Pure Potential- In His image

Pure potential, the children of nature come forth. Their earthly emergence inherits the choices of their fathers. Unique Children, honour your mother and father for their giftings and for the opportunities to reverse a curse.

"You sure put your foot in your mouth that time" I mumbled to myself, remembering something I'd said the day before. "Now who's talking to who," I responded to myself. My Conscience? No. Conscious awareness of the natural child part of me. In need of discipline, feeding, clothing, loving and learning.

We'd recently moved to Redding. My four little ones were down for their nap and I ran next door to visit with my neighbor. I slipped, went flying and heard my head "clang" on the concrete step. For a fraction of a second I looked down upon my body, then was bungeed back into it, as if connected to it with a very flexible umbilical cord. Grabbing my left temple, I left a bloody trail back home, which my husband followed before finding me stitched up.

About ten years after this experience of knocking myself out of my body, I had a life threatening bout with cancer. A specialist in L.A. had recently put me in a big tube and gave me a double cobalt treatment, scheduling me for a radium implant in the hospital. I was teaching three classes a day in our Terryberry Gallery in Tustin. Going home to rest before the evening class, I asked my daughter Dorene to wake me up in time. When I heard her call me, I raised my arm to see what time it was. But I was so weak that it was my spiritual arm, not my physical arm I raised to check the time on my mother's Bulova watch on my wrist. I was surprised to find the night sky in its face. Upon recognition, I was sucked into it and floating in outer space. "Which way is home? Which is our sun? What if God loses me?" This fear immediately "bungeed" me back into my body.

Sons of God. Born again of our heavenly Father... I Am that I AM... ONE
The ancients wrote of three ways of experiencing God... He, You, and I
No longer I live, but Christ lives in me... from glory to glory...

Morning Mannah

Morning Mannah Muse

Morning Worship

Speck

What am I, if not a speck of dust among the rest -

A fleeting, fleeing, flurry stirred within a blast of exhalation of our unseen Source Divine -
Each particle of animated matter does thus proceed but from the primal dust -
Caretaker i, of this speck, alloted plot - a field to yield-
or not -

Bride 2

He was here, where did He go?
Beloved, "Follow the tents of the shepherds."

Bride 1

He knew His bride before she knew herself. Oh Israel, Israel, how often I would have gathered you under my wings as a mother hen gathers her chicks.

Harmony of the Spheres

Synchronization from the heavens to the grain of dust. From the stars of the sky to the sands of the seas. "There is a time for every season, a time for every purpose under heaven. " (Ecclesiastes 3:1) A time for everything, a time to be born, a time to die, time to rejoice and a time to cry - oh, the worship was sweet that day!

King of Kings

King of kings, Lord of lords, Living Word. And when all has been completed, the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll.

Wind in the Willows

Igniting Liberty

Light held high in a darkened world.
We are not the light, but light holders.
Oh, Lord, You lit the fire, that burns our dross. And nothing can put that light out. We find peace and freedom from fear in the eye of the storm -

All hell can be breaking out all around us, but God is in control.
In scripture, Paul said, "I have learned to be content in all circumstances". The word content was from two Greek roots meaning "to create a baffling wind" that "wards off all opposition".
Jesus said to go into our secret place and pray.
Contentment, peace and freedom is found within.

Inner Journey

Mem, called chaos-
Potential yet unformed-
Trembled ‘neath the Aleph,
Abba’s breath divine-
Then uttered blazing living sheen-
Giving birth to earth and
Breath to death-
The great eternal ONE of love
Sends forth His sacrificial Son-
Then drawing in again,
Hides us safe within–

Great white steed of His return-Universe in the womb of time rolls up-Embryonic fullness of man’s new creation.

“Inner Journey” or more accurately, “The Way” originated at the request of Pastor Roger Friend as the “Power and Presence.” The enormity of the subject embarrassed the artist, preventing her from painting it for many months, with trepidation, Dorene began with a large soft sensitive brush in her left hand, and a firm bristle in the right, for rearranging the left’s spontaneity, the emerging image continually taking form quite differently than anticipated. Instead of liquid, laughing, light pulsating outward, a liquid tunnel of love was drawing inward, forming a great white stead rearing up with the embryo of a man. This celestial water, fire and atmosphere floats above the universe.

“Inner Journey” alias "The Way" or “Power and Presence” entered in to two major art shows. In both of them it received the peoples choice award by overwhelming majority vote.

The Surge

Tossed to and fro upon the deep
Should I, shan't I, can't I
Is He, does He, will He, won't He...
To and fro upon the deep -
The rising, stretching, reaching forth
Then bowing, breaking, will forsaking
To yearn, return to homeland wholeness
In peace becoming all and none -

Deep Calls to Deep

The Spirit of God moved over the face of the deep. This was not deep water, but deep potential emanation. The breath of God moving over the face of this potential was given direction from the Word, the Light, our Lord. Each one of us has potential and God's breath, may we be called and chosen. Though we all be called, "Oh Lord, choose me, choose me!"

Floating Word

The image of floating paper appeared in my mind one Sunday morning at my breakfast table. When I split the waters, while painting during praise and worship, I felt compelled to turn around, looking directly at the tears in the eyes of our Pastor's wife. Floating words are a part of my life, not connected to any chain of thoughts, and quite often I have to look them up or phone a friend to find who or what to pray or watch for. For instance, when I began explaining this, the word "extemporaneous" floated in my mind. So I just looked it up in my huge Webster Dictionary. "Extemporaneously": "composed, performed, or uttered off-hand, without previous study or preparation; unpremeditated." This "floating word" describes the difference between these inspired works of art and my carefully thought through earlier ones. By "inspired", I mean that I am willing to be made a fool of, trusting that God is doing the leading instead of me. This isn't always polished looking, as I am interdependent with those around me to be "one", as we worship in union, realized in theme, music, timing, message, etc. My "premeditated" period of painting gave me the initial steps of familiarization with the physical materials I use.

Lily Pond

To praise and worship, I covered the enormous canvas with the vertical shapes of a landscape.
Moving with the Spirit, I spun the canvas upside down and swept the image horizontally, creating surface of the water over which the lilies and ripples floated.

The Potter's Hands

Earthen vessels walk the vale, chambers of living light, filled to the brim with precious tears, reflecting clear on the surface mirror unveiled in a distant sky, the gleaming glimpses of why - The wiles of the world would embrace them, turn the tears to a trembling tide, 'til the image fair to our great despair, does flutter and fade away. But it washes smooth a few rough spots as it spills o'er the sides of clay - Shadow, echo, dim reflection glimpsed, dear coolness sweet against my cheek, Oh, Spirit, light the way within, 'til there's no room for sin. 'Tho trials bring pain and tears like rain, I yield to the Master's mold, as He transforms this dust into gold.

God Bless America

The 9-11 Twin Tower Disaster occurred exactly one year to the week after God began this image in me. While visiting a Messianic congregation, and enjoying the worship in Hebrew with open hands resting in my lap, it seemed as if I were holding a mound of mannah. In my mind, I saw our flag waving with the fifty stars back in a circle. The vision paused, as the circle overlapping at the bottom, took the shape of a heart, which seemed to say God loves America. For a year I prepared to paint that image. On Thursday, one year later, terrorists took down our trade center, and people began phoning me to pray. I remembered the poem I'd just written, "Oh, to be a Joseph, with fruitful bough hanging heavy beyond the wall, with fruit enough to share with all who pass this way. But unlike a Joseph, I'm rather like a Jonah, who runs the other way, not caring for the the lost and dying who lie along the way. Oh, Lord, swallow me up, and cast me upon the shores of Ninevah. That Sunday, God's Spirit came on me so strong that 20 minutes before leaving for Vista Christian Fellowship, I quit fighting God, willing to be made a fool of, and painted this up front while everyone was worshiping and singing "God Bless America". This was the first of many prophetic images painted to live worship music. When I painted this one to music the following Sunday of 9-11, I was surprised, to see the eagle's eye, the Lord's stripes mingled with the fruited plain, fields of grain and purple mountain's majesty with the eagle flying above the storm. The shine of God's compassion on the crowned eye then had a tear which flowed from sea to shining sea.

But listen to this, my art students and I had planned a two-week painting seminar in Italy, where one of the students owned a villa called pietra mi lara (Honey flows from the rock). All plans were finalized. One student said she could only go for one week. Her friend said, "then I only want to go one week too!" This change unraveled the entire retreat. We would have been in an airplane flying over New York city on the morning of 9-11. Wow.

Never Ending Sending

I began painting what I thought would be "Surrender." Forming the dove like shape, I stepped back and realized it must be flying downward. It easily embraced the world. The continents forming under my brush resembled a couple. I firmed them up, forming the Lord over the Spirit. I assumed He was embracing the world as was the dove and I was having great difficulty making His hands go downward. I stepped back again and rejoiced, knowing He was facing upward in an attitude of surrender.

The Father sends the Son, the Son sends the Spirit and the Spirit sends us out into the world.

This was painted to live praise and worship music at Vista Christian Fellowship. The outcome was a surprise to us all.

VCF is....
www.worshipinvista.com

Winged Word

Coming, going, living, breathing, Spirit moving, human being ~

Written, writing, always whole ~ The Living Word, the holy Scroll

Uni-verse , re-rolling man ~ Not was, nor will be, but "I Am"


We are all a precious part of God's Celestial Symphony. When we are one, His new song will be complete, and Father will roll up the scroll.