beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Hello my leetle friends!

So, I'm heading up to the studio to draw or paint-- to somehow get into the groove of my senior project, and I thought of you guys. Am I procrastinating? Maybe. I'm never stuck for stuff to say, and the challenge with beginning a new project is figuring out how to let it come to you, how to let it occur to you, how to sort of BE inspired...without it sounding contrived. Anyway, so I started thinking about body parts and mixing up the jobs of the body parts, and wondering-- do we ever listen with anything other than our ears? We definitely listen with our hearts, we use our minds there, too--- do we ever listen with our hands? Do we ever listen with our eyes? And if we do, how would I paint that?

Why would I paint that?

What would you paint? Which senses do you think would be interesting mixed up?

In about an hour and a half, I'm off to my astronomy lab, and I am fully prepared to be awestruck again, as always, with the perfect creativity of my Father, and I wonder what He will say to me there-- and will I listen with my eyes, to hear what He has to say through the arrangement of the galaxies? The perfect math of the rising and setting and shifting and moving planets, and the way we see the stars? Who knew math could be so moving? That it could be a measurement of proof that He holds the expanse of the universe in the palm of His hand...

I want to walk in holiness, in such a way that I will never for a moment be cut off from His felt presence, always available to hear that most amazing thing He will say-- never for a second too heart-hard to see something beautiful. I'm out of line way too often, too worried or too irritated or too easily hurt. I want to listen to the soothing waves of grace and mercy He would sweep over me: to forgive as He forgives, to walk in the peace He walks in...to walk with Him and let His artist's eyes speak to my hands and let me get all mixed up in His beauty.

Then I will know what to paint.

I love you guys--
Sam