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Art du Jour January 2021

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Check out Art du Jour Gallery’s January newsletter here!

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Dawn at Sunshine HillIt is January of a new year I hope to keep from breaking my heart. What choices can I make in this ambiguous world? Early in the month the nightmares came, the quaking in the deep reaches of the soul, the cries of something caught—…

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Deep Silence

“When a deep silence covered all things and night was in the middle of its course, your all-powerful Word, O Holy One, leapt from heaven’s royal throne’ (Wis 18:14-15).These are the sacred nights and days. Now is the moment that darkness is pierced by …

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Deep Silence

“When a deep silence covered all things and night was in the middle of its course, your all-powerful Word, O Holy One, leapt from heaven’s royal throne’ (Wis 18:14-15).


These are the sacred nights and days. Now is the moment that darkness is pierced by all-creating Light. Now begins the dance of the soul, the poem of the cosmos, the song of universal being. We are in the seasonal celebration of Eternal Being made manifest, of the Eternal Word made flesh, made blood and bone. This is the inner experience of the dark world, of the fragile human, when Divine Light suffuses the darkness, and leaps through our unknowing as the Word of life and truth, the Word that cannot be spoken but only lived.

John and I call 2015 the Year-of-Things-Falling-Apart. The siding on our house fell apart, the deck fell apart, the neighborhood seemed to fall apart when the marijuana growers moved in next door and across the road. Our quiet fell apart for three months as construction workers occupied our living space. The freezer fell apart, and so did the heater/air conditioner–all of it needing to be replaced. Beloved friends and family members became ill, some passed into eternity and our hearts fell apart for a time. All of this plus the earth herself, and the worlds we have established upon her, suffering from environmental illness and human wars and the increased spread of terror. Night surely seemed in the middle of its course. 

This afternoon, two days into 2016, John and I sit reading in the stillness of this mountain home. Sunlight suffuses the mossy green branches of the oaks in the back yard and reflects off the snow on Woodrat Mountain to the north. John’s deep into deCaussade’s classic on the sacrament of the present moment, and I’m studying Brueggemann’s work on prophetic imagination that has me making associations with the upcoming national election. For a while he was reading a line from his book to me, followed by my reading a line from my book to him. Strange how that worked: it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that living in the Now results in prophetic action. I’m reminded of Eliot’s line, “Where shall the word be found? Where shall the word resound?” He answers himself: “Not here. There is not enough silence.” 


Ah. And where is silence? It must be…Yes…I remember now…it’s in the moment. Prior to the questions. That is where the silence is. That is the ‘where’ from which the Eternal Word leaps. That is the moment before the crying out, before the chaos enters. That is the moment of pure being, the moment of truth, the prophetic moment in which the New is possible — the new step, the new idea, the new choice, the new awareness, the New Year.



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Beginning Without End

My mind is all a twirl, flitting, sparking, wanting not to rest on just one thing. Yet, wanting to delve, wanting to plumb the living depths of all the thoughts, the images, the memories, the dreams that every moment offers. Where is my discipline? I c…

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Beginning Without End

My mind is all a twirl, flitting, sparking, wanting not to rest on just one thing. Yet, wanting to delve, wanting to plumb the living depths of all the thoughts, the images, the memories, the dreams that every moment offers. Where is my discipline? I c…

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Happy New Year from Americans for the Arts

As your first week of 2013 gets closer to an end, Americans for the Arts wants to be sure to wish you a Happy New Year! Cue music, lights, photos!

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New Year's Message from Silvia Trujillo

… This Friday is “First Friday” again! If you didn’t get to see the show last month there are even more new paintings to replace the ones that sold. Come on by and say “hello”, it should be a fun night…

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Reflecting on the Holidays, New Year, & the Arts

It’s become a tradition that ARTSblog offers up a question as part of our annual New Year’s card (our 2012 question will be posted in two weeks), so I didn’t want to take away from that when I started writing a “Happy Holidays” post this morning. As I began writing a simple message thanking our […]

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