My Art Experiment

Haiti

My heart goes out to the people suffering in Haiti.  I've been fortunate to never experience an earthquake and deal with such devastation.  I've heard so many Americans say these people suffer enough with poverty and then to be punished even more with a natural disaster such as this is unthinkable.

I was watching a scene of Haitians being treated on the front lawn of a hospital, overwhelmed with patients.  So many in fact the seventeen doctors had no idea how many they were treating.  The newscast showed one mother holding her son while nurses stitched up his leg without any anesthetic.  I can't image the agony he and his mother felt.  At least with all my medical procedures I had the luxury of pain medicine to deal with it. After, the mother was interviewed and she being fortunate all three of her children survived said, "I know God loves me."

That struck me.  How awful to think if someone from your family died from this horrific tragedy, you would believe God didn't love you.  Having lost a son myself, I can totally understand how people would believe God doesn't care about you.  Or God is punishing you.  What good is God, if he does such awful things?  It's taken me a long time to come to terms with my belief and relationship with my higher power.  And I still can't stand it when people say, "It was God's will," in an effort to comfort you.  Bullshit.  I don't believe God is pointing his finger and saying this person should die and this person should live.  What kind of God would allow serial killers to live while innocent children die? I believe we all have free will and whoever or whatever you believe as your "God," is there to care for us after we leave this planet.  I hope that offers some comfort to anyone who has lost someone they love.  My God loves everyone.

Running in All Directions

This is a custom painting I did for a friend.  Her new home is done in blues and browns and she told me it looks amazing above her chocolate suede couch.  I call it "Liquid Blue." It resembles how I feel most of the time. Like I'm going in several different directions and as I finally head down one path, something is thrown in front of me and I have to turn a different way.  I guess life would be boring if my path remained the same everyday. 

This morning as I was getting dressed, I heard on the news people are more depressed during this "recession" then they were during the "Great Depression." They attribute it to higher social status and physical beauty demands we have today. Because we are constantly bombarded by media to look beautiful, live in luxurious homes, travel to exotic locations, drive expensive cars and buy millions of products we need to make our lives better, we feel even worse when we can't obtain these things.  It's true I often think about the stuff I don't have rather than what I do.  How often are we thinking about the three hundred dollar Coach handbag to impress our girlfriends or the convertible Mercedes to look good as we pull in the company parking lot?  Isn't it ironic that after a while carrying that purse or driving that car doesn't give us the same high it did when we first got it.  The new smell wears off and it's not much better than the twenty dollar leather bag from the consignment shop and certainly not better than the GM car we had when it costs twice as much for a tune up. 

At this moment, I'm grateful I have this house to keep me and my daughter warm from the insane thirty degree weather we're having this week in Florida.  I'm grateful there is plenty of food in my pantry, clothes in my closet and a working car in the garage.  This weekend I tried to call a friend and her phone had been shut off.  I've been there and while I feel bad for her, I'm thankful today I'm not worrying about that. 

 
 
I'm also very grateful it's my daughter's seventeenth birthday today.  I know how devastating it is to have a child that no longer has birthdays.  She is healthy, bright, beautiful (people say she looks like me ;) and very kind and sweet.  Many parents tell me what a lovely, respectful young woman she is and I'm very proud.  Bringing up a kind polite child these days isn't easy. 

So, from now on when I feel depressed or like my world is spinning in a million directions, I'm going to take a deep breath and concentrate on all the wonderful things in my life.