Turning 50. Feeding the Hungry.

I am now 50 and it does do something to one's being. I am doing some big things to celebrate that has kept me from blogging. One is a private gig. The other is a very public campaign to help feed the hungry by raising money for Manna On Main Street. Details are here.

I am drawing cards and offering coupons to those who give at least 21 dollars. Any help by giving to or sharing of the cause would be appreciated. Here are the first three thank you doodles ~>

 

Hope ~ found at the top of a sunflower

 

Becky Eldredge, the person who inspired the sunflower

I do not need 1000's of more followers, what I need to do is make wonderful connections with a few of the ones I have on twitter. Becky Eldredge seemed like a fine person to get connected with. I had fanned her page on Facebook, followed her on Twitter, and read her thoughts at her website.

Then one day she sent out a tweet asking for prayer requests. I asked for some directed towards my students. She asked about my job. A connection had been made. Yes, it is across state lines and we may never meet, but I will keep an eye out for chances. My hope is that she leads a retreat at the Jesuit Center. She does things like that. My hope is that I will one day read the book she is writing.

Yes, it is ours. She recently wrote to me responding to the word collaboration. She mentioned synergy. People saw this as one of MY best pieces, but truth be told, it would not be in this world without Becky.

First ~ she desired a piece of art celebrating sunflowers

Second ~ she shared some photos she had taken of sunflowers and when I fell in love with a flower emerging into fullness... we realized that we both love the word, unfolding

Third ~ she wrote to me about why sunflowers are important to her.

Fourth ~ she agreed with me that the design should emerge while I was on a retreat and patiently waited for that retreat to come along. I took Becky's photo and words on that retreat.

If it is one of my best pieces, it is because of the spiritual connection between plant and human, which led to this photo.

Thanks, for helping me to be a better artist.

 

The Sunflower Commission ~ watching a glass flower emerge

That is on its second day in low light, high light is at the bottom...

finding the greens, by the end 7 types if glass were called upon...

adding the petals, looking yellow but actually yellow-orange...

Needing something special for the center, orange, amber, green all in one piece, took me to my stash of Youghiogheny...

foiling a sunflower...

Into the light ...

 

The Sunflower Commission is about to unfold

A few weeks ago I put out a cry for help. I was packing for a time at the Jesuit Center. It wasn't the choice of clothes or mug (that is for Michelle) that was causing me angst. It was the intensity of the commissions, which I was hoping to design.

The client, who hoped to bring peace to grieving parents, came by for the mandala he commissioned. The blue behind the symbol of the lost child caught his eye. May it truly bring peace.

Margaret has grouted the Celtic Tree wedding present. I think we did something amazing together and may it be a blessing to the two lives that will unfold together.

And now the sunflower. I first tried to hand the commission to Margaret, who has made mandalas inspired by the colors of various sunflowers. But as you can see the client wrote, "made by your hand," and then went on to share her connections. I took that note with me and read it prior to designing the suncather with the hope that I could capture what clearly is her totem plant.

The post card was sent to the Jesuit Center by Michelle. It came late, but it showed up here in Lansdale. Jesuits are kind that way (I owe the man a thank you). Michelle's card is in my studio as a reminder of all those who prayed for me.

My client also digs Jesuits and she believes our lives unfold like a sunflower. This is no typical sunflower. It is like us. Beautiful, but only emerging into our full splendor.

Three commissions that awed me. That took me to the hope that I could create them in the midst of prayer.

 

Unfolding Outward From a Quercus Alba ~ the interconnections of a Pennsylvania forest

Every year we are asked to place something on a table and/or wall to celebrate learning in our classroom. So last week, my students entered my room to see Quercus alba written in the center of a large piece of paper. I told them I had an idea. I told them it wasn't that clear.

And so it happened. We discovered the ecology of a forest in Pennsylvania.

I said ~ Tell me organisms that connect with White Oaks.

They began to tell me things ~ Humans, and many others eat the acorns. Gypsy Moths eat their leaves. Great Blue Herons nest in them. And the forest unfolded.

What shelters? What eats? What parasitizes? What competes?

I would say ~ choose this or that organism? Find me five connections.

If they told me something general like, frogs, then In most cases I would tell them to find me one living in Pennsylvania. If I wanted a connection between two organisms, I told them to search one out. We discovered new organisms and strange connectors.

I need to do this again.

 

How do you wake? Elling sings Roethke

Jj

here is to waking up

Packing For Silence Revisited

Wernerville Cross
by Wayne Stratz
Hangs at the Jesuit Center

As I mentioned in my last blog post, a blog post mentioning a mug brought me into the world of the RevGals

I just read that post to see if the items remain the same. It has for the most part. The pool stick is not huge these days as I trust to find a functional one at the Jesuit Center. Port has been replaced at times with ales and there was the one retreat I took a bottle of Absinthe.

At home when faced with the desire to cut glass I rarely drink. By the end of a silent day... a beverage while chatting with God through an examen makes sense.

My habit of drawing cards for others at the retreat center and of drawing future glass designs means once again I will be packing up a bit of my studio.

You never know how it will go, but I still have Michelle's post about playing with the psalms in my head. Random psalm prayers may be the way to go. But the object is not to force an agenda on the retreat.  No different than forcing a lesson plan onto my students,  It will unfold and all I ask is to unfold with it.

7 Thoughts on the Word, Moment

• I have been revisiting the music of Victoria Williams while spending moments in my studio, one song in particular has been resonating:  "This moment will never come again, I know it because it has never come before..."

• Today is Mosaic Woman's birthday, along with my father-in-law's, along with three of my friends.  Is there a moment in your life that deserves more celebration?  It took me many years to see it this way.  In two days I will celebrate that there has been another full year of moments in my life. 

• It is connected to .... 

  Latin mmentum, movement, from *movimentum, from movre, to move...        And thus moments have dimensions of motion and time and mass and direction.  Moments drive our lives to new places and various speeds depending upon the largeness (or smallness) of these factors.

• I am reminded of something Ani Difranco once said that went something like this... Records are called records because they used to be recorded moments in time.  That was before technology meant a tune we are listening to may have been recorded over many days and molded into one.

• Here is a moment in time  provided by a Flickr friend of mine

• "We do not remember days; we remember moments."  Cesare Pavese

• May we imagine life as time and space unfolding.  You and I are blessed to be there for the moments.  

7 for the weekend--- 2010, The Year of The Daves

Rainbow panel mosaic by Margaret Almon

1. Mosaic Woman: After I survived massive lay-offs, Mosaic Woman didn't survive one at her work place. In six months she has not found another job in her field, so for 2011 we are not going to try to extend her benefits, but please do not consider her an unemployed librarian, but instead, Mosaic Woman is a full-time mosaicist! Here is her take on this transformation.

2. Gardening: I recently posted four photographs from 2007. What a garden I created that year. What a disgrace to the garden was I this year. And at work ground hogs, deer, extreme heat, and less time for gardening also led to general but not complete failure in the vegetable garden and led to the decision to no longer fight the varmints. But the flower garden at work, now there is where one could go to remember the joy of getting one's hands dirty:

Pink Dahlias grown and photographed by Wayne Stratz

3. South Africa: Not to say that the World Cup with all those funky horns was big, and not that delving into their jazz legends was majorly cool in 2010... but my sister-in-law's move there to be with the one she loved was huge. Lots and lots of great visits before she left.


4. Fire: Last March I woke to the horrific sounds of a family watching the man of the house jumping from a burning house. Last week I was walking home from church and a car in front of our house sprouted arms that waved at me. It was the man and his wife. They plan to be our neighbors once again this February when there house will be finished.


5. Walking with God: In October I took my stained glass with me on a retreat. Something happened that lit a fire within me. I do believe the purchases and praise gave me confidence that I could be a vital part of Nutmeg Designs and the sales continued to flow through the holiday craft shows and I scrambled to keep up my stock.


6. Doodling with Glass: I made my first mosaic which led to a new style of making suncatchers. I decided to make two more mosaics while on break. Here is the smaller one and the final project to emerge from my studio: (it is hanging in Virago Baking Company till the end of January)

Doodling with Blue Green Glass, a mosaic by Wayne Stratz

7: The Year of the Daves (3 dudes I work with and who became great/better friends in 2010) also included DC's museums, 17 craft shows +/- , women jazz in Harrisburg, Jazz many other places, hope, joy, peace (along with despair, sadness, and anger), Science Teachers conference in Philly, new friends here and there, 8 days of silence, monster snow storms, and then an early spring, much tasty food including the annual strudelfest, a trip to Cleveland, a few glass cuts on my fingers (well several), and it ended at midnight with some great friends who had fed us with home made Thai food earlier in the evening. and everything else...

my life unfolds... like a roller coaster

I went to work on Tuesday and by the time business hours had passed two things remained a big mystery... Mosaic Woman's test results and if the guy who ran the red light had called his insurance company. The day was far from a complete disaster, but even I knew I was an emotional wreck as I entered prayer.

God helped by reminding me that it was only a car and the fact that an SUV moving at 50mph through a red light had not killed me, or even injured me...

But my mind did not go to a soothing place when I imagined Christmas morning after bad test results. It was not a great feeling.

By the time Wednesday lunch had arrived my car had been towed and I was heading to work (a bit late) in a rental vehicle. By the time I left work, Mosaic Woman had called to say the results were negative.

It has been quite a week. My stoic being was pushed to its limits of feeling down and then feeling up. and still my life unfolds...

do you see what I see? second answer to Jim

Today was lessons and carols at my church. We sang and went through the first two chapters of Luke plus a couple of psalms. I sat grateful that I spent weeks in what other wise would have been a moment on a Sunday. One of the hymns was Do you see what I see? I love how the lamb is the first to see and passes on the info to the shepherd.

I get a variety of responses to my doodles. Some like the designs. Some are dumbfounded and ask what the abstract design is. Some see something that I don't see. I often see bears, especially the classic shape of the native American totem bear. So the other day when I playing around and saw the bear, I decided it was time to bring it to my stained glass studio. Do you see what I see?

Interesting twist of my life---- prior to the service getting started our minister spoke of the divinity of Jesus, just where Jim and the spiritual exercises had taken me this morning before worship.

Matthew and Luke have the divinity begin at conception, Mark jumps in at the baptism, while John has the word being present at the very beginning, way back when God was getting around to creating the universe. Which is true?

Why not all three? Does one have to be truer than the rest? If I am moved by one does that make the others less true or the one I was moved by more true?

Do you see what I see? What do you see?

I once showed my biology class a DVD about the brain. Electrical impulses shot about. The more they travelled in a certain direction, the stronger that pathway gets. For 20 + years I had many thoughts about nothing being Divine. Those thoughts created some strong Pathways. Ten years ago I realized they had to be put to death if my venture back to the church would take hold and on Christmas morning a minister anointed me after asking all of us to think of something inside of us that needed to die. That was a miracle. New pathways are strengthening in my brain taking me to places I do not know.... that takes me back to what I am doing in this life----- unfolding.