Home » 2016 (Page 18)
Avenoir –
n. the desire that memory could flow backward. We take it for granted that life moves forward. But you move as a rower moves, facing backwards: you can see where you’ve been, but not where you’re going. And your boat is steered by a younger version of you. It’s hard not to wonder what life would be like facing the other way…
Tim Holtz art paper page
torn out color images from a AAA magazine
Strathmore art journal
People like to think that they are special,
that bad things can’t happen to them.
This is why they want to know
what disease
such-and-so died of.
They then compare to themselves.
“I don’t smoke, so I won’t die that way.”
“I exercise, so I won’t die that way.”
As if death is a punishment,
a thing that happens
as a natural result of
bad choices,
rather than being something
that happens to everyone.
Or they want to know
where the crime happened,
to see how close it is
to them.
On neighborhood watch pages,
someone will post that there was a
break-in, or a mugging
and everyone wants to know
what street,
as if being closer
is more dangerous.
As if criminals don’t travel.
People want to know
where the epicenter is,
to see how close
or far away
they are.
The poet John Donne said
“Ask not for whom the bell tolls,
it tolls for thee.”
14 x 11 canvas
Acrylic paint
Stamps
Gel pens
Decoupage glue
Broken key
Crushed glass glitter
White gel pen
Chalk pen
Match used to light Sabbath candle
Copied money from Israel
Ephemera.
Leaf skeleton
Tissue colored with distress stains
Matte and glazing medium
Whole
Top left (color enhanced)
Top right (color enhanced)
Bottom left
Bottom right
Current iteration worked on March and April 2016. (It may or may not be completed. I’m not really happy with it right now. I like parts of it.)
A meditation on leaving bad doctors, clubs, churches – of feeling ignored, part of a machine, a number but not a name. How big community isn’t community anymore. And – an excuse to make use of an art supply that others don’t think of as an art supply – aluminum foil. Thus – Seeing things in new ways. Making use of a bad situation.
Gesso
Crumpled thin aluminum foil from Baja Burrito
Tissue with distress ink stains
Stamps
Envelope
Copied money
Acrylic paint
Crushed glass sparkle glitter
Glazing medium
14 x 11 canvas
Whole
Top left
Top right
Bottom left
Bottom right
Current iteration worked on March and April 2016. (It may or may not be completed.)
Let us consider the death euphemism “the dearly departed”.
“Departed” is a very useful term when speaking about death. The Greek word analyseos, which is rendered in English as “depart” really means “to break camp”. It means to take down your tent and move on to another place.
Consider the Jewish festival of Sukkot. (Sukkah, singular, means “booth” or “tabernacle”. Sukkot is plural). It is celebrated on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, which is around September or October). You’ll find it observed by Jesus in John 7:1-52.
Booths or tabernacles are temporary structures that Jews live in for a week as a remembrance of what they lived in when they traveled for forty years in the desert to reach the Holy Land. The structures are built every year, and intentionally have flimsy walls and a roof you can see the stars through. All meals are eaten inside this structure, and ideally you are to sleep in it at least one night.
This is a very beautiful symbol of our bodies. They are temporary structures that we dwell within. They are fragile, and while able to endure stronger gusts of wind than the sukkah can, they are not permanent and subject to decay. It is a sign of our utter dependence upon God.
Remember that Jesus is said to have “tabernacled” among us”, to have become enfleshed.
When we die, it is really that we have departed. We have left our temporary dwelling behind. We have left for a better place, just like how nomadic people will break camp to follow the herds or to move to where the crops are ripe. Just like how the Jews gave up their tents when they entered the Holy Land.
Death isn’t the end. It is just the end of life as we know it.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
(By Henry Scott Holland)
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before only better, infinitely happier and forever we will all be one together with Christ.
“Gone from my Sight” by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, ‘There, she is gone’
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me – not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, ‘There, she is gone,’
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here she comes!’
And that is dying…
Death comes in its own time, in its own way.
Death is as unique as the individual experiencing it.
Any person who is minister of any sort – priest, pastor, a chaplain or just a visitor from the church – needs to remember that they are a representative of Jesus to the person they are visiting. To people who are hurting and especially people who have been hurt or felt marginalized by the church, any person who represents themselves as being from a church represents Jesus himself to them – represents God to them.
This means that you have to make sure that how you act is impeccable. If you make an appointment to visit with someone don’t be late. If you are late, you are saying to them that their time and concerns don’t matter to God.
If a newcomer visits your church and leaves their name and address for you to contact them, then do it within the week – and do it personally. A form letter won’t cut it – especially if it is two weeks late. People like to think that they are noticed and special and important. Make the extra effort, because you’re not just you anymore but the person you serve.
Consider it as if you are driving a delivery vehicle for some company. On the back of the vehicle there’s a bumper sticker that says “How’s my driving? Please call” and it gives a 1-800 number and your tag number. When you represent God to people you’re not you anymore – you’re representing something much bigger than you and it’s important that you be as perfect as you can be.
betsybeadhead 
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