Its snowing ( a little bit) in C and such a lovely day to paint.  Thinking this morning that the work of an artist includes reflection and engagement in the deepest part of the soul. There you discover what you have planted to grow.  Is it the fake news cycle, the twitter world, the random gossip of th day or perhaps a commitment to learn who God is and let that shape you?  This morning I choose the latter because I need to love more.

"The word care finds its origin in the word 'kara,' which means to lament, to mourn, to participate in suffering, to share in pain. To care is to cry out with those who are ill, confused, lonely, isolated, and forgotten, and to recognize their pains in your own heart. To care is to enter into the world of those who are broken and powerless and to establish there a fellowship of the weak. To care is to embrace affectionately those who may be touched by hostile hands, to listen attentively to those whose words fall on deaf ears, and to speak gently with those who are used to harsh orders and impatient comments. To care is to be present to those who suffer and to stay present, even when nothing can be done to change their situation." #HenriNouwen 

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. 

These things -- the beauty, the memory of our own past -- are good images of what we really desire, but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. 

For they are not the thing itself, they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited. 

C.S. Lewis.