Category Archives: time

Appalachian Patchwork

Friday night I got to view some wonderfully meditative work by friend and former colleague Patricia Mink, Professor Emerita from ETSU’s Department of Art and Design. Her work can be seen at the Tipton Gallery this month.

Pat’s textile work is cutting edge in how she enhances old practice with new processes. She takes fibers and threads, fabric scraps, and tests with homegrown dyes, then layers in both hand and free-form machine stitching. She works up many of her ideas using the aid of advanced programs, huge color printers and looms. Her work has the sense of being both familiar, but also strikingly rich. Creativity can be defined as how anyone takes what is already given and then makes from the elements something brand new. This to me is the most exciting and dignifying work we can do! We start from where we are.

Pat’s givens, her own practice, roots deeply out from the rich Appalachian homespun craftwork that has emerged from these hills for generations. People here don’t bother knowing what “fine art” is, they just do what’s needed with their hands in extraordinary ways. Extraordinary ways.

This huge quilt is made from Pat’s long-term collection of samples, tests, studies and observations from old barns and country textures. It is a masterwork, a piece of extraordinary beauty as simply an aesthetic accomplishment. But this piece also is a powerful emblem to me of so much more. I stood and stared at it, looking closely and then standing back, taking comfort, and noting to myself that just by looking I was doing exactly that: taking comfort in the quilt.

Originally, I don’t come from these Southern highlands, yet it is a wonderful privilege to live among folks who respect their land and what it gives, who respect their families and where they came from, and the traditions from which they feel it is never necessary to apologize. There’s a freeing humility here. And when the givens get broken, the bits that remain, which came simply enough, can be pieced back together in ways more lovely than when they first were made.

We all are presently immersed here in the Southern Appalachians with sadness. The muck from over swelling rivers has settled, the huge masses of broken timbers are slowly being carted, helicopters are flying regularly up into the hills, mule teams and pick up trucks also, bridges are being crafted by volunteers, but the lives shattered will take more time. Here is just one drone view from 10 minutes where I live.

Please pray for the broken hearts. Mending has started for many. I heard this morning about a young woman who gave birth alone during the hurricane, and was on her last bottle for her baby. A woman, who somehow knew to bring baby things showed up just in time, and now momma and baby are safely in care with others.

the bride who is waiting…

On exhibit currently at the Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville, NC is the work of a Spanish painter, Rafel Bestard. If you are local, I highly suggest visiting or at least looking at his work and reading his statement. He is a philosopher painter and I don’t believe necessarily a Christian one. However, his work is touching on themes that I find deeply arresting and pertinent. Look into him and see what you think.

He is dealing with perception, with willful blindness as well as with truly seeing in different ways. In his own words: “My work explores the relationship between fusion and fundamental opposites: Light and Shadow, Love and Death, through a painting technique in which the tradition of the old masters, through influences as diverse as Bachelard philosophy and Kobayashi films, brings forth new representations of eternal concerns.”

Eternal Concerns! And I was moved by what he was articulating on canvas right away.

An art critic said, “the beauty that emerges from Bestard’s paintings is always disturbing.”

What I highlight here is what the artist titled “What is Present”. I can’t claim any knowledge of the artist’s own intentions here with this piece, or with his chosen title, but I know how this painting moves me!

With expert paint handling and rendering of feminine form, the artist confronts us with a beauty behind a veil. She seems to be lifting away the veil in the present, though her face is dark and moody. She is not looking upward, but the light source reflected on her gown, her hand and fingertips is directly above her. I choose to think of her as a bride, though the artist may just be rendering a woman in a negligee. She is placed in a narrow interior, a tightly gabled enclosure with no evident light source.

My most recent post is how time seems to be escalating. Here an artist is depicting What is Present. He, unbeknownst to him, is rendering my own present as if I were standing outside myself and looking at my position.

Here is why this so informs me. Jesus spoke of returning for His bride. He was specifically symbolic about this event referencing Galilean wedding custom with His disciples on His last night with them. He made them a promise. And earlier that week, when they had directly asked Him ‘when’ he spoke of virgins who needed to wait for their bridegroom. He suggested through parable (and with literal words just earlier) that the waiting would be difficult. But He was also clear that the return would be finally surprising, in their real present, and consequential. I suggest you look into that too.

I would love to speak with this artist. He may have been in the room when I was there at the opening and I didn’t know it. I expect my interpretations may have been foreign if we had had the chance to speak. But what I believe he is addressing is cosmic.

escalations

Recently I emailed a friend about something on which I needed a follow up. We’d both gotten kind of rusty on the task at hand and she said in reply “it’s been a minute”. I laughed understanding her for it had been several months — not minutes. But we use this phrase and everybody gets it, for it feels like time is speeding up. Months are minutes, and minutes sometimes are packed with consequence. The word “moment” is another current word used. I see it in artist’s statements sometimes, it sounds trendy and alert to say “in this moment” as if what we’re sensing will soon rev right on by. Eras and epochs are out, they are no longer spoken of. Moments and minutes are in. Is your head spinning?

The piece I’m showing therefore is one which speaks to this idea of time’s slow-to-fast accelerations. Holding layers and a quick emergence of moment, there’s a lot hidden in the symbolism. This is a very small oil impression from a trip I took to Israel. In Caesarea by the sea we walked thru the impressive physical remains of a large Roman port. After the Romans disappeared, the Crusaders built their own stone structures. Their era is long gone as well. Alongside one of the paths under that Mediterranean sun was a small fig tree. It had fruit on it soon to emerge for the picking. It was alive. One part of a leaf caught the light and enchanted me midst the bramble of greens and browns. The stone path is suggested just slightly on the left. The energy of the moment was felt in the chaos of all that has been laid down and fought over on that very ground, including the choice of red behind the blooming bits. But my focus was on what is emerging. That’s what captivated me and still does. There is history here but there is also so much significant promise yet to be seen. It’s coming. It’s weighty. And it feels to me that we are in an escalating moment toward what the Hebrew prophets spoke so repeatedly of.

The fig tree was important in ancient Israel, not only for sweet sustenance, but also as a sign for when the nation itself would flourish or instead be in regression. There are two yearly harvests of figs with the later harvest being much richer. There is promise even in that reality. But in times of terror, the fruit withers and dies in the trauma. That has happened repeatedly in the past and it will happen again more consequentially in the future. But that future is not the promised end.

I had a rich conversation with one of my grandsons this past week. He’s on a campus where there is all the same clamor you’re hearing about. He was thoughtful about it, so I spoke of what the building take-overs were like when I was a student. How I was involved and what emerged as a result. There were boisterous chants then too, same rhythm different words. How robotic? Are we just in some kind of cyclical reiteration or are we heading somewhere? A French Philosopher observing human cycles said “the more things change the more they stay the same”. That’s similar to what Solomon said 3000 epoch’s earlier: ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ it’s all been seen before. There is some comfort in the wisdom there. But after my conversation with my grand I thought about the revving speed of the cycles. In 1969 no one was shouting death to the nation they were standing in from our campus; and no one was taking down the national flag and replacing it with something else. We’re witnessing immolation, litterally and figuratively. We are in a different moment now. In our time the protests were about ending a war or adding a certain studies programs to the curriculum. In this present iteration there is a more consequential binary being shouted: choosing life or choosing death.

What makes the news headlines however, is missing the real story (and that was true then too). For many are quietly observing, grappling with the import, and thinking for themselves. Others will just follow the crowd, for wide is that way and easier for them (in the moment).

But where I return my heart (often) is that the Grand Maker of light and figs and tastebuds supervises times and histories. He still allows the glimpse of sunlight on a leaf and the emergence of life for the hungry. He comforted the weary, saying with otherworldly authority “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” And when a soul can grasp the depth of that: His promise — it only takes a nanosecond.

what Mary knew

it was a sudden intervention*
which startled her to fear
the words of hope familiar, longed for
but now through her God comes near

how could this be, she pondered —
She gathered all she knew
but came up short and so she asked,
her soul then given view.

a Holy golden seed was offered
though existing long ago,
Her permission yet was asked for, granted.
And wonder now would grow.

the daily changes subtle,
something within was true!
9 months with mercy mounting
she voiced out all she knew.

“Great things He’s able”, she rejoiced
“He brings down and lifts up”
She saw through corridors of time.
But more would be her cup.

the private becomes public
the darkness blind to light
the Caesar seems to be in charge
and delivery will be tonight.

sudden things — then slow things —
and pain at the pace of a mule,
but asking Him and waiting
would be her lifetime rule.

She couldn’t know, nor any
How grand His reach would grow
Or how long before fulfillment
of His promised final show

But what she did know kept her
Midst all that seemed undone
Midst all that pierced her heart in sorrow
This was God’s Holy son!

And then the One who turned the tables
Came back for every one
who granted, like Mary first, allowing —
then waiting, asking, holding the Holy One emplanted

* “intervention”= late 16th century (in the sense ‘come in as an extraneous factor or thing’; extraneous meaning ‘separate from the object to which it is attached’): from Latin intervenire, from inter-‘between’ + venire‘come’

falling and rising

The display of color has been brilliant this year, now mostly all dimmed and down in my neck of the woods. Such vibrancy artists and photographers strive to capture.

How lovely this transition we see every year from light green buds, to broad leafy canopies, to the loss of photosynthesis in the aging cycle of a leaf — which yet gives us so much dying beauty! It seems like a slow mercy to me. Years ago, on a Fall hike I sat in wonder watching the gentle flutter of yellows and reds. Almost ad infinitum, these bits flickered through a tall stand of trees. The paper thin light catchers were like dressed up dancers, letting go from their support and one by one falling gracefully to earth. The float-fall was profoundly beautiful, oh… that a one-year old leaf could be a reflector of such fading glory.

We can observe and even take heart from these cycles in nature, it’s part of our natural background. Tides move in and out, and this is strangely comforting. Seasons flow around the calendar. Sound has a rhythm of waves, and history has repeating patterns. The nine month cycle of deciduous leaves gives those of us who live for decades an object lesson in common grace that we can ponder every single year.

For we all will fall, but unlike the simple leaf, there is potential for us also to rise. The Bible speaks of this: first a universal Fall early on in the book and then a singular Rise predicted by the prophets. The Rise is encountered early in the New Testament and then the same is promised for many at the end of history. This progression is echoed whether positively or negatively in the life of many a character in the pages of the book. Lives lived out show a trajectory from rising to falling or falling to rising. The results are evidenced in time.

Here’s one example, I went to an art show this past week on the University campus. Artists can be like watchmen on the wall, they often see farther, and look for clever ways to warn, to celebrate or to announce. Amongst the collection in this show were several obvious clarion calls that our progression as a nation is falling, and falling fast. I saw nothing there which gave me reason for hope. I walked out truly depressed.

2000 years ago, a prophet in the temple at Jerusalem approached a set of parents when they brought their child to the temple for his 8th day dedication. The couple were poor and likely indistinguishable in the hubub of a crowded temple court. But the old Jewish seer was alert for he had been promised that he would not die before seeing God’s salvation.

Luke records this story from an eyewitness, the mother of that child. Lifting the baby from her arms, the prophet suddenly announced a joyous declaration that salvation, the coming of the promised rising had come! But then, tenderly he turns to the baby’s mother and adds “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”

His falling and his rising would be the causation for the destinies of many to follow.

This child’s public presence in the world would bring all too soon a sorrowful piercing; a full participation in human dying, the falling that every soul must experience one by one. But then…but then the rising would commence.

the rock and the horizon

Geologists have a name for the earliest epoch in earth’s history: the Pre-Cambrian era. This is when the continents took shape and life forms began to emerge. At least from the evidence left to investigate, the Pre-Cambrian is ground zero, or the canvas upon which fossils and sediments later laid down on top of this early bedrock between the waters.

Earth scientists also say that in Northern Minnesota we can see and walk on some of the oldest Pre-Cambrian bedrock which is exposed to us on earth. These are ancient rocks. The evidence to support this is in the surrounding geology, the dating of this basal igneous material, and subsequent metamorphic compositions in these intriguing forms.

Add to this that some geo-scientists who have done extensive core sample research around the globe see patterns in the lay-down which indicate how and where uplift, rifting and plate subduction cycles occurred above the earth’s mantle. From the evidence seen in the rocks and in computer modeling, it is postulated that in earliest earth time these rock outcrops along the deep trench of Lake Superior may have been some of the highest mountains in the original continental Pangea. I only learned this recently, having read a geology text during Covid. But I have been scampering along this settled volcanic material since I was young. This ledge rock has long fascinated me for its firmness, color and especially the fracturing of its angles. It is just wonderfully magical stuff!

So this summer I got to be up there again. On a rainy day, I captured a section of this rock with my phone, did some quick sketches and then finished a painting inside in a couple hours. I am proud to highlight this 8×10 oil for several reasons. First, I set up and framed a visual composition which still appeals to me every time I look at it. I am critical of my work, so that is saying something. The color is true, and the semblance of the wetness on the top planes of rock reminds me of that interesting moment in time when I was looking at this ancient stuff.

This painting is more than visual though, for conceptually it is a statement about past/present/and future, and so it holds weight symbolically as well.

The rock is ancient, and to me more valuable than diamonds for its enduring hardness, while also being entirely accessible to anyone! Those two aspects: ancient and available are so rare. What could be better on earth than something so old and so commonly present for anyone to stomp around on? But it has a mysterious beauty too. It is no wonder they call this area “artist’s point”; it attracts people even before they have any clue as to ‘the why’. Here’s why for me: Rock is often used as a metaphor of eternal things, referenced by Job, Moses, David, Isaiah and Jesus (who Himself was called “the Rock”). This metaphorical yet available rock named Jesus, sits now in His high place, having settled things in time, our time, every time., and time to come.

The horizon is a symbol or a sign to me also, and I reference that often in my work. My horizon on this particular day was cloudy, almost mirage-like and I loved that. Like a wrapped present, or a pretty lady with a veil is the mystery of this glimpse. More is coming, more is behind my view of things. It’s an anticipation which is sure though shrouded. Paul the brilliant 1^st century Christ-follower said, “we see in part but not the whole”. Our sight is limited, our understanding of all that is yet to come is dim. But we do know the important things, the vital things and we know all we need to know. The rock is solid, a basis for sure confidence and solid footing. And that far line out ahead of me is just a teaser.

So time right now is my present reality, looking back and looking forward today, and right then when I captured this view. I’m on a continuum therefore and this is comforting. No other life forms can enjoy an awareness and a thoughtful contemplation of history: what happened before, what happens to me now and what will happen in the future. Time is a continuum, a linear travel forward. And the future can be glimpsed here symbolically at least. Seen things are only shadows of more important things, says the writer to the Hebrews..

I remember my Dad explaining that the furthest edge we see is only a few miles away because of the curvature of the globe. The huge lake surface then is like a clinging bulge we can only catch a scant glimpse of. But the maker of this lake, this rock and the maker of me sees it in wholeness and as He’s promised, will be bringing it to completion.

whoops!

If you are one of the small number who came onto my blog yesterday afternoon, and if you listened to the video posted there, then you got a sneak preview! It probably hit you as weird.

I have un-published that video clip of me describing a 3D piece I made, paralleling it to an expectation I have. My reason? That clip is scheduled to post automatically once I am lifted out of here. I had the clip recorded as a testimony of my confident hope. But it is not for now since I am still here, and still working and still making plenty of mistakes.

Oh the quiet joy in time, and the slow opportunity to start in again!

I just got home from an 8-day Plein Air fest and counting travel to get up to Northern MN and back with my supportive husband (who just got back himself teaching on another continent) it was a haul. Needless to say, we’re a bit disoriented. Normally, I post on the 15^th of every month in which I am present, pushing the publication date of my video to a later time. I missed the timing this month, hence that may have been for you readers a bit of disorientation as well. As Mark Twain put it ”the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

But I will die. And so will you.

The real question is what will you find on the other side? I entreat you, with all I have in me now: don’t let that reality be a whoops. Jesus, the only one who anticipated well, who made not one whoops, who defeated death’s sting and prepared his followers as to how to be ready had much to say about the end and of His coming back. And for those who “love His appearing” there is great reason for joy. Even as our world is self-destructing, even more so as it is. “No one knows the day or the hour”, Jesus said. No one needs to get all wadded up in fear or blinded by all the lies which are multiplying (He said that too, same chapter). Your way out, the only safe way out is both simple and sure: Jesus. Learn Him.

Meanwhile, in this present mean while, my studio is crammed with projects and half starts, big ideas and small beginnings into them. This piece is a “whoops” right now. I started it on an October visit up at that lake, and tried to bring some resolution this trip, only making it worse with September color. I may trash this, you can see if you look closely how I’ve already tried to scrape into some of the garish green, or I may try to improve it if I effectively can within its context. I have time!

a shifting

There’s a shift going on. I know it personally and in my own work. I sense it nationally and globally (you probably do too). But I’ll speak for myself alone here. I am not afraid. In my 7^th decade now, I am getting better, bolder and more anticipatory about what is ahead for me in every way. Here is just brief attempt to herald this with words and through my art.

This past month I was asked to show a collection of my Master’s thesis work (completed from 2004-2007), at a fabulous new gallery in our town. Time is such a teller! I can see it now better than I even could when making these pieces. The whole collection is somber, full of stark verticals and traveling horizontals. The hues were muted the textures broken. The ideas that spawned each piece were all rooted in gravity while I was pondering what holds us in place, what governs time and people which is above the material that we can see?

That last sentence still captivates me into my present work. And I use a landscape ground in everything I do, I just can’t get away from it, even in the more abstract pieces. The tagline I’ve given my work “Conceptual Landscape” remains importantly descriptive. Concepts drive my work, ideas drive my actions, but the seen aspect of this is from a certain place on the land right in front of me. To put it a different way: the land is the stage-set only, but the winsome script is what keeps me and others watching and listening. To represent this effectively, visually without saying it out loud takes a level of skill I am only beginning to touch. But I am on it, like never before. Here is just a sample page of my current sketchbook.

The stage-set is beautiful, and oh I have so many references all around me, at different times of day and lighting! My colors now are brighter. The light is more compelling even especially on darkening days. The textures lead, the lines are often diagonal now, rarely settled horizontals or intersecting verticals. And somehow, in the pieces which are ready to frame, there is a sense of potential, of excitement, even surprise in how the marks, my marks, are contributing to a quick conclusion.

the Artisan will perform it / sign of the almond rod

I am currently using my monthly blog to highlight some older important work. These selected pieces are from my personal past but poignantly each is relevant (I believe) to our global present. And each is a handmade sign toward the future. If you are a regular reader here, you may’ve already recognized that TIME and its sightless flow is a really interesting concept to me. Time is both linear and rhythmic with repeated echoes. Time in this sense, is like light energy which is both particle as well as wave. Time flows and it cannot be encapsulated. It impacts every one of us who live within its circuit whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Time can easily go on without us.

Time is more interesting and emblematic than any single one of us musers who sit in our own period on a timeline can grasp. A most published cosmologist admits “Scientists in every discipline are now far, far removed from the reality they claim to explain.” (1) This writer goes on to detail how we just don’t really understand 95% of what hints to us of existence “out there”.

Such is the ineffability of many big and important things as well as this mysterious entity we live in called time. Any pondering of things not understood ought to humble us? Plato said “For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.” (2)

But back to time: it is going somewhere, it leads in one direction: Past/Present/Future. And in its wholeness, time is revelatory of a much grander story: with a beginning, a middle and an end. This whole process is superintended by an Artisan (if you’ll allow an even bigger IDEA) who exists beyond time in eternity. Would you be willing to handle that possibility if even for one of your moments?

What prompts me this month is the pregnant report of one spokesman for this Artisan, the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. I have slipped back into his record to glean what he might say to my own time, my own nation’s experience of decline. Jeremiah lived through the last gasps of a once grand culture in the 6^th c. BCE. He is appointed to speak into that history, and he is given hint that this won’t be easy. In the very first chapter of his tome, Jeremiah describes an exploratory dialogue he is graced with. The Artisan and Creator who formed the prophet from his mother’s womb, says this: “What do you see Jeremiah?” Jeremiah looks, identifies an object in front of them and replies. “I see a rod (branch) of an almond tree” The LORD then takes that common thing and makes it a lesson: “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”

Huh? ok start with the given basics here: The rod is real. It is tangible, it is alive for a time, like a cut flower; but it is only a rod. It will bud however, for God says He will watch over it to perform it. He said this, not me, not Jeremiah, we are just witnesses to the edge of a very big thing.

Any historically alert Hebrew, hearing Jeremiah, would’ve hearkened back to an earlier rod of Aaron’s, some 8 centuries prior. That rod budded, and then produced whole almonds! That fruit producing rod was kept as a holy symbol of God’s miraculous ability in spite of the people’s rebellion. Jeremiah would not have missed the hope embedded in this given simple verbal sign. From their past into his present and assured by God for a future, Jeremiah had something to fasten onto in his heart: God said He would do it in spite of them. God would watch over every promise He had made through time to accomplish it. His words then are where we best be watching with expectation. Herein is lasting hope. Give Him an honest try. His words aren’t hard to find.

Believing is Seeing, Michael Guillen, Tyndale Refresh, September 7, 2021, p.97
The Republic, trans.B Jowett, Project Gutenberg, June 22, 2016, Book VII

“working the curse”

We’re all navigating amongst cursings. They fly around now-adays into our ears or on our screens like angry gnats. Any curse from any source is a pronouncement toward harm. The first record in ancient documents of the word “curse” however was from God’s mouth, not man’s. And the consequence of that should be a heads-up over any puny castings from mortals.

What is startling about this cursing from God, described in Genesis 3, is that it comes in response to man and woman’s disobedience. God approaches and then has specific words to them; but the immediate cursing that God voices is directed onto Satan and then secondarily God places a curse on the ground like a lightning bolt which bypasses the humans.

The ancient Hebrew word, arar, means “to hem in with obstacles” “to bind” and that consequence is what sticks presently on Satan and also on our earthly ground. We live in a cursed reality, with a cursed supernatural enemy, though we ourselves are not cursed! Lesser beings may aim to curse you, but God has not yet made pronouncement on you. The time He gives each therefore is potentially restitutional. Only God has the moral purity, perfect vision and the cosmic authority to make any claim over one’s soul. But God waits. His self-description is that He is “slow to anger”, but then He has “eyes like fire“.

So, this is important to know going forward for any who might be wrestling with a God-sized heaviness. He waits in mercy. He waits on us. But the prophets were clear with one unified voice that one day God will deal. The wise ask then, how does anyone operate meaningfully in such a damaged reality now? Blaming Satan, blaming the earth, blaming others is not our business and only a wasteful distraction. A Psalm writer makes a counter exclamation before God in this tension of wonder: “what is man that You, God, are mindful of Him?”

Here’s a visual example of taking a quiet and responsive stand midst broken territory. I made this mixed media piece some years ago. It now belongs in a private collection in Nashville. The layered-in pages of text form a silent arc over the head of a lone figure, which I collaged onto the panel, and then painted over into a ground. Field rows are a symbol to me of the work we have yet to finish; and the recession of fields toward a far horizon has long fascinated me as a symbol of time, a coming destination and perspective until that day of completion.

This figure pauses midst the work of cultivating. Is he anticipating? Is he weary? What is he looking at if not the work itself? There is some kind of work going on inside him; and that is his business. Thorns and tangles are represented here, but they are only context. The thorns are not the point. The silent pregnant gaze of the un-cursed farmer is the point.

among the lampstands

Today I am highlighting this ink monotype, which I pulled onto homemade paper several years ago. I have it in my “icons” collection on this website because the image, and the idea behind it, serve as a simple reminder into a most auspicious visitation: Jesus. He spoke urgently and at length about things to come in the book of Revelation, the very last book in the Bible. The Greek word in the first sentence is apokalupsis, which means “the disclosure” or literally “to take off the cover” “the appearing of Jesus Christ” as the sentence and then entire book continues.

Most people I know are afraid of this book. It is daunting, no question. But there is much that is beautiful in how Jesus prepares any willing reader to understand, to even be blessed and to be prepared. It is clear in the 1^st chapter that Jesus, “the alpha and the omega” “the living One” “who holds the keys” is the giver of the words that his last remaining disciple scribes. John sees and details Jesus as He now is, with the cover off.

Jesus walks among the churches, in the beginning chapters with knowledge, with “eyes of fire” and gives them words: some of comfort, much of challenge with very specified warnings.

The 7 lampstands, as depicted in my image, were historical churches, each different, some are soon to loose their standing (and did). Jesus knew and He gives direction before all hell breaks loose, for any who would simply take heed. In aiming to understand better these churches and the particular warnings given them, I recently did a series of 7 paintings that correspond, attempting to simplify and to symbolize what I read in chapters 2 and 3. My collection of paintings will be opened tonight at a local arts center. You can see a preview here. My hope is that any viewer of the work will find themselves curious enough to look into the words that have moved me for themselves. Jesus spoke, John wrote and I painted so that some would have the willingness to pay attention.

Listen to how the old man John was moved. Here is his dedication in the 1^st chapter: “to Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood.” John died holding onto this dedication.

Even if you consider this just ancient literature, can you give me one good reason why you would hide in ignorance from such a diligent last accounting?