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Love and Joy -- Not Just for Christmas





Image result for artist handLove and joy empower success.

My father was a commercial artist. When I was between 3 and 5 years old, artists actually drew the pictures in advertisements. That’s what my dad did. He had an art studio in our home.


One day, when he had a free lance assignment to work on, he set me up in the studio with some brown paper, a paintbrush and some gold paint and let me play. I was around 3. I swished the paint around and then stopped. 

Image result for cherub
Cherub
My little 3-year-old mind saw that I’d accidentally made a picture that looked like the face of a cherub, a baby angel. I stopped  it to my father. He got very excited. He thought he had an artistic genius for a daughter. That’s what inspired my lifetime of practical art education.

My father began teaching me but my mother didn’t want him overpowering my style, whatever it might be, so he searched for instruction outside our home. When I was 13 years old, I sold my first portrait. It was done in pastel and showed a younger girl who lived down the block. Since then I've played with oil paint, acrylic, pen and ink and watercolor and collage.

I loved sketching and painting so I did it often.  Soon I was winning prizes.  When I was thirteen years old, I sold my first portrait.  It showed a younger girl who lived down the street and it was done in pastel.  I succeeded because of love: love for my father and love for making art.

Image result for African American child sax player
John Coltrane
Every successful person you admire in any field became successful because they did what they loved as much as they could. If you love math and keep working with it, you will become an excellent mathematician. If you love playing saxophone and play morning, noon and night, you will be a star sax player. 

When you feel all your feelings, even the unpleasant ones like sadness and anger, it frees you to know love and joy. They are like feelings but more. Love and Joy are the expansive, all-inclusive inner dynamics that give us God’s view of things. From love and joy comes all creativity. 
  • Every seed that falls to the earth, germinates in love and joy. 
  • Every root that plunges toward the center of the earth reaches for joy and is powered by love. 
  • Every stem that stretches up, away from the pull of gravity, expresses joy because love feeds it. 
  • Every leaf that unfurls to catch the sun and use the water from within, creates the food of love in joy. 
  • Every flower that expands with joy from its bud loves the life it makes. 

Love and joy are not only for Christmas. They are for now because now is the only time there is. When yesterday was here, it was only now. When tomorrow comes, it will only be now and now is for love and joy. 

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