THEY WERE ALL WRONG

I took a walk with my sister Janice this morning. She noticed some strange-looking trees nearby. They had leaves covering the trunk, soft and feathering downwards, then spindly leaves at the top wildly pointing outward like afro hair, and a comb of leaves sticking in an arch-like formation across the very top like a rooster's crown. Trees aren't supposed to look like that, are they?

And don't thrushes know they're supposed to be gray-brown? The blue ones in Okinawa with rust-colored bodies must not know they're not supposed to look that colorful.

Speaking of color, what color are leaves? Usually green, right? Most of the ones on the island are green too, but I've seen quite a bit that are red or purple, and it's not autumn, when leaves are supposed to change color. Don't they have it wrong?

On the way home, we saw banana plants...it looked like the railing was being used for a support. But didn't they know they were supposed to be upset that they were being fenced in?

When I got home, Joyce showed me something from among Daddy's things. It shows the attitude of some people who realized their own church wasn't quite right either, but it didn't seem to bother them.

I guess if the Perfect God of Heaven could look down on His own who get it all wrong (sometimes even calling good things wrong), and beg us to bear with each other; if He'd love us enough to die for us; then couldn't we put up with each other and not break His heart any more?

Oh Lord, help us do so!

I said "New Pics This Post", didn't I?

Well, Kinya finally put up my acrylic paintings: trees in the apartment front door (where my Mom's embroidered works used to be). Last year, I had painted on the back of taped-together cardboard flaps of acrylic painting supply boxes. The seam was beginning to show...what if it came apart? Kinya didn't seem concerned.

Chuckling, he responded we could say it was a painting of an earthquake. (!) Hm; God knew a worry-wart like me needed someone like Kinya. He took out the painting I gave him for Father's Day and set it on his dresser. I never really liked that cappuccino painting, so it made me glad to see he did.

He brought another sketch I did of him on our walks (Sept 4 post). I was so happy to see it, I hunted up a white-with gold trim frame for it and set it up on the headboard along with some stuffed turtles.

The lightning bug painting (also Sept 4 post) was hung where Daddy's color-by-number paintings used to be, and altho' the cousins' photo of their time together in  Okinawa was taken years ago; it is in the place where the photograph of my parents once used to be. Maybe one day a more current photograph can replace it.

It seems an eternal God is telling us we have thanked Him for his past faithfulness long enough; it is now time to look to Him for the future.

My sister Janice just sent an e-mail about a grandson whose dream is to become a missionary when he grows up. I have a three-year old grandson who has yet to know Jesus as His personal Savior. His mother was six years old when God gave me the privilege of leading her to Himself. The Christmas photo collage she made of her son now hangs beside the piano at the place where the picture of this house's original property owner used to hang.

NO HARM

The forecast is hard rain all day. I found something from Nov. '23, a string of photos taken a sunny day at the park, and I was thinking on a rainy day, you might enjoy looking at this...but was it too long to post? Well, I remember liking looking at the pictures in a book, so there's no harm in posting these:

1 Tree - Wanna hear what happened today?

2 Mallard - I wanna hear! I wanna hear!

3Tree - The egret came back

3 But today, there was a Great Blue Heron too

5 Mallard - Isn't it too cold for herons?

6 Herons are usually gone by November,

7 Not fishing in Iwatsuki Ponds

8 Like these two...

9 WHAM!

10 Mallard - Gave me a heart attack!

11 Twist...Shake...

1

12 Down the hatch...

13 Mallard - So he really caught him, huh!

14 Heron - I guess there's no harm in

15 Staying here a while longer

Carp - HA! Some poor fish'll have "no more harm" EVER again...

That's all, folks!

But I Wanted to Draw the Tree!

Several months ago, people walking through the park would've wondered about the artist earnestly sketching the tree branch, unaware that she was trying to draw the insect perched on the other side. But today? There was NO insect, no bird, no flower, no nothing...that artist really was a little funny!

Well, to tell you the truth, there was a gnarled tree with foliage growing out of some openings near the bottom....there was nothing stopped on its limbs; but something about its line and texture held me hostage, found me whipping out my sketching things and putting down on paper what I saw in front of me. When I got home, I told Kinya about the drawing I'd done that day, telling him probably anybody who saw me wondered why I would want to draw a silly tree (there were mallards and egrets in the pond!)

THE STORYTELLING TREE

It's just an old wrinkled tree, and it looks like it had its branches cut numerous times in the past. But there's still green sprouting out from it here and there, and the twisted limbs seem to want to dramatize the decades of happenings it's witnessed. I've seen that tree for several years now--and this year, whenever I walked past it, I heard myself saying,

"I've never seen a tree that looks so expressive. I think I want to draw it sometime. Maybe I'd title it 'The Storytelling Tree' or something like that." The other day, as I walked past, I thought I sensed the question, "When already?" So here 'tis.

But after looking at what I posted, I kept wondering if maybe I should've left it alone too, like my "Mime Mime" carp sketch.

This is what the original sketch looked like before I put in the leaves/grass/windows, etc..., I'd seen, then of course, colored it.

Nah; since I want it to look dramatic--colorful--adding the above color was okay, I think.