Match Your Mountain

"Ruth Mountain, Cascade Range"

(Small gouache study)

  Bring me men to match my mountains;
    Bring me men to match my plains, --
    Men with empires in their purpose,
    And new eras in their brains.
    Bring me men to match my praries,
    Men to match my inland seas,
    Men whose thought shall pave a highway
    Up to ampler destinies;

                                 ---Sam Walter Foss.

This piece of poetry comes from a larger poem Sam Walter Foss wrote called "The Coming American". It was a stirring description of America on the cusp of the frontier expansion westward.  The truth is that we all experience mountains in our lives that demand everything we've got and more.  It's "the more" part that can really cave us in.  The daunting challenges in our lives expose where our inadequacies exist. The gap between where we currently are and where we need to go can paralyze us into inaction or giving up.  But no great feat is ever attained except by going through the difficulties and incorporating them into the process of attaining a mountain's summit.  A statement by Brendan Case helps us to see this truth:

"The challenges that lie in our path

do not only block our way;

by resisting us,

they give us the traction we need

to move forward."

I love that old Aesop's Fable about the tortoise and the hare.  Who won the race in the end?  Yes, the tortoise!  How?  By staying in the race and not quitting.... one step at a time!  Slow and steady wins the race.  And that is how you match your mountain....step by step by step.  Thankfully we can have the Creator of the universe at our side, giving us strength, building our endurance, and providing the grace to be all we need to be in every step of the way.  He is the Maker of the mountains! Jesus Christ provides us with a most beautiful example of overcoming by His death on the cross and resurrection. We can follow His example of finishing what He came to do in dealing with the mountains in our lives.  

I love mountains and have enjoyed hiking to some of the great 14,000 plus ft. giants in America. Here's a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox to encourage you to match your mountain:

With Every Rising of the Sun

With every rising of the sun

Think of your life as just begun.

The past has shrived and buried deep

All yesterdays---there let them sleep....

Concern yourself with but today,

Woo it and teach it to obey,

Your wish and will.  Since time began

Today has been the friend of man....

You and today!  a soul sublime

And the great pregnant hour of time.

With God between to bind the twain---

Go forth I say----attain----attain.

Live bravely and beautifully!

Above the Starry Canopy

(Small gouache study)

"...above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving father.
Do you fall in worship, you millions?
World, do you know your creator?
Seek Him in the heavens;
Above the stars must he dwell."

---Friedrich Schiller
(1759 - 1805)
From 'Ode to Joy"

(These were the lyrics that Beethoven set to music in his Ninth Symphony.)

If you had seen my idea for what this painting started out as, you would be amazed at the opposite direction I traveled to come up with this idea of a night scene. There is a reason for the concept of a night scene.  I had made a mistake.  A big one.  I started out painting a still life of a vase full of  bright yellow forsythia.  For the underpainting, half of this picture was ORANGE!  The other half was a light cerulean blue.  Hard to imagine now, eh?!  The more I worked on that first idea of a still life, the more downhill things went until I disgustedly acknowledged that I'd just have to throw it out.  Sometimes our best efforts come to nothing.

But wait!!  Wait a moment!  After the mess laid on my desk for a few days, I thought of a way to redeem it.  And VOILA!  This dark night sky scene emerged.  The dark blue totally covered up the bright orange and so a night landscape of Mt. Baker in the Northwest Cascades became the focus.  

Redemption is a wonderful reality for our lives.  It is what God is in the business of doing with the messiness of our choices, failures, and shortcomings.  Hope becomes a part of our daily experience when the Creator of the Universe is working away in us, empowering us to become what we should be and were meant to be.  Making us a new creation...for His glory!

I love this little poem of Emily Dickinson's:

" 'Hope' is the thing with feathers---

That perches in the soul--

And sings the tune without the words---

And never stops---at all---

And sweetest---in the Gale---is heard---

And sore must be the storm---

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm---

I've heard it in the chillest land---

And on the strangest Sea---

Yet, never, in Extremity,

It asked a crumb---of Me.

Live bravely and beautifully!

Something Absolutely Unimaginable!

"Jesus on the Cross"

Oil on canvas

Rembrandt

Great events in history demand great art to highlight those events. No greater event in history has ever occurred than the birth,death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God. We mark our keeping of the years with B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini) meaning 'in the year of the Lord'.  

Lots of well-meaning folk have concluded that Jesus Christ was just a good person who led an exemplary life.  But He did not leave us that option to consider.  As C.S. Lewis wrote: 

"This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse."

"We believe that the death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world."

If you look around at our world or listen to what's on the news, you can quickly conclude that we are in a mess.  More than that, look within your own soul and you know your own darkness there.  Jesus Christ became fully one of us to pay the penalty for our rebellion against God.  He lived here on this earth experiencing all that humanity suffers, and He willingly took God's wrath against our rebellion.  Because He did all that without sin, He could be the perfect sacrifice in our place.  Joan Osborne sang a song in the 1990's that spent some thought in the possibilities of Jesus becoming one of us in her song of that title...One of Us:

Jesus did come in human form.  He walked this earth and lived among us.  He came to offer a path of peace between human beings and God.  He did this because God wants us to take the opportunity to choose of our own volition to love Him.  The next time God comes, it will be with a different purpose.  Again, as C.S. Lewis writes in his book Mere Christianity:

"God is going to invade , all right:  but what is the good of saying you are on His side then,

when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else---

something it never entered your head to conceive---

comes crashing in;

something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left:

For this time it will be God without disguise;

something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love 

or

irresistible horror into every creature.

It will be too late then to choose your side...

That will not be the time for choosing:

it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not.

Now,

today,

this moment,

is our chance to choose the right side.

God is holding back to give us that chance.  

It will not last forever. 

We must take it or leave it."

The Descent from the Cross

Rembrandt

May you enjoy fully all the benefits of this Easter culminating in the joyous celebration of Jesus' resurrection from the dead on Sunday morning!

Live bravely and beautifully!

Time's Pecking Order

(from my nature journal)

If you've ever been around chickens, you soon come to realize that there is a pecking order or hierarchy established among these barnyard fowl.  The most dominant hens who have successfully bullied their way to prominence peck at weaker hens, sometimes pecking out feathers and leaving bare patches on the less fortunate poultry.  The aggressive hens obviously carry their weight in the chicken coop!

Just as farm hens establish a priority of importance in the barnyard, so must we with our use of time if we desire to stay in forward motion with our lives.  The time we have on earth is a gift...every moment matters.  Our stewardship of how we spend our days will come under scrutiny.  Establishing what is most important in our life overall will help us to determine what needs to be given priority in our every day.  Golda Meir, former prime minister of Israel, stated this:  "I must govern the clock, not be governed by it."  In this digital age where so much of our time seems to be siphoned off on what matters for the moment but not the big picture, this is quite a feat for most of us to stay on course.

Here's a few thoughtful quotes to empower you to stay the course, like an Olympic athlete focused on the finish line:

"Without discipline, there's no life at all."

                                                        ---Katharine Hepburn

"Live a life of intention and purpose.  Ask yourself, 'What can I contribute to this day?' "

                                                        ---Todd Henry

"The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine."

                                                        ---Mike Murdock

Even with the best-laid plans, reality often careens across our schedules with demands beyond our control.  But if we develop a habit of "getting back in the saddle" after such events, we will find ourselves advancing towards our goals.  Remember Aesop's famous fable about the rabbit and the turtle....slow and steady wins the race.  Persistence!  Rory Vaden encourages us with this:  "Focus on progress, not perfection.  All success is messy.  It is never a perfect plan.  Cultivate the habit action by demanding progress."  

  

Enjoy some interesting facts about pecking order among chickens on this Youtube video:

Live bravely and beautifully!