Madonna’s baby hangs in her arms like the dead Christ does in Michelangelo’s Pieta, completely helpless.  Mary knew the scriptures and knew her son would save the world but would be despised by many men and broken.

Perhaps the  madonna wears sunglasses to hide from most of her generation her elation and at the same time saddness over her son’s future. Or, we could say she wears sunglasses because she’s a celebrity. Perhaps she represents us receiving gifts from God, our children. Do we view our parenting as important as she did?

Madonna In Sunglasses

The picture below, ‘Crumble,’ is how I feel about lawn grass.

There seems to be a law which causes any grass pulled up by the roots, and left on top of the ground in a flower bed, to GROW there. It’s gloriously happy and will send out seeds almost immediately!

But just pull up grass and take it to an empty spot in my lawn, loving scrape the ground, lay the grass down, cover the roots a little with soil, or not (I’ve tried it both ways), and the result is: DEAD GRASS.

Once, believing in fate, my life rolled this way and that for seemingly no reason.  But now, as scriptures as an explanation and guide to the human condition I no longer crumble.

Crumble

“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated.” and, “there is  opposition in all things,” and, “the absence of opposition would destroy justice.”

Good art uses the law of opposition- dark/ light, quiet/ busy, empty space/ image, warm color/ cool, bright/ dull hues, straight and stiff/ curves, calm/ anguish, and more.

Rosewoman, below, still carries her eight year old self within her. Many of her old selves were damaged severely. Rosewoman uses this power and energy to create beauty. nancymauerman.com

Rosewoman

This is a small cropped version of hungry people in the desert. When they complained the Lord blew quail in on an ocean wind. Lots quail. Quail stacked up in a giant heaps, 2 cubits high, over the entire camp plus a day’s journey all around it.

A cubit is somewhere between 18 and 21 inches high or 44 to 52 cm about, about waist high.The people stood up all day, all night and all the next day in the quail. I speculate the people held their small children over their heads and on their shoulders all that time.  Please click on the picture below to see it in its fullness and to see children being held high.   nancymauerman.com

Moses And The Quail – Abstract

My husband made the

mail lady cry when I

told her he had died.

The Madonna’s stuck

up a tree holding her babe

she knows the scriptures.

I wear my pain like

a heavy purse laden with

memories of joy.

nancymauerman.com

Madonna Up A Tree

“If you do that again I’ll spank you.” Who hasn’t been on either side of this statement?  A couple times my son “did it again,” and then he said, “I need a spanking. I can’t seem to change direction by myself.” I’ve reflected on this truth for years, it’s a perseverant fascination.

On the flip side of self honesty is, “I couldn’t make my case ’cause I already debunked it.”  C. S. Lewis talked about the anguish of sin but then instead of going to the Lord and saying, “This is awful. I’m feeling anguished. This is what I did. I’m sorry. Help.” We often instead say, “This is what happened. I just happened to be there. It wasn’t my fault for these sixty five reasons. Okay?”

Yea, we want to SAVE ourselves, save ourselves from discomfort and humility. We go to our Lord and say, “Yes, you already paid the price so I don’t have to burn in anguish later, because I know this bad habit of mine will catch up with me.  I know you can help me change directions but I’D RATHER SAVE MYSELF FROM REPENTANCE. I’d rather be comfortable than do the hard work of improvement. It takes courage to admit, “I need a spanking to change direction.”   For more outsider art depicting the human condotion in various forms see nancymauerman.com

Anguish