Interesting

I was watching Landscape Artist of the Year and Monica Poppham doing the commission painting of Renewable Energy and Orkney Islands.

Not that that’s too unbelievable, but I couldn’t conceive HOW she would  be able to express the whole thing together.

Kevin and I were talking about it and they came to a part where Monica was sharing with someone who wanted her to paint what she heard.  

I was saying to Kevin that I had tried to do it before, but I couldn’t do it because I didn’t understand how to.  Or listening to someone speaking or music being played and to explore what you felt within the expression of the music or the voice you heard or the beauty of the outdoors etc.

But I said to him that I am thinking now that I could probably do it because there was a time I was creating either poetry or art during church.  However, I just couldn’t get away from the feeling that it was terrible quality and that I would never be able to do anything that was any good.

Now I can see my writing is read by THOUSANDS (well over 2 so far) and if they can read it and love it, that’s incredible.  Even though I don’t know them (well, most of them, that is) they are and seem to be a part of me already.  

These people bring me joy when I think of them.  And I trust that what I create for that woman, sitting quietly in the corner over there, in the dark (so that she isn’t noticed), will bring her a little bit of light and help and courage to continue to live and grow and develop.  Even for the loud man, shouting and jumping up and down in glee just in front of me so that hardly anyone else can be heard, I create my work.

Every person needs to be heard and sometimes, to reach the quiet ones that need the help that they refuse to ask for, you have to become quiet and still yourself and wait for them to give you a glimpse into the nightmare they live in.  But it’s never far in and is always followed by the sentiment of it somehow being their fault although there is no way it can be.

My writing seeks to find those that need help and bring them a level of peace and comfort - even more than they ever imagine exists.  And don’t just think the quiet ones need help - the loud ones do too, but a different kind of peace.

And then you get those who are seemingly indifferent but are grateful for every morsel you share.  These are the ones that need you in a very different way to the loud and the quiet.  They need it shared to them in a way that doesn’t appear to have touched them, but later you find out that it was the one sentence you wrote in - oh, I don’t know! - 2010 that struck them as something they could use to live with.

At that moment is where you being to live with joy and share it and express it as best you can for all these different people.To reach them all, you must speak with authority and confirmation of what you say so that it gets past all the barriers they erect to keep themselves “safe.”  

It doesn’t matter where you have come from or how low you ended up.  Where you find yourself in the end is the important thing.  And if some of my words get you there, I will say “Thank you God, for using me.”