Morning Psalm

When sunlight breaks over the mountains,
And depth of vision appears;
When the morning warms my hands and face,
And the full breath of life fills my body and soul -
I praise you for your goodness,
And I praise you for your unfailing love!
New grace, New mercies,
New fulfillment of your perfect purposes...
GREAT is your faithfulness!
How wide! How deep! How infinite, eternal, and unchangeable!
GREAT is your faithfulness, my Beautiful God!

Don't be murky. Don't be clear... But clarify yourself.

Unthinkably intentional.
Why would you do this?
I don't know what to think of what you are.
Confusingly BEing.
What is your motive?
You are not who I thought you were.
Chronically different?
Please be unchangeable...
I think...
Eternal?
You are confusing me.
Be one.
Stay there.
Hear me.
Speak true.
Sing beauty.

I need to see solid in your eyes.
I need to see authentic.
Trustworthy.
I need to feel care in your touch.
I need to feel it.
I need to feel?

Speak reality to me.
I have to know.
I have to know, or I die.
Show yourself to be all that you say you are.
Show yourself.
Be true.
Be Truth.

Polar.

Cold confusion
A dark night with
Flowing colors and
Beautiful creatures
Enchanting territory
It’s frightening
The opposite pole is far away
The magnetism tugs at my soul and my body
And in this dim polar region
A voice of the air calls me to dwell
With a motive to capture and enslave me
To cause me pain and death in the icy exposure and
To cause me to fall through a façade of
Solidly frozen waters
To be swept into the ghostly jaws of
The whore and the priest
Who have drowned in this dark polar sea.

Burning Away the Mask

Blazing Sun
Burns away my mask,
Revealing a fearful soul so small;
I am tired and scarred.

I smell the Presence,
The fragrance of healing.
My hands reach out for
Invisible Reality,
As a Music -
Not in my ears but in my spirit -
Calls me passionately
To a life worth living.

Truth

Vibrantly ethereal
Truth.
So clear So exact So precise
Slicing through "impenetrable" darkness
Like a light of diamond.
Rays of color, rays of light -
We cannot touch it,
But it touches us gently.
The dark cannot touch it,
But Light crushes Dark with
Infinite force.

Inside

Look inside and
Find nothing
But something
That is
Both inside and outside, and-
So much bigger, greater, immense-
She is Unfathomable
He is Unquenchable
Ah, Indescribable!

My Current State

Process of protection
Enigmatic fact
Time and speech are no solace.

Where is rest?
I cannot find it.

ouch. ouch. ouch.

A scream is all I have to say.
I am too exhausted and broken in every way,
and cannot put more into words than this.

Prayer 3.21.09

Father God,
The darkness is engulfing me!
The darkness is crashing over me like a great wave.
The Spirit cries out within me,
But the fragrance of truth seems overwhelming.
So I want to reject it
And inside me is a battle between life and death.
Why is it that goodness sometimes seems too much to bear?
I do not see eternity; I do not see clearly.
I do not see that this is so much bigger -
There is so much more.

If I could describe a raindrop
Or if I could describe the depths of the night sky...
But I am small.
I am so limited in every way
Except...
In relationship with You.
You have set no limit there.
Only I set limits
Because my blindness causes me to fear.
I falter to trust, I tremble, I fall, I faint.
Save me, my God, the Life!
MY Life, Bring me into the light –
Let me see your light –
Even if I cannot see it and live.

I want to see you
I want to know you
I want to be with you,
I want to be with you all the time.
Every day of life that you've given me, I have hurt you.
But I know you love me still
Even though I do not understand why.
So bring me to you,
Bring me to you!
Make me holy
So I can be with you, God!

What Is Art, and What Is the Purpose of Art?

Art is beautiful things that human beings create. God created us in his image, and creativity is part of his image. Everything he creates is significant and beautiful. When human beings create significant, beautiful things, we reflect the glory of God.

It takes a lot of study and practice for us to make really good art, and even then the art we create now is nothing like the amazing art we will create in heaven. In heaven our study and practice and finished work will not be inhibited by effects of the Fall, like weariness, impatience, and lack of motivation. In heaven we will make all our art for God's glory, and never for our own. We will not create things out of hearts that are angry and hopeless and blind anymore. That kind of art expresses our pain and rebellious attitudes, but we actually were not made to create that kind of art.

The purpose of art is to tell the truth, to proclaim, to critique, to point out the unnoticed and the forgotten, to praise, to narrate, to make otherwise purely functional objects aesthetically pleasing, to express beyond the boundaries of words, to inspire and encourage, to bring delight. God gave us creativity so that we could be free to create beautiful, meaningful things – art that proclaims who God is, art that praises him, art that tells his rich epic. Art is useful in our interactions with one another. Art that is created to critique is not art if it merely depresses or disgusts us and does not help us to change our attitudes and call us to loving action. Real art enriches our lives.

Artist Statement

When I watch the world around me, I am fascinated by details that are in a constant process of changing. I watch an evolution of color, size, texture, light and shadow. There is nothing in physical creation that does not change. Emotions are fluid as well. One moment is intense, the next is calm. Some transformations are immediate, while others unfold slowly.

In my art, I seek to capture movement and moment. I catch a split-second of a transformation I cannot control, and produce its likeness through a medium that I can control. I love using art to pause an atmosphere and to reveal an otherwise unnoticed point of shifting between one appearance and another.