… watching for the brushstrokes of God
I came across a reference to the early Velazquez palette named after the Spanish painter who used it frequently. For the primary colors of yellow, red and blue he apparently used Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber and black (or Payne’s Grey here).
What kind of playfulness does this call for? How deep do you have to dig within?
“…going down into the deep pain of another is like jumping into a bottomless abyss – not knowing if or where one will land. To grasp another’s pain means letting go of our own safety limb and falling down to an unknown place. In this place we maybe won’t have the answers that will help alleviate the pain or explain it. We have to be willing to admit, then and there, down in the pit, that we too are helpless and weak and powerless. And who wants to do that, or be there?” Henri Nouwen
How are you called to presence with?
“It takes courage to set sail in a new direction of life. Our minds to venture in catching winds of time and change. And the sun rising with a fresh perspective.” Linda J. Wolff
What new direction asks for your courage?
Do not hurry. as you walk with grief; it does not help the journey.
Walk slowly. pausing often: do not hurry as you walk with grief. …
Take time, be gentle as you walk with grief. From Northumbria Prayerbook
In these months of covid the big and small losses add up. What are you grieving?
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do. Mary Oliver
What does it take to be dazzled?
“Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.” John O’Donahue
How do you open the well of color?
With the Eyes of the Heart 