Section of stained glass panel by Louis Comfort Tiffany
How refreshing would it be if you could dive right into these colors?
 
The door is open.  Enter, gentle reader. 
They say when a door closes, another one opens.  Well, in many ways, the hallway of my life has many closed doors, the rooms having been mostly explored and the boxes packed up for when I need those experiences later.  My faithful Guide is leading me to another adventure door I never dreamed I would open, this site...a whole new ministry and a virtual retreat community online.  Most artists need a little sanctuary and mine is virtual. It is quiet and peaceful here.
Welcome to my studio, where I write, paint, read, study and pray, muse and hopefully let the creative juices run over onto the screen and other canvases of my craft.  What doors have you walked through and closed behind you?  What hallway rooms do you have in your story?  Do you have a sanctuary and can you describe it?
 
Why bother with all this?  Life is busy enough and there is little time to devote to creativity and art 
 
And then, I read a book by John Eldrege titled Waking the Dead and the dormant answer stirred and snapped awake:
Because it is how we can nurture and guard our hearts.  For those of us who have a faith in Jesus, seek to share His love, and live by example...our heart is the wellspring of life.  We are told to take care of them for we can't possibly nurture others if our hearts are overly burdened, weary or unguarded. Time spent on our craft is not only a good habit..it is essential to our heart and spirit. 
 
Though this poem was written a few years ago, it found its way back to me when I needed it most:
 
The Gift of Me

For my birthday this year
I'll give myself the gift of time.
Time to meet myself anew;
to rediscover silence
and come back to life.
To taste a crisp, cool grape
and lose myself in a book's world.
Time to start over.
Time to get to know
the me I have become.

April  29,  2004
 
 
And a more recent poem:
 
 
This summer I ask my soul to dance.
My fingers long to unlock the gift given and let it soar.
I'll squeeze my hopes, desires, repressions and expressions onto my clean beginning,
write my struggles into prose and soothe my senses with new surroundings.
I'll turn the key and find...the possibility of Providence. 
Freedom or frivolity?  Freedom now.
My will and time are in an alabaster jar broken and poured out on the Master Artist's feet.
 
June 2009