Psalm 46:1 - God is our refuge & strength - Sunrise over Lk Michigan | Why this project so consumes & energizes me

View/Download from Multiply

View / Download from ImageShack

---

This is both a redo and a return to the roots of the "Word Pictures" project. It also marks something of a new beginning as I've standardized some things about the way I do this, including the proportions of the images and the way I put my credit & contact info in the images.

4x6 printing

The last first- Its been a great frustration to me that my Word Pictures would not print out properly in 4x6 format at CVS or Walgreens, or even on a photo printer unless you adjusted the settings. Since my hope is that people will print these images and give them to shut-ins, people in hospitals, and others suffering, this printing problem was a big deal. 

Math has never been my strong suit, but I finally figured out how to increase the length/height of of the images so that they will print properly without having to manually over ride the default settings. This will make it a lot easier for people to use these for one of my intended purposes.

The way I did this was to create a boilerplate "credits" image to add to each image. So from now on my contact information and the licensing terms of the images will appear in a standardized way. This has the added advantage of being a lot easier for me to do than to find some place in each image to artistically work that information in.

A return to the beginning

This project's roots go back almost a year. I was recovering from having my right femur fixed with a titanium rebar when a dear relative was given 6 weeks to live. I couldn't get out of my house much less go to his deathbed. When I was able to walk etc, I'd used "care cards" which often had a picture with a Bible verse on them in my professional life.  This relative loved the hymn "A mighty fortress" so I decided that its source psalm- Psalm 46- was the Scripture to use. That psalm uses imagery of God's control over nature- roaring waters, mountains, etc- so I wanted a picture which featured nature strongly, but one which would be peaceful and calming to look at. This relative loved Lake Michigan, so I chose this picture of a glorious sunrise over it in Chicago.

This first "Word Picture" was printed at 8x10, so I was able to put the entire Psalm in the black rocks at the bottom.

After I created it, I realized that what I had done to help my relative could be helpful to other people, and began this project.

Most times people use Bible verses in pictures as part of ministry however, they use them in smaller formats. At 5x7 or 4x6, the words became mud. So last summer I tried redoing this using just the first verse of the psalm. That resulted in something which looked "cool" but wasn't really useful... the first half of the verse was in the clouds, and it took great effort to read.

Our own time of need gave birth to this improved version

Last week, my beloved wife entered the hospital because her migraine syndrome was no longer responding to the treatments available out patient. My wife also loves Lake Michigan and Chicago, so this was the natural choice for her. 

However, the earlier version needed to be improved for the full desired effect to be achieved. That is part of why I did this now.

The other thing which fed into working on this project while my wife was in the hospital was that I needed to be immersed in art and Scripture. So when I wasn't visiting her, tending house, or dealing with the ravages of fibromyalgia, I was working on "Word Pictures." Psalm 46:1 went through several "drafts" before this. I also started work on several others you'll see in due time. I've spent a lot of time and energy on this because this project was the only thing in my life compelling enough to distract me from the savage pain running amok in my body or the loneliness in my heart.

Why does this project is so consume & energize me? Romans 8:28 meets Ephesians 2:10

You see, working on this project unites all the strands of my life in a way nothing else does or can.

• My passion for photography & art
• My compassion for the suffering
• My previous pastoral vocation 

With my wife in the hospital and my fibromyalgia hitting me with the worst pain since my leg broke 13 months ago, I really needed this project.

Even when my pain is a little less and my wife's at home, I still very much need an outlet for my photographic & pastoral passions and a distraction from pain. We're both disabled, we're both in pain every day. I need beauty, I need to be doing something which can help others suffering because I'm not able to do so directly and personally.

See what I mean about it uniting the strands of my life? I also like to think that this project is the intersection of two of my favorite verses- Romans 8:28 and Ephesians 2:10

Romans 8:28

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

Ephesians 2:10

 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.

(Both from the World English Bible - a Public Domain translation I often use or consult in this project. Generally its a very good translation, maintaining much of the "ear feel" of the King James while also balancing more recent scholarship. In most cases, I think its better than "proprietary" translations.)

I've pastored far out in the country and deep in the city, to gunshot victims in trauma bays and the homeless in alleys . These days, its dicey if I can even drive or walk without a cane... couldn't imagine writing a sermon much less delivering it. Yet in making these, I find as much personal and vocational fulfillment as anything else I've done in my life.

---

A lot of words for this one picture.  Well, a lot of me went into it, there's a lot of me in this project in general.

While I am currently working on several more Word Pictures, I'm always eager for suggestions. If you have a special need I'd consider it an honor to assist you with it in my small way. You'll see that I have a new email address dedicated to the project. Its a Latin phrase a dear friend suggested for me as fitting for the project. Its not as easy to translate as some, but essentially it means "The work you do which is most true." PERFECT!

Words & a picture: Job 19:25 and a cosmos

Foreword: There are some creative endeavors which have meaning even beyond the obvious. These are those which let us still engage in the pursuits and interests we had before suffering and disability came. I was a pastor/chaplain/missionary/evangelist. When I create these "Word Pictures" it engages me both creatively and spiritually.

The latter is something accessible to anyone who is disabled, whether they were of a spiritual vocation or not, and regardless of their particular spirituality. I find that engaging in the creative endeavor always brings me closer to God because God is the creator, and when I'm creating, I'm in unity with him. Additionally, since visual arts are my primary medium, I'm always working with the beauties of creation. Those are both dynamics which anyone who is disabled or suffering can engage in, and I highly urge you to do so.

---

Color, full sized

Only "fx" a bit of sharpening. Photo when taken was under exposed with fill flash, right after a heavy rain.

---

Mono, full sized

>
Converted to black and white by Floyd–Steinberg dithering, setting = 19

---

Color, half sized

---

Mono, half sized

---

---

---

There are many interesting aspects about this project.

To begin with, this started with a suggestion from a friend that I do Job 19:26. I agreed, its a great verse and often used in funeral liturgies, but when I looked at the context, I was taken with the previous (this) verse as well. It is the most beautiful expression of the Gospel in the Old Testament. Initially I thought to do both verses in one image, but that would have been too cluttered- neither the words nor the images would have been of a size to be worthwhile.

So how is it that I wound up doing this verse first? I worked backwards. I had been sitting on the request to do Job 19:26 for a couple of months. Then last week I took a picture of a cosmos withered up not at all thinking of the verse, but just because it was visually compelling. When I looked at the pictures though the verse immediately came to mind.

When I realized I wanted to do verse 25 as well I had to find a picture of the same flower with the same tone as the withered one. Here's where the story gets exciting (for me anyway)

I picked out eight candidates and reviewed them with my wife this afternoon. This photo was her immediate choice and I concurred. I had thought to leave it with that and proceed to do the requested verse first, but somehow this photo and the verse grabbed hold of me... and 10 minutes later, it was done except for adding in the credits and doing the reduced colors and sized versions.

I've never had a word picture come together so quickly, nor have I ever been so pleased. The words just naturally flowed around the shape of the flower. It was magical. Not only was I pleased with the end result, but I was pleased at how transparent to the process I became as I was doing it. I used to have that experience all the time before fibro took over my life, this is the first time I've had it in months.

I hope to do verse 26 soon so you can see them as I do in my mind, as a pair. The verses go SO well together and so will the finished projects.

Administrivia:

This is in landscape mode and I do not plan on doing a portrait mode unless asked because of how well the words flowed around the image. I can't image a portrait format being as artistically perfect, but if needed I will give it a try.

I usually create multiple monochrome versions. In this case though, with the dark and deeply saturated original, I am not going to. It was hard enough to get one good one. This image is a PERFECT example of why I go to the extra effort to create monochrome versions. When I printed the color image to my B&W laser printer, it was a disaster.

At the moment the images are only on Multiply and Facebook. I do plan to upload them to the other sites where I make my "Word Pictures" available but I'm worn out right now... doing things on the web still takes a lot out of me, so that will have to await another day. I'll probably wait until I have the image for verse 26 before I do those uploads.

---

Improved, MUCH better monochrome version

Full sized

This goes again to show why I put the extra effort into creating high quality monochrome versions of my Word Pictures ... the previous mono versions looked great on the screen but when I printed them they were ugly and muddled.

So I simply inverted the colors ("negative" in most software) and replaced the black "F" with white in the "For" because when I printed the invert the first time the "F" was not as clear as I'd like.

The same trick could be applied to any of my previous mono versions which are darker. I've come to see that monochrome versions need to be predominately white with black details. One is always learning as long as one is living.

half size

Toothbrush Rugs: Grocery bags as an art form- my waiting room rug & Creativity is the best medicine

I started this rug in January as a rug to work on while in the waiting room at doctors' offices and while waiting for scans. Mind you, I always have a rug with me at such events, but often it is what ever rug I'm working on, and the rugs I had started before fibro were too complicated in their planning for what I was able to deal with.

 So this one is very simple- its to be an abstract flower. The center is all yellow, the rest alternating white and yellow. Such an easy scheme I could pull off even in deepest fibrofog / agony, and as you can see, I have. At 20" it would be close to done were I to stick to my 24 - 26 inch standard, but plastic bag rugs I often make larger. I'll keep working on it until I'm sick of it. Yeh, nothing deeper that that. Really, that's often the reason I decide to finish a rug off. These are a pleasant past time. When they stop pleasing me, I move on to another one.

This craft is inherently "green" as even the needle is recycled, but I especially love the "beautiful recycling" aspect of making rugs from grocery bags. We all go through so many, and even when we take them to the store to be recycled, lots of fossil fuels have to be expended to reuse them. Not so when made into a rug. The environmental impact is zero, since I do these during "down time."

So each colored section above = one half bag. I've never calculated how many it takes to make a rug, but you can imagine it takes a vast quantity.

Shopping bags are ideal, they have the right strength and surface. My mother has made them from bread bags and newspaper bags, but these stretch out more easily and have stickier surfaces so aren't as easy to work with.

I take a bag, fold it in half, and cut it. I don't cut slits, I use one handle of the bag for one end, and punch a hole with my needle for the other. So in this you see I remain true to my prime directive that these rugs are to be fun, relaxing, easy. Sure, you could cut up the bag other ways, but this takes the least time and effort so its what I do.

Handicrafts most certainly do count as "art therapy" as much as painting or photography. They are creative, a means of expression, something on which to focus other than suffering. I take a very "holistic" view of art therapy, not a narrowly defined one that it must somehow directly relate to expressing or processing your suffering. My view is... sometimes the best way to process suffering is to take a break from it. We who live this life are supersaturated in suffering. I hardly think its necessary that everything we do revolve around it... and indeed, there is immense benefit in finding what we are able to do in spite of, regardless of, the pain and limitations under which we live. (Yes, actually have had this argument... more than once, sadly.)

Indeed, I'm sometimes reticent to depict my art- be it photography or the rugs or videos- as art therapy because that makes them relate to fibro... when really, they are what frees me from fibro, frees me to be me. I can't chop wood or ride the bongo board or very often even drive because of fibro, but these are things which give me joy and are of my essence which I can still do. I

So why do I always post these as "the art of suffering?" Because I want to encourage other people who are disabled and pain ridden to find themselves through art and creativity because for all the wonders of modern medical science- doctors and pills cannot make you you, they can-at best- make it possible for you to be you.