Thoughts About Thinking

 In your heart, 

keep one still, secret spot

 where dreams may go and sheltered so

 may thrive and grow.

~Louise Driscoll

I've been thinking a lot lately . . . about thinking. About how the noise of our lives can inhibit deep thoughts and the processing of the circumstances in our lives. How it is so easy to hear or read an opinion online and give agreement to it, or not, without even pausing to think about it. "What are they really saying? Do I agree with some parts and not others? Or do I swallow it whole? Throw the baby out with the bathwater?"

How my own creatives gifts can be stifled if I fail to carve out some time to just be still and think. Sometimes, when my thinker gets stuck on a certain issue that I just can't seem to find the answer to, a single distraction such as going for a walk or working on a puzzle will allow the very idea I was waiting for to come out of hiding. I am convinced that there are answers to be found, ideas to surface and dreams to be birthed that can present themselves only when all external voices are silenced.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding 
except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

A great, present-day thinker that I really admire, Lance Wallnau, related this week in a Facebook post that he often has people ask if they can purchase his notebooks. The answer is no. "They are the blank canvas upon which I capture and refine ideas from all types of sources."  In the same post he mentions that the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison, filled over 3500 notebooks with his thoughts and ideas over the course of his lifetime. The take-away here, for me, is the importance of recording those thoughts and ideas.

In the midst of a noisy family gathering with brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles and cousins, this little miss in the photo above was able to tune out all the noise, all the voices and give herself fully to the project at hand. You can almost see the wheels turning in her mind, so focused she is.  I wish I was more like her, but as I am not, I will endeavor to cultivate an atmosphere conducive to generating ideas and solutions that answer the need of the moment.

Think left and think right and think low and think high.
 Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try.
~Dr. Suess

Linking with Photo Art Thursday

How Do You Fly?

It's impossible to explain creativity.

 It's like asking a bird, "How do you fly"

You just do. 

~ Eric Jerome Dickey

Nothing too heavy or deep to share today . . . just the fruit of a couple hours retreat from busyness and the cares of this life to play with photos and see what develops. These few hours have been like "still waters and green pastures" to me where my soul is restored and things that trouble me just settle into a place of peace and trust that He has the whole world in His capable hands.

 " Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they? "

Matthew 5: 25,26

The collage below includes all of the photos and textures used to create the image above. Linking with Photo Art Thursday.

Waiting for the Beautiful

There are days in your journey when it is very hard to find the beauty in the broken, the message in the mess. My own words do not suffice so I go to His . . .

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence and a time to speak; 

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

. . . He makes everything beautiful in its time.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8,11

Photo Art Thursday

The Way I See Things

It's been one of those weeks . . . the kind you pray are few and far between. The details are not for sharing but the feelings come out as I play with my photos.  From the pool of words said and emotions expressed and beliefs exposed can beauty and truth and healing come forth?

Oh, yes it can . . . I know it can.

There are layers of beauty to be extracted, dreams of destiny fulfilled to be unraveled from deep disappointments and hope to be rekindled that dear ones embrace the good plans He has for them.

I can sit in the mystery of how things will unfold, 

trusting the heady aroma of grace will be poured out.

The blue-green abstract piece is composed of the two images on the left, which were then given a watercolour treatment and layered together with an assortment of textures and treatments in a variety of blend modes and percentages. Linking to Photo Art Thursday.

Letting Go

In this post I combine two quotes and a piece of photo art to preach a simple sermon to myself. It's what's happening anyways so I figure it can only help to solidify the message.  It might just encourage you too.

      "I realize there's something incredibly honest about trees in winter; how they're experts in letting things go." ~ Jeffrey McDaniel 

"Trust God.  

He simply wants to take you from good to better

 and from better to best.

Every. Single. Time."

~Stacey L. Sanchez

Linking with Cherie at the Froelich Diaries for Photo Art Thursday

Prisoners of Hope

Well after a long season of silence on this site, I have something to say . . .

I was so sad when Bonnie shut down the Photo Art Friday gallery over at Pixel Dust Photo Art and have hardly posted anything in the last many months.  One of the many artists who regularly shared their photo art at Bonnie's was a lovely lady name Cherie Froelich and this week I got an email inviting me to join her as she picks up the torch and hosts her own Photo Art Thursday link-up.

It was kind of short notice but I had just been working on a piece inspired by Pastor Sam's sermon this past Sunday and am delighted to share it with you all.

It has been quite some time that I have struggled with various issues one after the other, that always felt like I had to let go of one more thing that was now too difficult to do. The challenge to repeatedly adjust to new circumstances and yet remain hopeful was ever before me. Gradually things have shifted . . . mobility increasing, doors opening, confidence growing, creative juices flowing again.

I am so grateful for all that is being restored to me.

"Shout and cheer, Daughter Zion! Raise the roof, Daughter Jerusalem!

Your king is coming! A good king who makes all things right, a humble king . . .

And you, because of My blood covenant with you, I'll release your prisoners from their hopeless cells.

 Come home, hope-filled prisoners! 

This very day I'm declaring a double bonus, everything you lost returned twice-over."

Zechariah 9:9,12 (The Message Bible)

WP - Hope for a Tree

"For there is hope for a tree . . . 

. . . if it is cut down,  

. . . that it will sprout again and that its tender shoots will not cease.

Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground . . .

. . . yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant."  Job 14:7-9

Where then is my hope? Job 17:15

Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy. Psalm 33:18

O Israel, hope in the LORD; for with the LORD there is mercy,
 and with Him is abundant redemption.  Psalm 130:7

For in You, O LORD, I hope; You will hear, O LORD my God.  Psalm 38:15

This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.  Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not, they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.  "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I hope in Him!"  The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.  It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

Lamentations 3:21-26

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13


Blessed be the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope . . . 1 Peter 1:3

.... rest your hope fully on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 
1 Peter 1:13

And you would be secure, because there is hope . . . Job 11:18a