FEELING FACES

C. SHOWING HIS WORK

     Working with a large group of children on Friday afternoons, I have made some lovely friends and found tremendous delight in watching them grow as "little people who LOVE to create".

      We use large pieces of newsprint to do most of our work.  The children spread out all over the room....on table and floor.  We use watercolors, pencils, sharpie pens and sometimes a special gold or silver marker.  We listen to music.  We talk and think, wonder and discuss w h i l e we work.

      On Friday, December 21st, we painted 12 faces with different expressions....mad, sleepy, calm, worried, happy and others.   I asked the kids to think about the ways our mouth and eyes change as we emote.  We found that our eyebrows were very important to express the feeling we were depicting.

      The drawings were really fun.   The creative energy was really high.....and the finished product was very pleasing to almost all.  

The P O W E R of Observation

........When we look closely at something during our art class we try to pretend that we are looking at it for the very first time.  We try to forget what we thought we knew about the thing, and then begin to LOOK at it like we would if we had pulled it from a "Time Capsule".
        We have practiced this technique over and over with insects, seed pods, flowers, and birds.  One day this Fall, I wanted to try the technique with an OREO.   THE KIDS WERE THRILLED!  Every child received one oreo cookie to observe, to hold in their own hands, to render with a sparpie pen and contour lines, and then to eat.  We took twenty minutes to look and sketch.....then we took twenty more minutes to LOOK AGAIN.....noting the details that perhaps we had passed over.  When most of the children told me they were "done" I noticed that they had not done their most precise work and I asked them why they felt the need to hurry......the answer was obviously that they could not wait to eat the cookie.  
       

      "Ramona, I would like it if you w a l k e d   q u i e t l y," said Miss Binney.

     

       "I am the littlest Billy Goat Gruff," explained Ramona.  "I have to trip-trap."

 

       "You may trip-trap when we go outdoors."   Miss Binney's voice was firm.  "You may

      

        not trip-trap in the classroom."

             At playtime the whole class turned into Billy Goats Gruff and trip-trapped around the playground, but none so joyously or so noisily as Ramona.  The gathering clouds, Ramona noticed, were dark and threatening.

             Sure enough, that evening rain began to fall, and all night long it beat against the south side of the Quimby's house.   The next morning Ramona, in her boots and raincoat, was out long before Howie arrived to walk to school with her.  She waded through the wet lawn, and her boots became even shinier when they were wet.  She stamped in all the little puddles on the driveway.  She stood in the gutter and let muddy water run over the toes of her beautiful new boots.  She gathered wet leaves to dam the gutters so she could stand in deeper water.......

Dear Mr. Rogers

listen.......this quote is quietly stated.....but the ramifications are enormous, as some of us know.     "Please think of the children first.  If you ever have anything to do with their entertainment, their food, their toys, their custody,  their day or night care, their health care, their education....listen to the children, learn about them, learn from them.  Think of the children first."          Fred Rogers

The Necessity

As a human I find, I truly NEED sleep.
As a gardener I understand, my hands will get dirty.
As a member of a family, I know I must think  r e l a t i o n a l l y.
As an artist I am constantly compelled to create.
As one who adores children, and their development,  I spend long hours observing.
As a casual ornithologist, mycologist, and entemologist, I must get out of doors.
As a wife whose marriage has dissolved, I must have courage outside many camps.

As an o v e r c o m e r.....I must have TIME ALONE.   This is not only a reasonable ambition, it is imperative for any of  the roles listed above to remain healthy, whole, dynamic in the sense of evolving to greater places of UNDERSTANDING.
One of my dearest friends has no idea I exist.  Infact, we have never met.  She died recently, but left me a legacy of W OR D S that live on in my soul.   She stated once,
       "The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone."

But she did.......and I continue to see how clearly I do.

These are her words:  ".....But if one says:  I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.  What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it-- like a secret vice!"

Anne Morrow Lindbergh knew the secret of "living from a core of inner stillness while actively responding, as we all must do, to the 'here and now'.  She quietly set herself free, into her own life and into all life."

Musing on these things......while I am alone.

Reading THE MESSAGE

I sat today for several hours reading.  Going through Galatians.....slowly, with broken boldness, to get my heart around the freedom that IS MINE IN CHRIST.  Wanting it more than a meal, or a cruise, or a precious jewel....

Reading these words in The Message version because the book was on the table next to the chair, and I am a visitor here free to take up interesting books on the coffee table.  I am also a visitor to this version of scripture....but after today, I would like to be at home here with this book.  Listen to the word of Galatians 5: 16 - 26.......
Paul says, "My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit.  Then you won't feel the compulsions of selfishness.  For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness.  These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.  Why don't you chose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap-sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage;  frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid lonliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied-wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or to be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lop-sided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing every one into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.  I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know.  If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way?  He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an  orchard - things like affection for others,  exuberance about life, serenity.  We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart,  and a conviction that a basic  holiness permeates things and people.  We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,  not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.  Among those who belong to christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off  for good......crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.   that means we will not compare ourselves with each other  as if one of us were better and another worse.  We have far more interesting things to do with our lives.  Each of us is an original."