Christmas 2011

 Merry Christmas 2011! I began work on this piece after a very dark night when I asked Nancy for help to make it through the night. I had to put it aside because I had a second very difficult night with the following day filled with much rest. However, the concept of finding “treasure in the darkness” was the beginning idea/scripture of this piece. I want to express my belief that Jesus meets us in our darkness and brings us out of it.

I decided to use a house, a house that reminds me of houses I saw in Cambodia, to represent myself in the darkness. The red stripe going from the house out of the black space represents the treasure – Jesus and all those, such as Nancy, who minister to me in these hard days. The darkness is like the shadow – not a great deal of substance, but really there, a necessary part of the whole. There is something even more certain, solid and powerful than that thick, shadowy blackness of the pain in the night – Jesus’ love and care. Not just for me, but for each of us.

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2