Category Archives: hope

announcing the score, Psalm 124

We’ve entered the test, but it has only gotten harder — not easier on this journey.

The image here and the words inspiring my painting come from Psalm 124. Imagine the scene “when men attacked us”, “would have swallowed us alive”, “anger raged”, “overwhelmed”, “as prey to their teeth”, “current”, “snare”. Though these words are 3000 years old, we can supply our own ready images from the nightly news. As Solomon said, ‘there is nothing new under the baking sun’.

But, take heart time-traveler, for true to form and following the rhythm established in this 15-piece masterwork, this Psalm is a pivot. It’s the Reliance Psalm right in place between Distress and Resolve. The trouble is present here, it’s new and it is intense, but the reliance spoken of is also new and real while coming from of old. This pivot is a mid-triplet turning point midst the three Psalms that 124 sits within. We’ve already seen the journeyer is in Distress in 123. The Resolve will follow in Psalm 125. But in between is the crucial Pivot which announces this turning point.

Knowing how important the Pivot point is in my journey, your journey, and in any substantive move forward, I looked to see what could possibly be indicated as exemplary pivoting when the writer is so embattled. I was focusing on, even painting the trauma and could not see the point. But the writer’s Pivot is hidden in plain view in his very 1^st words. It is almost too simple to appreciate. He tells the tale of trauma, but he announces the Victor in his first breath. “If the Lord had not been…” then later “the Lord deserves praise” and lastly “Our deliverer is the Lord!”

I thought of when I took a really hard test in college, then walked glumly into the building where the scores were posted. If my test score had been poor, I would have stayed quiet, but when I saw a victory, everybody had to hear about it whether they cared or not! Such the same here: “escaped” “help” “had it not been”!

David the warrior King of Israel, is the one who wrote these words in Psalm 124. Scholars who have looked at the history of the writings about the Hebrew Kings, and the transcriptions after the exile, suggest with good evidence that the entire 5^th Book of the Psalms (107-150) was compiled as a final last volume into the Psalter, after the Hebrews had returned from Babylon. In other words, David, who penned this Psalm 500 years before, provides by his example the timeless pivot into the TESTING triplet in this compilation of Ascents. David knew by much personal experience what it was to turn his mind and his heart after God. And here, as in his storied life, he turns his heart to the Victor even in the trenches.

We’ve all had tests; especially so do God-followers who are traveling uphill against the current of culture in every age. But when God is seen, named and relied upon midst the struggle, the test-taker announces where any victory comes from.

A song of ascents; by David.

124 “If the Lord had not been on our side”—
let Israel say this.—
²if the Lord had not been on our side,
when men attacked us,
³they would have swallowed us alive,
when their anger raged against us.
⁴The water would have overpowered us;
the current would have overwhelmed us.
⁵The raging water
would have overwhelmed us.
⁶The Lord deserves praise,
for he did not hand us over as prey to their teeth.
⁷We escaped with our lives, like a bird from a hunter’s snare.
The snare broke, and we escaped.
⁸Our deliverer is the Lord,
the Creator of heaven and earth.

entering the test

The walking rhythm has been established. The first set of three Psalms in this series has set the pace and shown us an overview. Yet the journey has really just begun.

In his allegorical series The Chronicles of Narnia, British writer C.S. Lewis articulates a similar view to what we’ve just glimpsed in Psalm 122. Lewis’ tale has a mythical unicorn, Jewel, speaking for all when she says “This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it til now…” she then calls out to the company around her to keep going. ”Come further up and further in”, repeating a phrase she’d just heard from the lion figure, Aslan. “He turned swiftly round, crouched lower, lashed himself with his tail and shot away like a golden arrow. ‘Come further in! Come further up!’ he shouted over his shoulder. But who could keep up with him at that pace? They set out walking Westward to follow.”

The Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134 are a walking journey into the mysteries of all God has planned for those who desire to follow Him. And each Psalm takes us into new territory, unexpected, yet keeping with the walking pace established in the first triplet. We now are entering the second triplet of this series of 15.

Allegorical fantasies, and semi-abstract paintings may get closer to the wild wonder inherent in such a trek as we find in the Psalms of Ascent.

The painting I accomplished for Psalm 123, pictured here, is unlike the postcard suggestions in my first three landscapes of this series. This one pulls the viewer right in and on some darkening ground in real space. There’s a sense of activity behind the tree stands; but the thrust is upward, above the hills and further up into the atmosphere.

The walking rhythm we’ve already experienced in Psalms 120–122: 1. Distress, 2. Reliance, 3. Resolution, repeats now into a new measure of this whole song. And what is fascinating in this 2^nd triplet, is that the Distress phase, the cry for help which begins each triplet is repeating some of the Reliance words we saw evidenced in the 1^st triplet’s middle Psalm. In other words, what the traveler learned to do after his first woeful distress, he now is practicing at the very beginning of his second period of distress. He is further in. His base camp is higher than when he began.

Many quick readers or bystanders might dismiss at this point, saying “been there, done that”. However, don’t miss how Psalm 123 is preparing the treker. Compared to the resolution just viewed in 122, Psalm 123 has the traveler right back into some of the mundane difficulties of what a serious adventure really is. The journey has soundly begun; but here the pilgrim’s journey shows some attenuated concern, here he is tested. And it is right here where many bail, for the trek is more than they assumed. In John Bunyan’s classic allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, the character Pliable gets into first trouble at this point — and retreats in disgust.

But the God-ward traveler trains his eyes past the trouble, he has to if he wants to make it through: “I look up toward you…” he says. He then adds a couple illustrative examples as he muses in his steps “until He shows us favor”. He is in difficulty, he is awaiting answer, but he has to wade through it in faith. This is the test.

This Psalm exemplifies how a continuing walk will keep on: straight ahead, straight through. “Show us favor, O Lord, show us favor!…” The road is not easy, he describes what it feels like. Like Psalm 120, he names the scoffing and the contempt around him, but his focus is higher for his trust has been established. At this point the traveler has an informed connection with His Lord.

The commitment to make the full journey gets a real try-out here. The purpose of any test is to reveal what (if anything?) has been learned. In fact, it can be said that the fortitude to finish the rest of the journey gets outfitted through the test in the experience of this Psalm.

I look up toward you,
the one enthroned in heaven.
Look, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a female servant look to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes will look to the Lord, our God, until he shows us favor.
Show us favor, O Lord, show us favor!
For we have had our fill of humiliation, and then some.
We have had our fill
of the taunts of the self-assured,
of the contempt of the proud.

_{Psalm 123, New English Translation}

glad resolve

I am continuing here with some words about each of my new pieces which are part of a whole series of 15. The 15 “Psalms of Ascent” are positioned in the 5^th and last “book” or volume of the Hebrew Psalter. And this progression is fascinating in that the microcosm echoes the macrocosm! In other words, what is glimpsed in the gathered detail inside this collection and it’s individual parts also reveals an informed interweaving into the whole of Scripture! The entire, and all its parts are masterfully written.

With these 15 ancient Ascent Psalms, the triplets show the rhythm while the three sets of 5 reveal the stages in the long ascending journey. I’ll write more of those stages later.

Here’s how the repeating rhythm can be seen. Each triplet in this progression ends with the disruption, recently voiced, now resolved. It’s a simple pattern familiar in so many written dramas or musical movements. The first movement or dramatic scene begins with distress. The second develops to a climax. Then the third finally quiets in time to an experience of resolution.

As a whole, this very first triplet of the entire set of 15 shows us this archetype both in its first verse: 120:1, but then in the walking out of the three journey psalms here. That pattern is evident in the triplet (1.Distress 2.Reliance 3.Resolve). This particular set of three Ps. 120-122 takes us from troubled spirit in foreign soil (120) to a pivot of reliance on the God of Abraham (121) to finally a voiced experience of arriving “glad”! One can sense the relief of the original writer in Psalm 122. The longed-for destination has been reached.

Another fascinating feature in this particular triplet is how the action moves from people (liars, deceivers, “those who hate peace”) to a personal decision (the pivot explained in my last post) and then back to people. But this last group of people are at peace. They have welcomed the new arrival; they give thanks and gather together. “I was glad when they said to me…” The troubled individual traveler has become part of a new company. The traveler had to make his consequential pivot individually, but the context of others surrounds his story in really informative ways. Hence, I see this triplet in my notes as the ENTRY triplet in the developing larger story.

Not only is the first verse in the entire series an archetype of this in short form, but this first triplet (the first 3 whole Palms of the series) also secures the pattern –for it telescopes deep time from foreign despair to settled finality. Human history and individual histories can be encapsulated in this first progression of 3.

David is attributed as the writer of this resolve Psalm 122. He was the early King who captured Jerusalem, where his throne was then set up. However, his own and his nation’s history was troubled, and the Psalm ends here with admission of great need. Five hundred years after David’s reign, trouble had multiplied, and the nation was taken captive into Babylon for 70 years. Scholars say that the 5^th “book” in the Psalm collection was compiled after that exile as Jews made their historic walking return to Jerusalem: microcosm and macrocosm through time.

I’ve tried to visually suggest much of this glad entry in this work. There is a symbol of an individual, like a green reed, smallish and in the center. But “he” is surrounded by light, by a protective covering of sorts and the mark-making gives an impression of history with many others present alongside him.

If you were stuck on a deserted island and only had this triplet of three Psalms for your sustenance, you would have enough to know that trusting God is possible from anywhere and that if you do, He will secure you in the end. It’s the character of the God of Abraham to make good on every promise He has given.

The Pattern and the Pivot

In this series of 15 songs, called the “Psalms of Ascent” or the “Songs of Degrees” there is an evident pattern. Each set of three in the whole progression of 15 repeats a simple tempo, like three beats to a measure in a walking rhythm. And this, even as the circumstances described get increasingly more complex with each developing set of threes. It is in this rhythm, repeated 5x that the way is hinted for making it through the journey.

Here is that rhythm: The first in each triad is a cry of distress. The 2^nd is what I have named a pivot. It’s a hinge, or a turning point evidenced from the difficulty just referenced which then pivots to a decided reliance on God. Then the 3^rd in each set is an experience of resolution voiced by the traveler.

Simply put: 1. Distress 2. Reliance 3. Resolution.

As we move through all 5 sets you will see this repeated. And just so it is not missed, note the first verse of the first Psalm in this whole series: 120:1 starts out with the summary this way:

“In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.” (emphasis added) Distress, Reliance, Resolution.

This is not a formula, nor a religious mantra. (How easily we either cheapen or conversely complicate important things!) This is just the simple way through. It is not an empty promise, but owning this is not easy, nor is it automatic; for a heartfelt connection is required in the hinge Psalm. This pivot takes some humility. The progression typified in each triad is the personal experience of any authentic God-follower, over and over again. No matter the time period, the culture or the distressing particulars. The pattern has to be walked through. This is, in fact, how anyone gets real with God.

Notice how this pivot is displayed in the example given us from Psalm 120 to Psalm 121. In the first articulation of distress, God is mentioned but the focus is on the problem. This is typical for each of us in distress. But at the pivot is where the spiritual engagement happens. Without this turning, things stay the same, or worse. However, with a legitimate connection to Creator, “the LORD” is named here, “Who made heaven and earth”, there is dynamic change.

Notice the words that follow for the one who is expressing this. The focus has shifted beyond the distress, even above all the religious distractions. (“the hills”, in the history of ancient Israel, were the places where all kinds of aberrant rites and idolatry were practiced)

The Psalmist here is making it clear where his confidence is being placed by pivoting. He’s making that contrast, and he’s voicing where he will look instead of whatever else is around him. His hope is now in Another, the One Other. And, he even exults in expectation of longevity. This is the first pivot.

A song of ascents.

121 I look up toward the hills.
From where does my help come?
²My help comes from the Lord,
the Creator of heaven and earth.
³May he not allow your foot to slip.
May your Protector not sleep.
⁴Look! Israel’s Protector
does not sleep or slumber.
⁵The Lord is your protector;
the Lord is the shade at your right hand.
⁶The sun will not harm you by day,
or the moon by night.
⁷The Lord will protect you from all harm;
he will protect your life.
⁸The Lord will protect you in all you do,
now and forevermore.

traveling songs

I have just finished a long envisioned series of 15 traveling songs illustrated on square 14’ cradled panels with oil paint. I am celebrating today with this post, and will continue in the next 14 postings after this to show you the results.

Purposeful progressions, particularly those given to God-followers captivate me. Jacob had a dream of a ladder, and that vision kept him going even when he was heading away from home. The patterns in nature, like the enlarging chambers of a conch shell reveal a mysterious developing plan at work, enhanced by the mathematical symbolism inherent in the fractals. Oh, I could go on and on!

But instead, I’ll add my own historical reason. When I was a young canoe trip leader in the wilderness of Canada, we always made up songs to sweeten the tedious rhythm in the long hauls. Our songs made the journey swift, informed with memory, dreams, laughter and community. And so, when I learned some years ago that there is a progression of songs in the Psalms for travelers, I was interested. These walking songs were originally for pilgrims heading up the dusty climbs to Jerusalem for their yearly feasts. The trek might take days, and so the songs were likely memorized as they were stepped out. And what is fascinating is that there is a rhythm, a pattern in each triplet that gets more developed as the 15 (5 sets of 3) come to a grand conclusion.

I’ve been thinking about these 15 songs for years, and what they could mean for us. You may recognize phrases from a few of them. I’ve studied them, looked up original wording, charted the whole, sketched ideas, read commentaries, and envisioned doing the entire set made large (in my dreams) about 25 years ago! I did a smaller gestural set on paper of the 15 songs about 3 years ago and then started into oil panels until I got intimidated and quit.

But now I’ve accomplished all 15 in a way that satisfies both the whole concept and the individual parts.

Here is Psalm 120. Translated from its original Hebrew into simple English so you can consider it for yourself. This woeful complaint begins the journey.

In my distress I cried out to the Lord and he answered me.
I said, “O Lord, rescue me from those who lie with their lips
and those who deceive with their tongues.”

How will he severely punish you, you deceptive talker?
Here’s how! With the sharp arrows of warriors,
with arrowheads forged over the hot coals.
How miserable I am.
For I have lived temporarily in Meshech;
I have resided among the tents of Kedar.
For too long I have had to reside with those who hate peace.
I am committed to peace, but when I speak, they want to make war.

And as is typical of any hard slog, that first step, even as half focused as it may be, is critically decisive. A Chinese poet said something similar: “a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step”.

The image here is my finished visualization of #120, oil and encaustic with embedded text, enhanced with flame.

re-vision

Have you seen it for yourself? Have your eyes seen at least the clips of those claiming utopian dreams — yet themselves dazed, stoned, and de-constructing? The darkness is being revealed, and it will soon have its fullest hour.

Righteousness came and was rejected long ago. He was hung up, and they thought they’d extinguished Him. This is the most important thing to know: there is no other trustworthy name by which any soul can be secured out of this present and growing delusion.

The prophets all spoke of what is coming, very specific words. But Jesus added two watchwords for the years, the months, and the days before it all comes down: “Don’t be deceived”, and “don’t be afraid”.

How is that possible, especially as things get freaky? There is only one Way. He is that Way and He voiced it clearly, urgently, graciously Himself. This is your only reliable lifeline. He is the only door into real utopia.

But to get there, you must die. Die to your own ways, your own strategies, your own long-term assumptions. Go down with Him, and He will bring you up.

This beautiful photo came to our door in a magazine. This is an individual counterpoint, to what your eyes are seeing from all other media. This is more real, unfiltered though shrouded. And it’s happening all over the planet, but under the radar of the power-players. Baptism is a sign of relinquishment, however it is symbolized, wherever done, whenever a person realizes his true need — and gives in to the One who said He can provide that need. Trust His words, backed up by His perfect life. Re-vision means setting your sights (again and again) to what is real.

image used with requested permission: Voice of the Martyrs

repulsion

I “came to Jesus” because I was repulsed by religion.

I saw “revival” signs outside churches as a youngster and pondered: “ if they have truth why do they need reviving?” As a teen I saw a man talking about “being saved” but his manner was harsh. As a young college student, our team bus passed a sign on a hill saying “Jesus is the answer”. One of my friends said: “if Jesus is the answer, somebody please tell me, what is the question?” We all laughed. I was happy on my own and had no questions, thank-you very much.

Later that frosh year militant students stormed our campus student union…with machine guns. I joined a committee to better understand the disruption since the Newsweek Magazine reporter obviously didn’t. We were true eyewitnesses. We cared about the student’s grievances. We pooled our heads and hearts to better explain what had happened so the whole wide world would understand. We were going to “restructure the University”. Seriously.

There was one big problem: we couldn’t agree. Ten or so of us spent hours debating. We were a select group, and we were motivated. But it soon became clear that each persuasion to “tell the story correctly” had certain bias, even if slight. And like a one-degree difference on a line to the target it impacted the result. It dawned on me that it must be a truth that every journalist aiming to tell any story has bias. The confusion amongst my cohort was eye opening, disappointing; it sunk in deeply. And that lesson was worth the price of my entire undergraduate education. At the same time, it did not escape my notice that the presumptions of the student activists were starting to smell like religion of a different sort: certain behavior was expected, certain ways to think were required. I stepped out.

Just a couple months after that, a friend of mine was killed in a tragic accident. That was when my easy idealism completely halted and real questions deepened. The subsequent sorting out of what mattered and what was ultimately reliable was the pivot point of my entire life. I can sense so clearly that we in America are in a similar consequential time now. For this reason, even midst the confusion and the smoke, the uncertainty and the biases — that bigger more important questions are forming and being quietly decided. If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then repulsion can be an important awakening.

I post today a detail of a painting I am delivering to a Gallery this week. The larger piece this is excerpted from is titled “Marking Magma”. The fire born volcanic rocks that inspired some recent work is, in this painting, all marked up on its surface with graphite. The markings are like historical notations on something birthed eons earlier by a great disruption. There’s contrast and random angles visible today, there’s beauty midst fear. There’s light and dark together. My bias is obvious. My fingerprints are all over this. But my hope has been forged by things long ago and things current. All that is visible here.

“while the earth remains…”

It was not the first promise, but it was another significant one from the mouth of Creator, which orients my heart regularly. Early on in the Hebrew text, and in another time of (much worse) global trauma there was this assurance given that never again would the ground be cursed for the escalated evils of men. Seedtime and harvest would continue as a sign of this hope, and attenders can have it on God’s good guarantee that this blooming will not cease as long as the planet exists.

In the meantime, we’re all waiting, watching. It’s a time of sure dismemberment, held away from those we love except by zoom or text. Yesterday, looking for the link in a pile of emails for an upcoming digital meeting I thought to myself “is this death by zoom?”…”ok, here it is, found it.” It turned out to be a helpful meeting, was glad for it, learned something; but truth be told, it was as unsatisfying as something boxed in my pantry compares to one of my daughter’s lovingly prepared meals.

I prefer the real meal. Here is a sign of such yearning just finished inside my studio. There’s fog here over hints of color peeking. And there is hard ground, which seems unforgiving. But there are things popping out all around me too, out my windows, on my walks, in my seedbeds. I’m on the lookout and sometimes things show up.

The promise was put forth in poetic form in the original transcribing:

“While the earth remains,

Seedtime and harvest,

And cold and heat,

And summer and winter,

And day and night

Shall not cease.”

(God, and part of His public domain)

when your heart finally wakes

Most our lives we’ve moved right along to “the next thing”: school assignments, testing dates, graduations, interviews and invitations. Labor pains have led to births, births to nursing, to raising, to cheering and teaching, then finally to letting them go. Then doing that again alongside others. Both my husband and I are “to do list” people, and so this stay at home order has been good for getting simpler things done which have long missed our lists. We’ve taken walks on the empty campus near our home and marveled at the sprouting of spring. He has taught himself how to tie his own flys between zoom calls, and I have created an online story time with two of our grands as part of their homeschool. The attic has been cleaned out, and now my studio. Never in 70 years have we had to consider what to do with paused time. How has it been for you? We are mindfully grateful that we are not stuck in an apartment in some dense city, nor in the Congo where our friend tells us people are much more scared: where hunger at home is challenged by danger outside. Being older, we’ve been urged by our daughter who works in a hospital emergency department to “stay home!” But all of us, around the globe, no matter circumstance, have been given poignant pause to weigh “what do I do now?”

Pauses have a way of reaching us where the pace of normality never did, and never could.

I recently taught a Bible study on Revelation, and it is startlingly noteworthy that midst the horrors that sequence through that prophecy, there are valuable pauses. All heaven seems to wait while those on earth decide what it is they are going to do. In that I find a great sign of mercy. The time we have now is mercy. We’re all quite good at numbing ourselves through things just to get to “the next thing”; maybe that’s a mercy too, but easily we miss a lot that’s important when we do.

I highlight a famous Baroque painting by the Italian dramatist Caravaggio. We studied this up close at the National Gallery in London in 2012. I had always wanted to see it, for it portrays in theatrical fashion the moment when Jesus (yet unrecognized by his fellow travelers) breaks bread at the table. They’ve been clueless as to who it is they have been traveling with in their distracted sorrow. Try to get past the early 17^th century garb and the insipid looking Jesus and place yourself at that table as Caravaggio intended. There is a place for you there. And it was only in that pause — in the tearing apart of what was common and basic, that the strangers finally understood who was sitting right there next to them. The real Jesus is still looking to join you where you sit too. Will you take the pause you have and allow Him?

the gathering above

“The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding; and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly, as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole order of the universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying any attention to the sky.”

Quoted here is a section from Flannery O’Connor’s 1^st novel “Wise Blood”, in which the writer uses her weird characters as darkish foils to prod the reader into considering timeless things. O’Connor was a brilliant and lonely critic of secularism’s vacuity; she considered modernism naïve. And like Jesus, her harshest stories called out religious emptiness. How would she be illustrating the bigger story for us now? O’Connor would be a good one to read if fiction is a way into your heart, for our world is changing and we need to get a grip on what it is that is truly mooring us.

You wont find what anchor’s your soul in the material world. How can I make such an assertion? I’ve lived enough life; I’ve read the best “good book”; and I know how it ends. If non-fiction is a better way in for you, this is time tested. Meanwhile the National Geographic arrived this week. It is expensively produced, in a ying/yang edition titled “How We Saved the World”, or from back to front “How We Lost the Planet”. Take your pick; they’re giving us only two options. One would think such an organization committed to the earth would offer a few words of acknowledgement to earth’s Maker. But no. And, they admit: they don’t know the future. Only the One who hears prayer does.

The image I post today fits right along with O’Connor’s description, as she teases the imagination higher. Here’s another look-up for you. I’ve had the texture and the hues on this oil panel for some months, but I could not resolve the whole satisfactorily. Then suddenly I realized I needed to give it a window beyond the morass of the now. Voila!

sevens

Here’s an interesting thing, I did not plan this. Two weeks ago in studio, I prepped some square panels I had stacked; and since I had some gesso left in the cup, the brush still wet, I grabbed a couple more panels and coated them also with this base coat. Did I have a plan? All I remember was that I was going to make some starter marks on a couple of the panels once the gesso dried.

I then set out a simple color palette, and started in, working intuitively. If I got one solid piece out of the workday, I would have been satisfied. Some days just getting in the studio and working is victory enough. I am deliberately taking the pressure off. The effort is all practice. And the freeing thing is, if the result is poor, it’s just some history I can work on top of next time. Is it true that “the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart”? In my case, the arm was moving out of that which was in my mind and probably my heart, for I have been studying biblical prophecy.

Now, I was not planning on illustrating what I was learning, that usually does not work well for me (it gets wooden that way, or even didactic). And I did not purposely select seven panels, I was being solely utilitarian with the materials I had, and the space on my worktable. My aim was to just get the materials moving. I started working on several of these prepped pieces at once with darks on white value studies and then worked in hues. If it had occurred to me at any point that I was illustrating something specific, I would have tightened up. But surely the data in my head was being drawn upon as I just played. My expectations were free.

It was only after several hours of back and forth with the materials, rotations with the panels, that I realized I had near completed seven pieces. And then my head kind of exploded with the realization that these panels were a group of seven. I counted them: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, yes it’s actually seven I’d been playing around with. Well, that was interesting, I thought to myself; I could reference the seven churches described in the beginning of Revelation with these, and maybe also incorporate the recently realized correspondence with the seven “mystery parables” that Jesus outlines in Matthew 13. The convergence between those two groups of seven is really fascinating. And here I had seven compositions of my own hand, which obliquely fit the main ideas in each of the two literary groupings. This, on panel, is my own surprising revelation. Showcased here is the 2^nd of that series: “Smyrna and the Tares”. I haven’t yet titled the series.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape