BOOK, BUCKET, BIBLE AND BFF

I haven't been blogging for a while ... too busy with goodness knows what but time does fly when you're having fun!
For starters, I am now involved in a Book/ Bible Study at our church and it's fascinating! We are studying Anne Rice's book, "Christ the Lord ... Out of Egypt" along with a study of scripture. Even though Rice's book is fiction, she has done a lot of research and it is about the years between Christ's birth and the start of his ministry on earth as seen through Christ's eyes as a young child and man. We read along with an audio tape of the book for an hour and then enter into a discussion with theology books as well as scripture to try to find out where she came up with some of her theories and ideas. It's really extremely fascinating. It's also gotten me in the mood to pull out my photographs from my trips to Egypt as well as Israel and see if there is something there I want to paint. I shot all of those images back in the days before I went to digital imagery, so since they're all slides, I have to drag the blasted projector out. Oh well ... anything for the sake of art!

This study takes up my Mondays and I'm busy all day Sunday with church and Bible study. We're studying the Apocrypha with Father Matkin leading the study. He's also the priest who is leading the book study on Mondays.

The Apocrypha are texts of uncertain authenticity or writings where the authorship is questioned. In Judeo-Christian theology, the term apocrypha refers to any collection of scriptural texts that falls outside the canon. Given that different denominations have different ideas about what constitutes canonical scripture, there are several different versions of the apocrypha. During sixteenth-century controversies over the biblical canon the word "apocrypha" acquired a negative connotation, and it has become a synonym for "spurious" or "false". This usage usually involves fictitious or legendary accounts that are plausible enough to commonly be considered as truth. For example, the Parson Weems account of George Washington and the cherry tree is considered apocryphal.

During the birth of Christianity, some of the Jewish apocrypha that dealt with the coming of the Messianic kingdom became popular in the rising Jewish-Christian communities. Occasionally these writings were changed or added to, but on the whole it was found sufficient to reinterpret them as conforming to a Christian viewpoint. Christianity eventually gave birth to new apocalyptic works, some of which were derived from traditional Jewish sources. Some of the Jewish apocrypha were part of the ordinary religious literature of the early Christians. This was not strange, as the large majority of Old Testament references in the New Testament are taken from the Greek Septuagint, which is the source of the deuterocanonical books as well as most of the other biblical apocrypha.

This appears as though it will be a very interesting study. Even though I've been involved in the study of scripture most of my adult life, I've never really studied the Apocryrpha, so I'm really looking forward to it. Father Matkin is an excellent preacher and teacher, so I should learn a lot.The beginning of the week the doorbell rang and Frank came into the media room with a box for me. We made friends with some wonderful people on our China trip and Helen and I became New BFF's (those of you who text know that that means ;-) She is not only a Doctor of Psychology, she is also and artist and a jewelry maker! How's that for the whole nine yards when it comes to talent!

When I opened the box, I discovered that she had made me this lovely necklace and earrings as a special surprise! The necklace and earrings are sterling silver with Lampwork Glass beads that she made.

The art of beadmaking by winding molten glass around a steel mandrel is often referred to as "Lampworking". This is because the early glass beadmakers in Venice used oil lamps as their heat source for melting the glass. Today, it's more common to use torches, such as the minor burner , a torch that uses a mix of propane as the fuel and oxygen as an accelerant, to get a precise flame that allows control of the heat in the glass as it melts. The pendant is hanging from an opal encased in silver. It's extremely beautiful and I will treasure it forever.

I wanted to do something special for her in return and couldn't decide what to do. After much though, I remembered the card that she had sent with the jewelry and there was such a sweet note written in it. When I read it again, I looked carefully at the front of the card and loved the design. It had special meaning for me at this particular time since CbC, my art group, is working on a painting of apples for competition. I decided that this card had to mean something to her for her to send it, so I painted my rendition of the card for her as a little thank you gift.

I included another little surprise for her in the same package as well, but that's our secret :-)

Then ... the next day, as I was looking through some web sites, I went to a page where I had entered a piece of my artwork, and lo and behold ... my painting was on the front page of their newsletter. What a WONDERFUL and unexpected surprise. I entered this competition about 2 months ago and had forgotten about it until day before yesterday. I seriously doubt if it will win anything but who knows. Stranger things have happened! If you remember I did this painting from one of the photographs that I took at a porcelain factory in China.

This afternoon we went to see the movie,"The Bucket List". It was a wonderful and endearing story about two terminally ill cancer patients who make a list of the things that they want to do before they die. The reviews for this movie weren't as good as they should have been in my opinion, but what do the people who write reviews really know! I think we personally have an idiot that writes the movie reviews for the Fort Worth paper. The movie really touched both Frank's and my hearts. After all, how can you possibly miss with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman!

We have the book, "The Thousand Places to See Before You Die" and we're working long and hard on that list. Amazingly enough, we've been to over half of the places that are listed! Can't wait to see the other half. Hope we don't have to make a Bucket List before that happens!

All in all it's been a wonderful week. We start our days with exercise at the fitness center at our hospital. I burn off enough calories that my lunch is usually a freebie calorie wise. I also must add that I feel 110% better since I started this program 8 months ago. I never dreamed that I would say that I like to exercise but I'm beginning to really enjoy it.

I look forward to hearing from some of you and hope that enjoy ready about daily life in our small corner of this wonderful world.

XOXO, Pcasso