Spontaneous Peace Painting

This fall I finished a visual "doodle" that started out as black and white, and then I colored it with oils, as happy as a kid with a coloring book. My husband took a look at it and said, "Don't be going religious on me." I said, "Don't worry."

I am, after all, a recovering Catholic, and a recovering Born-again Christian. An intense four year double major of religion and psychology (taken up in my early thirties) revealed the myths, misconceptions, falsehoods and rigidities of the major world religions. I surmised that to blindly accept a religious belief without looking to the origins and history of that belief is to relinquish your life energy without being fully informed. Do I believe in a higher power? Yes. Do I believe that a person must follow a specific creed or religious framework? No. We all have light within us.

To quote French philosopher and priest Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience."

This painting is the result of the artistic doodling of my mind's eye, and even I am surprised: A holy mother with a white streak in her hair, any age, sitting cross-legged. From. .. any continent, any culture, wearing pants. My ten year old granddaughter painted her mouth.

You know, we are all holy, we all have the spirit of life within us; we can use that well or abuse it. We can enlarge it or waste it. We can be inclusive or be judgemental and full of hatred. We can flash our positive energy in a situation, or we can raise havoc. Enough of the havoc. Imagine PEACE breaking out all over the world, all over your country, all over your state, all over your town, all over your home. Let's charge up the light from inside us and let that energy touch the situations and people in our lives. Illumination.

My favorite concept from Teilhard de Chardin (and talk about renewable energy, WE are it!) "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and for the second time in the history of the world, man(kind) will have discovered fire." Let your self shine. Peace.