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.