sparking imagination
This is an oil painting with soundscape by Mark R. Turner. The painting, 35″x35″, was done in Brussels, Belgium, in 1979 and inspired Mark to write a poem 28 years later, 2007, in the mountain community of Julian, California. As … Continued
I am thankful for the season of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany bringing the profound largess of Love close to my whole being. Gradually I am awakening to the reality that God is not a separate being aloof and impersonal, but, … Continued
When we look at a painting on the wall, or a sculpture in a park, we are looking at a physical manifestation of the artist. In a sense the artist is present because they deposited some of themselves into the … Continued
. . . even if race had not been invented as a way of eliminating competition, our view would still be that the emphasis on devoting one’s life to material gain is an incomplete view of humanity.
Sometimes, when saturated with national and global news, we tend to focus on that larger picture and neglect our main responsibility on the microlevel of our personal relationships and local community.
Voting and demonstrating about the larger issues are good and important community responsibilities, but most of our effectiveness is in the place where we live.
If you know the story of Peter walking on the water, you have a capsule full of insights into reality.
At this writing I have been living with the pain of a gout attack for about a week. As all who live with pain will say, “You don’t know what I feel unless you’ve been there.” Of course we all … Continued
I’m reading Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man (1955) in which he describes life transforming to more and more complexity and shows that life continues to grow beyond the outward form. As a prominent paleontologist and naturalist as well as Jesuit priest he believed life sciences should explore not only the outer forms – the skeletons that remain, the physical effects, the material world – but include the “within” – the imagination, consciousness, the spiritual.
Each of us can choose how far we will go as creators, which I believe is a collaboration with God. One source of clues for this belief is the ancient affirmations of Jesus spoken to a crowd on a hillside of Judea.
It is well known that affirming one’s children is key to their future success. But all parents work within limits based on their own parents’ limited ability to love and affirm. Even when we try to be affirming, our children … Continued
