Arrow Saber Art

The miniature pictured is one of my latest creations (imported into a stock frame for imaging for now). It is made with an Arrow Saber, that is – an arrow made into a saber, like used in fencing. The project took many different turns and actually started in a blue which, in and of itself, is my favorite part:

Then, it took a few turns, like these:

Even the drop cloths, later on, provided some fun for fractals:

This is the first of many, God-willing and the creek don’t rise.

Straight lines, no lines, an amorphous glob of, well, it’s just going to be fun. I can only imagine what’s in store and think, with utter humility, what God feels like, every moment, as His continuing creation unfolds in all its mysteries, splendors, and newness.

Creation Spark

God’s the creator. Do something to honor him today by taking the creative instinct in you and, at the very least, doodle something; draw something; brush a splotch or splash or dash of something; take a picture; or, just watch the stars shine through blurred lenses after spinning in a circle. God will love this and rejoice in your joy!

Why am I being perfected?

As a Christian I am determined by none other than God to be perfected. But to what ultimate purpose am I being perfected?

I snapped the picture above the other day and thought, “This is not what I would consider a perfect picture.” Yet, there also came an accompanying thought – “What if, at the moment I took that picture, someone had been there that was blind for their entire life. Maybe that person was decades old and had been blind from birth.” You know what? To them, that might be the most amazing picture of the sun they had ever seen in their life, even if they had imagined other ones.

You may never know just when you might shed a different light onto something that, for a lifetime, might have challenged someone else; yet, your insight might just be the one that caused an epiphany for them.

I cannot argue that God did not have all this in mind the moment he created us. I believe he truly does have the whole world in his hands and is active and alive in doing so – not as some might think, absent and afar.

Why am I being perfected? As any great Creator (and being THE GREAT I AM THAT HE IS), God has created us as sacred, protected notes on a great symphony of life, eternal, which none of us could ever have dreamt up otherwise. The up and down beats and rhyme and reason, we cannot understand. We simply must trust in his enterprise – even if, in blindness, we flounder for understanding. He has given us His Word, the Holy Bible; through which we can seek better understanding of just how it is he can be in every moment of our lives – by simply opening the pages and realizing them to be a living testament, the lamp unto our feet, the light in our lives.

To consider myself fortunate enough to be a part of his plans; and, that by his only begotten Son, I am saved from sin and death, is to believe in the impossible and improbable; yet, inextricably, something which is entirely imaginable, if only we choose to believe.

I hope you do. I hope you think you are a part of something so much more beyond this world than what this world has to offer. I hope so – for, to be a part of a great symphony is one thing; to be so, for all eternity, now that’s truly something to look forward to!

Why am I being perfected? I am being perfected to be in CONCERT with God. In this world and the next, that equals the best jam session I can imagine. If this defines me as marching to a different drummer, SO WHAT!

To march with God is to march with a majority, along with all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, we’ll just keep a marching along!

“Upon this rock…” Matthew 16: 13-18

“13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

I stumbled upon the rock pictured while hiking and was taken by its look. I wondered, “There are those that would say this rock is the result of 13 billion or so years of natural evolution. They are entitled to their opinion and I respect them wholeheartedly for their faith in the matter. I choose, rather, to believe that nothing so amazing as this rock could have been made other than by the hands of a divine maker – and not one who just set a clock to ticking and left, as some divine watchmaker.

No, the Lord Jesus Christ who, as the chief cornerstone of the church was laid bare then risen by God was in no way absent from his Creation, ever. Even dying for our sins, God the Father in the Trinity oversaw Jesus’ resurrection and, upon Jesus’ ascension to Heaven, sent the Holy Spirit.

We have never been alone and as I walked by the rock pictured; nor was I. It caused me to reflect on just how glorious the Lord and all his creation is.