Pure Joy...When I Grow Up

One of my favorite lines, one that fits me personally is from a Michael Franks song: "In the Yellow House," the opening line: "No one knows the joy, when you create, by definition, something out of nothing..." What one does not comprehend, until you contemplate your life from another vantage point, is the unique shape and form of it. Aspects of your character, likes and dislikes, and the individual parts that fit and do not; they are all part of a whole.

I'm still growing. Each day is an opportunity to shape and reshape my life to be what I and God desire it to be. There are many expressions and points by which I connect with this world, but the longer I live, the more I realize I don't fit into the 'average American' mold. I labor at software testing, I'm a parent and husband, but there is a vital part of me that remains formless and nearly untapped.

"No one knows the joy, when you create, by definition, something out of nothing..." Another world exists in the moments I spend with a paintbrush in hand, in front of a canvas. When I sit with pencil poised above paper, I'm at my highest joy and it does not require chemical stimulation or have terrible 'after-effects.' When I grow up, I want this aspect of living to fill my days and the joy to be known to all. My Pure Joy...when I create...

A Moment...

A snippet from Portrait of the Artist Gaining insight

The following is an excerpt from a poem written a few years ago, called "A Moment..." For the most part, we live our best lives, in the moment. God's peace rest on you, this moment:

 

A pleasant dream

With a cozy ending

Followed by a gentle stirring

As you awake to a sunny day

You stretch

Smile

Full of energy from your mind’s movie

But as your feet touch the floor

The haunting of the same old grind

The car that won’t start

The….

And the….

Plus the…

Send that dream down the drain

Taking with it the joy you felt

A moment

Passes in a minute

Some are lost

‘Cause we are looking in the wrong place

Others

Get called up to remind us

Caution us

Warm our hearts

Or stop our tracks

And somehow

Someway

They are lost

Brushed away like pesky flies

When we choose to focus on

The here and now

The “never will be”

And the lost happenstance

His Words (Eddie Hudson): The Potency of...The Blank Page

His Words (Eddie Hudson): The Potency of...The Blank Page

The Potency of...The Blank Page

I sit,

Watching the blank page

And its vast starkness tell stories.

Images take shape

Men fight their way through battles,

Swords slashing and hacking

Women love deeply

And embrace

As though giving away breath from their lungs.

In this ‘emptiness’ there are words

Some spoken below a whisper

Yet their power is felt by the soul

Stories pour from a space that seems to contain nothing

Yet there is so much there

It can be misunderstood or misread as writer’s block, or Artist’s cramp.

Yet it is there,

Dancing,

Active,

Waiting for you to peel back the white and reveal the flesh beneath.

Take an adventure with me as we push past the mundanity of our lives,

Let’s go where children are purposely conceived and planned for,

A place where a walk through meadows green is a journey to discover secrets.

Let’s go to a place where one’s name is rarely told because words are powerful and revealing a name is akin to revealing one’s soul.

Leave the land where pages are for numbers and the reporting of what we know already.

Mount your imaginations and let’s go!

Mindfulness...or something else

Sometimes, most times...it simply flows. There is no concept or preconceived notion. Though it seems to begin with a line on paper or brush stroke on canvas, really the 'idea' begins in my head.

There is a flow of consciousness, from one piece to another. Though they may seem to separate, they are all a part of a whole, a life of sharing my vision.

Being Me...

"Soft" and "Firm"
Pillows behind my head
An elbow
Bicep
And
Forearm
Shape behind my head and shoulder
Practice
And Age
Determine my comfort
Comfort
And experience
My steps guide
Learning
An exercise
To my practiced wings
Flying further up
Where winds rule
Where the weak are tossed down
Didn't know this was my life
Covered over with dust and despair
But the King's heart beat
Beneath my cross section of bones
Beat a rhythm
"Live"
"Be"
So as cobwebs dust my head and face
I stretch my arms
Up where youth
And age
Play like brothers
growing
Gathering
Being...me

It's Where I am...Not Where I'm Going

Progress, as it is measured in relation to our hopes and plans, can come to a grinding halt. Paint sits on the palette, getting hard and useless. And in the process, the mental effect also gums up the process of completion. But it's not the end.

So often, despair seems to cry louder than the joy of the journey. It's Sunday morning, that quiet place between the end of one week and the beginning of another. That place where, like a pause in between notes, I consider where I am, where I've been and where I wish to go. Like a pen or paint brush poised for what seems like an eternity, I sit, writing, while dreams and hopes rush forward. And yet, even in rest, I'm moving forward; going on with my destination in mind...