Infant Messiah - Infinite Messiah

(Details finished - click to enlarge)

I was nervous. I don’t think anyone noticed, but I was.

I was at church an hour before the service. I was sitting in the Prayer Room. I had candles lit. I had said The Lord’s Prayer twice. I was trying to wrap my mind around what it cannot.

The previous day I had set the easel and canvas in place. All the paints were at hand, brushes ready.

I had a clear vision of what I would do, how I would skimp on details so it would be “finished” before the services were over... but the reality behind the image, the Truth I recognized in the image, was, is, larger than my mind and heart can hold.

Fourteen years ago my son was scheduled to portray the infant Jesus in a little reenactment at a friend’s stable... but he died three days before that was to happen. Now he was to play that role on Christmas Eve in a way I had never foreseen, and I was preparing my heart in the solitude of our prayer room.

It is a small role, a little pretending, merely a model for his dad’s work who was attempting to speak a prayer, paint a prayer, on the wonder of God squeezing into reality, into a mere four dimensions, so He could love us more dearly, hold us with hands of flesh, look into our eyes as we are accustomed to looking into the eyes of each other.

But the truth of this is so hard to describe!

Born to love and heal and care and teach and hold and suffer and die...

My pastor and friend came in, we prayed as we usually do before the service.

And I went out to join my family. The Advent candle was lit, I walked up to the canvas.

Sometimes painting can be a struggle. It can seem a battle to get the colors right, push them where they should be. It wasn’t this time.

I was relaxed as far as the image itself went. I really didn’t care overly much what the finished product was going to be. I knew it would fall far short of the reality I was feeling, and since I was already so far behind The Truth of it, what did it matter if the colors weren’t exactly right, or there was a line or shape not quite where I wanted it?

The Truth was so much more than I could contain... it was some relief to let it spill out onto the canvas, to get it out of my heart.

My son’s face is there, but it is only a stand in for The Truth...

A golden infant... floating in cerulean blue... bearing terrible wounds, the evidence of a fallen humanity, of evil inflicted upon innocence... and deep eyes squinting above a mouth open in joy and laughter. The events of His mortal life, the Nativity and the Crucifixion, mingled in a single image, floating in an eternity beyond the reality of this world.

It was the smile... I kept thinking about it.

Pure joy flowing out, rushing out, laughing, shouting a wordless call of love and companionship to all of Creation, welcoming us all into a relationship with divinity.

At one point during the service I began to tremble. That smile... that smile of love and forgiveness, there before creation, there long after these hands which grip brushes will be turned to dust...

Too often I write in this little blog words which are fine sounding, authoritative... pompous. That is all they are, words, sounds blown from a self-centered, self-important ego of a little man, a small part of such a larger creation! How little those words mean. I am merely a shadow, a ghost of the reality of what is The Truth of Creation. There is a Lord of lords who loves me more than I can possibly understand. A being of infinite grace and glory Who is so far beyond the poor splash of color I have made that all that is are mere refections of the pure creative glory of Him.


Oh worthy Lord! Almighty Lord! Thank You sweet King of all creation! God of Wonders! Holy, Holy, Holy Master of all things. I am so honored... Grant me the privilege to live my life for You! Eternal God, immortal Son of David... I love You Lord! Thank You for the thousands, millions of blessings You pour into my life! I am Yours Lord. Do with me as You will. --Amen... Amen... Amen...

The Interview With God

Worth seeing.

The Interview With God

Infant Messiah

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by his Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven. So He became as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is superior to theirs. -- Hebrews 1:1-4

(as usual, click on pictures to enlarge)

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Merry Christmas!

For Sunday

No witty post tonight. I just wanted to share this...

My pastor has asked me to do another painting during the services this Sunday. I am posting a photo of a sketch I have made (just click on it to enlarge).

I think it will be a blue background with the skin tones in gold.

Surf's Up!

Yesterday’s post was an entry to mark a low tide in my year. It is a day where I look at the tidal charts and note how the sea has rolled away once again to reveal what is usual hidden beneath the waves of my everyday life.

Today is another point on the tidal charts marking my life. It was fourteen years ago today that my sons boarded a plane and left a life of misery, a journey which brought them to my home.

Tides are simple and complex. The tides of the oceans, and to some extent lakes and rivers, swing to and fro, following the dictates of Earth, sun, and moon. The highest tides directly follow the moon, pointing to that great silvery disc in the sky. On the other side of our world the smaller high tide floats outward, responding to the off-center balance of the Earth/moon system, and both tides are strengthened or weakened by where the sun is currently in our lives.

Yesterday I was remembering a watershed event which changed me dramatically. Today there is the quieter observance of the journey my children began.

We fill our calendars with such observances. Some personal, some public.

This past year I ruefully celebrated my 50th birthday, and joyfully my 25th wedding anniversary. We had our birthdays, and we marked “Family Day” on June 1st to celebrate the day we first laid eyes on our kids. Brenda and I always go out for dinner on the last day of February, marking the day we met, Leap Year’s Day, 1980.

There are also the days of corporate celebration and remembrance and thankfulness. The fourth Thursday in November, the last night of the year, the first day of the year, the fourth day in July...

This isn’t so surprising, this need to mark our calendars and tick of the holidays, and holy days.

All creatures do so (well, mammals anyway), marking times for mating, times for gorging in preparation for winter, following the cycles of sun and moon and seasons. I see the behavioral changes wrought by the seasons daily. Remember, I work in a middle school and sometimes watching my charges is like watching a nature documentary. The creatures of this world carefully note the changing days and behave accordingly.

Perhaps mankind does so to a greater extent because time is the one dimension in which we have no control. We can move about in the other three dimensions, but the temporal one, the fourth dimension, is beyond our control. We are simply dragged along with the rest of the universe in the general direction of entropy.

Perhaps that is one reason we venerate The Creator. God is beyond time, outside of time. He always was, always will be. The Great I Am. He holds all things together and in so doing, demonstrates that He is external to it all.

Which brings us around to the reason for our next grand celebration on the calendar. It is the season we dedicate to remembering the point in time when He was both external and internal to time. When He split the universe apart, and He who was/is infinite became finite, He who was/is beyond material became flesh. We recognize how perfection came to be in a world imperfect.

Jeremiah is a calendar watcher. It is important to him to know what tomorrow will bring, what we will do, what we will eat. He is always talking about the next holiday, the next holy day.

The spinning Earth flings the sun across the sky and we move from day to day. On Sundays, the day named after the sun, my family celebrates the Son. On Mondays, the day named after the moon, we celebrate... well, we generally just go to work (whether or not that is a celebration is an individual thing). The days roll along, and the weeks follow.

I have my monthly moon howlin’s, when my brothers in Christ hold each other accountable, ask tough and ask stupid questions. In the absence of our women we scratch ourselves freely and listen to music and talk of things of great and of no import. It is another part of the rhythm of our lives. It is an iron sharpening iron sort of thing.

This marking of calendars, of honoring and celebrating and remembering, of somber reflection and joyful thanksgiving gives us a sense of control that is entirely illusional.

A clerk in the store where Brenda and I were shopping for gifts yesterday asked me how I was. I told him: “old and fat.” We all laughed. But there is the truth there that time is rolling along and my body shape is less like a Greek god and more like a fuzzy pear than I care to admit.

Still, this is a good time of the year. It’s a time to visit family (I have decided not to visit my crazy father this year --though I may go down to watch his latest suicidal bid at immortality in a couple of months). It’s a time to sing homage to when God crept into our world and changed history into His story. It is a time to hug and eat a little too much and snuggle under the covers as the winter chill creeps through the walls.

I mentioned earlier how the tides are strengthened or weakened by where the sun is currently in our lives. I would add that the tides of life are also strengthened or weakened by where the Son is currently in our lives.

Low tide has passed, the waters have returned, and I am joyfully playing in the surf of another day.