LOVE
Love is a wondrous ethereal thing: seemingly almost too perfect to exist beyond just the moment. Love can be pushed, pulled, and pondered; strained but never broken nor ever fully understood. Love is soft and
gentle as a mother’s first touch, or rugged and rowdy as a lifelong enduring friendship. Love is always about the giving but never about just taking: sharing is its currency. Money and fame cannot buy love: it is priceless yet free for the asking. Love cannot be destroyed but, sadly, it can be ignored. Love can be lost, yet it can always be found again. Love is like the wind: you can feel it but can only see its effects. It can be deeply painful, yet also dearly missed: it, too, can come as a thief in the night. Love is strongest when consoling its loss. Love is a mystery: when did it have its beginning, … and why?
Jim Davis
A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE (COVID 19)
To Begin, thank you to all first responders, all medical practitioners and all associated medical teams, all long-term care givers, all pharmacy and all grocery workers, their associated suppliers, and all supply chain drivers and logistics support persons. Your ongoing courage, devotion, professionalism, and provision of essential services in these critical and challenging times are all acts of heroism and examples of love for others in action.
You and I and every world citizen can look at an image from different perspectives and interpretations; however, regarding COVID 19, so much more is at stake than an artist’s mere impressions. This visual arts piece, now entitled A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE (Regarding COVID19), could be a door opening and letting in the light. This may speak to some of hope in the face of darkness and uncertainty. Perhaps it is the door closing on a life! Alternatively, the image might appear to others as a beam of light emanating from a metaphorical pyramid of our world’s post Covid society: a symbol of solidarity and greater purpose than just self interest. Yet again, mountain climbers may see two dangerous but inviting cliff faces: a chimney often offering a technical “shortcut”. With COVID 19, it is not only a matter of perspective but also of a matter of careful thought and a conscious choice for proactive social responsibility. Let us choose and act wisely, based on science guided by true compassion and concern for others.
Jim Davis (2020)
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WHY REPURPOSE FIREWOOD?
Insightful notions sometimes occur when least expected. While splitting kindling and larger sticks for an evening fire, I thought about repurposing wood-splitter-split firewood and providing a higher, more meaningful purpose for that fuel.
Wood destined to be consumed and turned to ashes, in order to provide the comfort of a fireside’s warm aromatic glow – that seems to me to be a fine enough purpose, albeit a fleeting and certainly a very final calling. A deeply personal need welled up in me, and a spiritual call stirred up my resolve: let love offer a higher purpose to the firewood – a purpose transcending time and all physical limitations. Astounding? Preposterous? Some magician’s trick! A mind’s delusion! No, not really.
These seven mixed medium pieces are lovingly reshaped and dedicated to a new purpose through “Art”. This new purpose for existing would ensure meaning and value long after the death of the biological source-tree. It would be a new purpose of providing enjoyment, compassion, solace, hope, reassurance and peace to some and possibly many people. If this is clearly possible for “repurposed” dead sticks of firewood, why should we not imagine the possibility of a “repurposed” human spirit to be a vessel of endless love? Compassion, forgiveness, comfort, nourishment, a support to the weary, a companion to the lonely, a light to those lost in darkness. Such love would flow in purposeful response to today’s desperate societal needs. Find faith that such daily acts of love surely do transcend time and every physical limitation. The source of any unconditional human love co-mingles with the sacred source of all love, somewhere beyond the space-time continuum.
Jim Davis (2020)
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THE FEATHER HOLDER
St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Ottawa, ON
A porcelain feather was given to St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Ottawa ON. It was given as a gift expressing thanks for cultural recognition, cultural appreciation, honest contrition, and a sincere respect for indigenous peoples. The feather was received by St. Stephen’s Church as a symbol of reconciliation and mutual hope for the future. It is, in both the giving and receiving, quite simply that important.
Considering the significance of such a gift, St. Stephen’s wanted something more meaningful than a museum-like display case; St. Stephen’s wanted openness, relevance, and accessibility to remain symbolized. The feather’s holder is constructed of a roughly hewn wedge of a mature sugar maple – a tree of nourishment that was openly shared with early and very thankful Europeans. The raw saw marks are readily seen and easily felt as they cut across the age rings, the internal scars, splits and cracks, and the rough, scaly outer bark; together, they remind us of a recorded journey played out and endured over time. The entire holder is treated with polyurethane to protect and preserve the visual record – just as we would protect and preserve justice and peace in our society.
The words on the parchment scroll are part of St. Stephen’s weekly liturgy and worship service, and St. Stephen’s hopes those words will be an ongoing commitment to recognize, respect, and dwell in peace with First Nations people. The holder and the detachable feather are accessible for future ceremonial meetings and church services. When not in specific use, the feather and its holder will remain on display in various special places in the sanctuary, where they may serve as a focus for reflection to anyone passing by. Please feel welcome to reflect on this extraordinary gift given to St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Ottawa ON, and given similarly to every parish of the Anglican Diocese, Ottawa ON.
Jim Davis (2020)
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CRIBBAGE AND LIFE
It seems to me that cribbage is a great metaphor for life. Think about it, for a minute. When you play cribbage, you have to make the best of the cards you are given. You get a chance to give and to receive helpful “crib” cards. In life, as in cribbage, it is best that you know how to count.
In cribbage, you have to take your turns throughout the game and be patient – especially with beginners new to the game. As in life, you sometimes surge ahead of others, and you sometimes fall behind; yet that is just part of the game, and you should never give up. Always play fair and use your knowledge and skills to do your best. Respect other players and learn from their knowledge and skills.
Don’t cheat because that spoils the game for everyone. Don’t blame others for your mistakes; just try harder to learn from your mistakes. It is best not to ignore or break the rules that bring order and structure to the game. Most important of all, in cribbage and life, focus on joy and love with companions. Leave betting or prize money out of the game. In my view, “money may blind you and leave your heart cold, and all that you’ll die with is gold”.
Jim Davis (2020)
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TWENTY-SIX QUESTIONS REGARDING IMMORTALITY
Is it reasonable to suppose that everything alive exists only within the restrictions of time? Or is it possible that there is more to life than meets the eye and beats the clock? You and I are made up of matter and energy, yet at the atomic level can matter or energy truly ever be destroyed? Changes within these two primary states and from one into the other are observable both on earth and in the heavens, but through the processes of such change, is time still the ultimate medium? Can change only exists within the restrictions of time because a process, irrespective of even the brevity of a Big Bang, has a commencement, a duration, and an outcome across a span of time?
In a similar manner, do ideas only exist within the restrictions of time? Is this expected because ideas must be postulated, be applied, and subsequently trigger a result? Furthermore, are not these three qualities “time-bound”, as well, by the living benefactor and the corresponding recipients (even though ideas often provide lasting value to others and societies across time)? That said, can any of the things humans “value” ever exist outside the restrictions of time? For example, humans value money, but does money exist beyond the ravages of inflation, dissipation by greed, and physical degradation across time? Humans also value power, yet why do we not recognize that the powerful rarely exercise what little power they may possess beyond the time limitations of a score of human lifespans?
Today, it seems apparent that many academics seek knowledge to peruse the past, more fully understand the present, and theorize about the future; however, will their studies of complex but ever evolving sciences and corresponding technologies ever provide them with even one everlasting truth? Sciences and technologies are worthy interests, to be sure, and often quite useful; nevertheless, is not the past over? Is not the present only fleetingly brief, and the future only a guess, at worst, or a hope, at best? Certainly, is the knowledgeable would-be-time-traveler not still trapped by time: a finite researcher within a universe unfathomable in its comparable scale and scope and incomprehensible in its general variations and specific complexities? Is there any “value” that transcends our seemingly inconsequential human existence?
What of human love for another yet to be born? What of human love for another at a cost of one’s own life: a mother for her child, a son for a father? Is it not true that human acts of selfless love transcend, at least, the time restrictions allotted to the giver? Moreover, is not that love qualitatively very unlike both money and power, whose currencies erode over surprisingly brief periods of time? Does truly unconditional human love, once given (and usually highly valued in the moment) – even at the cost of the giver’s life – sustain its original intrinsic value across and beyond the context of future time? Is not that love for another – being unconditional – devoid of any form of earthly self-gratification? Was there even any need for the witness of human watchers or any influence by human others, or a whole host of failing human memories or the fast fading legions of lost human legends? Where is the purpose and permanence we seek? There, … forever outside the constrictions of time and space, would not human unconditional love exist with, return to, and reside co-mingled in the originating precursory source of all such love? Somewhere in the human story, do we not find these words were written: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”? Is faith such a very hard thing to consider?
As I look out over sand and into the wind, the waves, and the sea, I recall a poem:
IMMORTALITY
Nothing saves a mountain, and nothing binds the sea.
No one whispers to the wind of immortality.
No atoms changeless in the heavens: no sun, no moon, nor stars above.
Nothing lasts forever… except the tears of love.
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Jim Davis (1994)
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IN WHAT SHALL I TRUST?
In what shall I trust? Is my question to you.
What may I have that will always be true.
Money and jewels and gold in great store?
But inflation had hit; I need more.
Long ago lived a woman, alone with her son.
She had food ’til the morrow and then there ‘d be none.
Elijah came knocking, and he asked for some bread.
Well, here’s what the old lady said:
Prophet I have but the meanest of fare.
Once that is gone, my cupboard is bare.
I’m afraid for my life and the life of my son.
But Elijah said, “Trust in the Lord”.
Now the high holy rollers would come in to pray,
With the red carpet down and the bands would all play,
Their plan was to show all how holy they were,
As they offered their money and gold.
Well the money was dirty: it came from the rent,
Squeezed from a widow when the eviction was sent,
All she had left just, just a penny or two,
She gave as her offering to God.
Jesus was watching, and he said to his friends,
Carry this lesson with you to the end.
The rich man gives little of his precious gold,
But the widow gives all and is blessed.
If I give something precious to God will that do?
My ox on an altar, each year after, too?
I’ll build a great temple in which I will slay
The purest of lambs once each day.
“Well, the greatest of temples is just made of stone,
“And as for the ox, why not let it live on?
“The purest of blood has been shed just for you.
“If you want to give precious, give you” …
Put not your trust in princes or men.
They rise from the dust and return there again.
Money may blind you and leave your heart cold,
And all that you’ll die with is gold.
Happy are they who trust in the Lord.
Fed through the famine or near death by the sword,
Whatever may happen they know they are blessed;
They know that with God they will rest.
Jim Davis (1971)
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ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE: The Importance of Family
I consider myself very fortunate to have lived in the era when one of the greatest love songs was written, its melody composed, and its message delivered by an extraordinary British band. The lyrics are simple but profound. The music equally so. In my view, however, the message is truly an anthem of hope and purpose for all of humanity; an anthem as relevant to it’s original “Sixties” context as it is to ageless human suffering and inspiration. When love is missing in our lives hopelessness reigns. But when love reigns, hopelessness – in all of its ugly manifestations – is addressed, suppressed and ultimately vanquished. With this truth accepted, family love is something so profoundly precious that it would not ever be taken for granted. Reflect carefully on this matter, and you will concede that love truly is all you need. And family is a pretty good place to start.
Jim Davis (2020)
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WINDING DOWN
Why not take a little time, right now, to make a cup of tea or pour yourself a glass of wine. Sit down in a comfy chair, slow yourself down from the rush of the day, and reflectively finish the last few pages of this book. Here is a quiet scene to set the mood. This book is written with
the intention of sharing love and a faith, from one child of God to
another and others. Simply, it is just that: …sharing.
JD
IN CLOSING…
In closing…, we have many things for which we may be
thankful. Some small passage of time has been allotted to each us in which we can be aware of and wonder upon our own existence. Most living things – bacteria, “simple” single-celled plants and animals, and “lower order” through to “higher order” multiple-celled animals, from the smallest to the most gargantuan ever to exist on the earth – have lived and died with little evidence of their ever possessing a sense of self-awareness and a capability to wonder. Humans have changed one human outlook on life, at least: “life” is no longer merely “survival of the fittest”. “Life” is now, optionally and by choice, living with a conscious purpose of loving others.
I have shared with you some thoughts and artwork that expresses my love of beauty and my hope for joy in humanity during our precious time with others upon this garden-world. In this age of clear and everpresent threats to humankind, there is tremendous uncertainty and
widespread psychological fears for the future. Humans have faced similar difficult and dire situations and circumstances in the past. I hope this publication has been a source of reasoned reassurance, happiness, and joy for you; it has certainly been all three for me, in its production. Most importantly to me, personally, I hope it has spoken
to you of a conscious and existential purpose: the chosen opportunity to live for a life of discerned faith and practiced love.
Thank you, so very much, for reading this publication and sharing some of your time with me and my creative arts.
Choose to love God and be at peace with yourself and others.
God Bless,
Jim Davis
Jim Davis Creative Arts: Paintings, Poetry, and Conversations. Click Menu for website pages options. 