038 ~ Grasshoppers

Friday, November 26, 2010

(it's late - lol - see day 037 for an explanation)

Same cookies, different camera options.

If you don't recognize them, these are the 

Girl Scouts' Thin Mints Cookies.

They happen to be a favorite in our house. 

However they are also available year-round at most grocery stores (probably a little cheaper too) under the Keebler label with the name of Grasshoppers!

A few other Girl Scout cookies are out there too!

You can't get all of them anytime you want but several are available if you search them out.  You should be aware though, not all stores will carry all that could be available to you.  So it may take some tough tracking to find your favorite!

The art of photography escapes me it seems.  I know I pushed different buttons to effect the differences in these two pictures but it's not something I really took note of, so I've no idea what it was that made each result come out like it did.  My photographer friends would think me silly for not knowing.  Oh well, not my sort of expertise!  ;-)

I do however love the difference in two things that I know, since I arranged the cookies and took the pictures, are exactly the same things!  In an abstract way it shows how two people might see the same thing completely differently!  Or it could show how two identical twins could be so completely different in so many ways from one another!

So much of what we observe in our lives is unique to our perspective!  If we have the belief that our dead loved ones will be one day resurrected with all their ailments and imperfections removed, then the death of our loved ones is not a sad nor painful thing but it is joyful because the next time we see them we shall all be totally healthy and happy and ready to fully enjoy living!

Not everyone agrees with me.

Friends of mine who also believe in this resurrection are deeply saddened when a loved one dies.  They can be inconsolable at times.  They spend a lot of time mourning.  They have a hard time focusing on living.  They feel like a part of them is lost and gone forever and they don't know how to move on, to move ahead with their lives because this person is no longer a regular part of it.

I am truly empathetic of all they are experiencing.

I have been all these things; many times; too many times.  But I have come to see that there is no benefit to me, nor to the one who died, in all my sorrow and mourning.  I will cry still each time it happens.  I mourn the loss of their company.  I mourn the loss of their friendship.  I mourn the loss of their smile, their laugh, the way they made me laugh.  Yes, I mourn too.

But I will still be filled with joy because I know their suffering is over.  They will now not have to struggle to survive these difficult times we live in.  They won't have to live in pain all the time anymore.  They won't have to have someone always around to care for them or just help them do things they used to do but can't anymore.  They will be whole again the next time we meet.  They will be in paradise, where Jehovah will satisfy their every desire.  Who wouldn't be happy, even overjoyed to know that their loved one's next moment in life would be like this?

002 ~ Abstract Music

Today's photo comes from my room.  It's a piece of artwork from my (very talented even if I do say so myself) daughter's many pieces left behind when she left home for college four years ago.

I intend to retake this photo someday as all the ones taken so far seem to miss a part of it on one side or another. :(


But I love this piece!


It was something she did during her senior year in high school ~ that was a very busy year for her ~ but it never was completely finished.  I don't remember why.  When you look closely you can tell what's not yet done but you're left wondering just how would it be done?  Which color would it be given?  Would some texture be added into it?  Or maybe it would be given a different perspective?


While those answers would be nice I like to look at what is there already.  The huge treble clef encompasses most of the piece in size but is tipped over far to the right as tho the top has fallen well below middle C.  The staff winding thru it: is it going up or coming down?  The flat (unseen is this photo) sits up in the far right corner in a black hole.  Flags from a hidden note peer thru the right side, waving toward the head of some unseen stringed instrument, perhaps a violin. In the bottom left corner (missing from this photo) are a quarter-rounded octave of piano keys with a twisting unpainted path leading from them up to the small flat in the black hole.


There are many ways to interpret this piece.  In my simplest form I'd see the many roads one takes in life, similar directions but clearly different paths to get there. Each full of various things to slow us down, or make us race ahead; things to stop us for a spell (to recover or to just smell the roses), or things to overcome in some way if we wish to move ahead.  Music is part of everyone's life in one way or another.  For some it is their life ~ everything is or become musical.  For others it's just a small piece, something to stop and pay attention to now and then.


I look at this abstract piece every night before going to sleep.  It's helps me to focus on the happier things going on in my life.  It makes me think of the artist, and then of each of her siblings. The ever expanding circle of people in my life (past & present) all come to mind in my prayers.  Amazing that so much can be found in this 20x30 unfinished painting!  Like this particular piece of art, life is never really complete, there is always more to come.