Bill Viola's video
Five Angels For The Millennium

Wandering Wonderers or Marriage Advice

Reading the end of Genesis

Humans are wanderers.  In the last two weeks our family has been to Fairfield Glade, Kingston, Maryville, Oak Island, Bald Head Island, Maryville, Kingston, Jackson, Maryville, Fairfield Glade, Jackson.  Humans are not nomads, drifters, or itinerants; we are wanderers. We are specifically wanderers because we find life, humans and planet earth wonderful and worthy of our wandering wonder.  One of the great miracles of being human is our desire to curiously explore.  One of the great gifts of God is that His creations are worthy of inquisitive exploration.  Marriages and hiking trips are one and the same thing.  

   

Unruly Winter

So far this has been a rather difficult winter, much like an unruly child with a little malice in their will that hasn’t been spanked out yet.  Drives one to think, “REALLY! AGAIN! I’ll push you down and roll you in the dirt” or mud as in this case. 

ADVENT

The final Light is lit and now Christ is with us, has joined us this new Christmas day.  I met a young bum yesterday at a gas station who needed gas to go on his way to Alabama.  He was filthy, in body and in clothing, (like Christ finds us all) but kind.  I filled his can and told him Merry Christmas and I drove away.  I cried.  I don’t know how God can stand being above us but I surely don’t know how God could have stood to be with us.  We are so damaged.  Advent is a season of eventuality, Christ was with us but He went back home.  Advent reminds us that eventually He will come back but in the mean time we’re it, we are Christ with us even though we have to groan and weep under the fall, we are still it, His plan of Him being with us.  If you listen you can hear the groan.  Breezes don’t want to be tornados no more than humans want to be filthy and broke and we all groan in weeping when we are fallen during Christmas.   Here is Advent; make Christ’s coming to everyone and everything easier!!!  You do it.  You raise the valleys, you lower the mountains, you help make the paths straight even as you groan under the fall, groan in exaltation as you live, Come Lord Jesus! Come!  

Advent Day 25+

The Advent circle of light is now complete.  It reminds us of the Inclusiveness of Love that is God with us.  Christ came not as part of a political party, not as the king of popular culture, not as a protestant or catholic, nor as the head of any group or movement, Christ came as the Savior of each one of us individually, He came to every human individual.  It is our role, as Christians, Christ in us, to invite and accept everyone inside the circle until the Light of Christ, (tonight), can Light them and they can take their place with us in the circle of Love, God with us.

P.S.  God’s Circle Gift To You

Tonight is the first full moon on Christmas Eve since 1977 and another will not appear until 2034.