24 | December | 2015 | betsybeadhead

Here’s Mary. She’s been told that she is going to bring forth the Messiah, the Savior, the King. This has been promised to her by an angel.

But things aren’t looking so good.

Her fiancé almost left her when he found out she was pregnant. Perhaps her family and friends actually did leave her – we hear nothing about them, and she and Joseph were alone when it came time to give birth. Far away from home, with no support system, no help. Stuck in a barn – no place for anybody to be, much less a place to give birth. Much less a place to give birth to a King.

How must that all have seemed to Mary? She had to start doubting everything. Maybe it was all a dream? Maybe she was going crazy?

Maybe she started talking to God, maybe a little less reverently than you’d expect. “Yeah, right, God! Sure, you promised that this special thing was going to happen, but what about this? What about right now? It doesn’t look so good, God. In fact, it looks pretty bad.”

But here’s something interesting to consider. In Judaism, everything starts in darkness. The day starts the night before – it runs from sunset to sunset – not sunrise to sunset. The month starts at the new moon – when it is darkest. When you can’t see anything.

This is God’s way.

Anything good starts when it seems like things are at their worst. The lowest point is the beginning.

Remember “It is always darkest before the dawn”, and “It can only get better”? That. A thousand times that.

When things seem to be at their darkest, that is when God is working the hardest, bringing forth the Light.

“Artists paint apples because they have the urge to paint apples. And if people like the art, that’s a bonus.” – Jeanne-Claude (partner of Christo)

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“You should paint pictures because you want to paint them, not because everyone wants you to paint them.”

“It’s your picture, and all that is important is developing your own vision. It only needs to please you semicolon pleasing everyone is impossible, anyway.”

From “Urban Watercolor Sketching” by Felix Scheinberger

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“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol

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“The point is, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed…because people are changed by art – enriched, ennobled, encouraged – they then act in a way that may affect the course of events…by the way they vote, they behave, the way they think.” -Leonard Bernstein

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“If you hear a voice within you say ‘You cannot paint’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh