In preparation for the celebration we are going through the photographs of the flowers which I am using on this blog page. He has a gazillion of them. He really did stop to smell the roses.... We have proof.
Smiley -
Can February March? No but April May.
And the story continues.....
*************************************************************
The next sculpture in my artistic journey through the 15 steps of healing, is Jonah, the first serious piece of work that I did in my Clifton studio.
To me Jonah represents the “war of words” Jonah wasn’t running away scared for his life. He was running away – even prepared to die - because of his issue with words.
Trials, justice processes are really just a war of words.
We knew this – and frankly we didn’t want to enter into the struggle of words. After working with crime victims for two decades, Wilma was intimately aware of the victim’s experience of the courtroom or the justice system of a sort.
We thought we were done with all of that until a Detective Sergeant from the Cold Case Homicide Unit of the Winnipeg Police telephoned on November 30, 2006 – the anniversary of Candace disappearance “just to chat,” Wilma resisted, making all kinds of excuses and avoided seeing them until they forced the meeting, February 9, 2007. I didn’t want it either and appreciated the delay.
When the day arrived, even though I was late, I remember taking my time as I walked into the house carrying two large bags – basically my transportable office for my janitorial business.
“Have to shower,” I said, taking off my jacket and starting down the hallway to the bedroom.
“No time to shower,” she said following me, picking up m bags and taking them to my office so they would be safely out of sight. “They are going to be here any minute. Put on something black.”
“Why black?”
“No time to discuss it. Just wear something black.”
“Black, always black. What is it with you and black?” I grumbled.
We bicker nonsense when we are worried.
Confidence,” she said. “It’s all about confidence. And we need all the confidence we can muster for this visit.”
I picked out black trousers from my closet, a charcoal shirt.
She liked my choices. “I’ve made coffee for them,” she said. “But I don’t have any bottled water. I forgot to pick some up.”
I smiled. “And I forgot to pick up donuts.”
She winced. “No donut jokes. Please – no donut jokes.”
I just smiled and stored a donut joke – just in case.
“But before they come, we need to have a plan,” she said. “We still haven’t chosen a secret word or some kind of code to use if we sense something is coming down. We need to be able to signal to each other if we are feeling overwhelmed – losing control – or if there is danger.”
I shrugged. “If I think we need a lawyer, I’ll just say so.”
I could tell she as really worried. “But what if we might want to caucus in the kitchen before we confront them with calling a lawyer,” she insisted. “We need a word.”
The doorbell rang.
“Green thumb,” I said. We have plants in the living room that we could talk about especially since I am the one who tends to them.
“These are men – they won’t notice the plants,” she paused. “What about using ‘bottled water,’” she said.
“But we don’t have bottled water,” I said.
The doorbell rang a second time. We started down the hallway.
“Bottled water it is,” she said. “If I refer to bottled water – head for the kitchen.”
There were three men standing at our front door.
We invited them in and they made themselves comfortable in our tiny living room. There were five of us – all dressed in black – sitting in the predominantly white living room.
There was chit chat – but not much.
Then the leading detective leaned forward.
“We found him,” he said simply. And we all knew exactly what that meant.
My wife was tense – I could read her mind. She was worried that they were building a case against me, and if we said “Who?” they would say, “You!” It had been used as a ploy against one of our other friends when they interrogated him.
The Detective completely unaware of our thoughts, waited then said it again, “We found him.”
I nodded and waited. They waited. They were puzzled.
Finally, Wilma thought of the perfect question. “Do we know him?”
“No, you don’t.” they said.
“Are you sure we don’t know him?” I asked feeling the first wave of relief.
They must have said it a dozen times in different ways before I was convinced this wasn’t some kind of trick.
“Aren’t you relieved?” They asked puzzled at our reticent.
We nodded. Our poor, traumatized minds could not absorb it. It was hard to erase 22 years of careful solid defenses and revive hope that had died so long ago – all in one second.
Then the three of them chatted, telling us that they had a team of 12 officers working on it. would be picking him up in two to six weeks. It was pending.
And slowly, very slowly, I began to realize the magnitude of their visit. There really was a person out there with a name who was soon going to be charged with the first-degree murder of our daughter. In time we would find out his name. We were no longer going to be part of an unsolved mystery.
Once they were gone, Wilma and I dissolved into laughter of relief, but also the absurdity of our suspicions. Yet we had to admit to each other that the fears were not entirely gone. This was only the first wave of words to live through.
It was during this time, I chose to sculpt Jonah
I identified with this man. Jonah had been hit by a career curve ball like none other and he was in a state of fragmentation just like me. To make a long story short, he’d been asked by his God to preach to the meanest and cruelest war mongers known to man in those days, the Assyrians, who lived in their capital city of Nineveh.
The last thing Jonah wanted was for these evil people to accept the love and forgiveness of his God, the God of Israel!
What did Jonah do? He made the decision very quickly to react. He ran! He did not consult with any other prophets or priests to discuss the nature of this unusual God directed task! I’m sure they would have all sympathized with him, possibly suggested ideas how to approach this difficult audience, but no, he isolated himself from everyone.
He just ran. He boarded a ship, paid the fair to go to a very distant location, in the opposite direction!
He made snap decisions without thinking resulting in weird inconsistent reactions and decisions all along the way.
Wow, could I identify with all of that! In keeping with my new Jordon Van Sewell influence, I gave Jonah the head of a Rottweiler a dog that never lets go, to symbolize his stubbornness. I also gave him a muscle-bound body to symbolize his desire for power to have things his own way. No repentance.
To bring him into the current day, I had him driving a speed boat on the water, remember he decided to run, so he’s going nowhere fast.
His boat is full of holes. He doesn’t care that his boat is a wreck and that he won’t get to nowhere. He’s ignoring the fact that his anger is destroying his boat. His anger towards God will bring him disaster. He will sink! And he’s not seeing it or accepting it!
Wow! I had exactly these issues myself and thankfully I saw them and began to deal with them.
It’s all about words…. Jonah finds himself in the belly of a whale and has to change his words, to survive.
Like Jonah I had to go deep, change my vocabulary, identify the lies I was telling myself, change the narrative, realize that others are more important than my own agenda.
Like Jonah, I resented life imposing on me a different story than I wanted. I was afraid when I saw it torn to shreds by a storm, I only came to peace when I accepted the new story of my life.
As we were to learn through the trial process, that it was important to pay attention to the new story being formed.
The birthing of a new story can be as painful and complicated as the natural child birth and just as dramatic, yet full of hope.
Smiley -
Can February March? No but April May.
And the story continues.....
*************************************************************
The next sculpture in my artistic journey through the 15 steps of healing, is Jonah, the first serious piece of work that I did in my Clifton studio.
To me Jonah represents the “war of words” Jonah wasn’t running away scared for his life. He was running away – even prepared to die - because of his issue with words.
Trials, justice processes are really just a war of words.
We knew this – and frankly we didn’t want to enter into the struggle of words. After working with crime victims for two decades, Wilma was intimately aware of the victim’s experience of the courtroom or the justice system of a sort.
We thought we were done with all of that until a Detective Sergeant from the Cold Case Homicide Unit of the Winnipeg Police telephoned on November 30, 2006 – the anniversary of Candace disappearance “just to chat,” Wilma resisted, making all kinds of excuses and avoided seeing them until they forced the meeting, February 9, 2007. I didn’t want it either and appreciated the delay.
When the day arrived, even though I was late, I remember taking my time as I walked into the house carrying two large bags – basically my transportable office for my janitorial business.
“Have to shower,” I said, taking off my jacket and starting down the hallway to the bedroom.
“No time to shower,” she said following me, picking up m bags and taking them to my office so they would be safely out of sight. “They are going to be here any minute. Put on something black.”
“Why black?”
“No time to discuss it. Just wear something black.”
“Black, always black. What is it with you and black?” I grumbled.
We bicker nonsense when we are worried.
Confidence,” she said. “It’s all about confidence. And we need all the confidence we can muster for this visit.”
I picked out black trousers from my closet, a charcoal shirt.
She liked my choices. “I’ve made coffee for them,” she said. “But I don’t have any bottled water. I forgot to pick some up.”
I smiled. “And I forgot to pick up donuts.”
She winced. “No donut jokes. Please – no donut jokes.”
I just smiled and stored a donut joke – just in case.
“But before they come, we need to have a plan,” she said. “We still haven’t chosen a secret word or some kind of code to use if we sense something is coming down. We need to be able to signal to each other if we are feeling overwhelmed – losing control – or if there is danger.”
I shrugged. “If I think we need a lawyer, I’ll just say so.”
I could tell she as really worried. “But what if we might want to caucus in the kitchen before we confront them with calling a lawyer,” she insisted. “We need a word.”
The doorbell rang.
“Green thumb,” I said. We have plants in the living room that we could talk about especially since I am the one who tends to them.
“These are men – they won’t notice the plants,” she paused. “What about using ‘bottled water,’” she said.
“But we don’t have bottled water,” I said.
The doorbell rang a second time. We started down the hallway.
“Bottled water it is,” she said. “If I refer to bottled water – head for the kitchen.”
There were three men standing at our front door.
We invited them in and they made themselves comfortable in our tiny living room. There were five of us – all dressed in black – sitting in the predominantly white living room.
There was chit chat – but not much.
Then the leading detective leaned forward.
“We found him,” he said simply. And we all knew exactly what that meant.
My wife was tense – I could read her mind. She was worried that they were building a case against me, and if we said “Who?” they would say, “You!” It had been used as a ploy against one of our other friends when they interrogated him.
The Detective completely unaware of our thoughts, waited then said it again, “We found him.”
I nodded and waited. They waited. They were puzzled.
Finally, Wilma thought of the perfect question. “Do we know him?”
“No, you don’t.” they said.
“Are you sure we don’t know him?” I asked feeling the first wave of relief.
They must have said it a dozen times in different ways before I was convinced this wasn’t some kind of trick.
“Aren’t you relieved?” They asked puzzled at our reticent.
We nodded. Our poor, traumatized minds could not absorb it. It was hard to erase 22 years of careful solid defenses and revive hope that had died so long ago – all in one second.
Then the three of them chatted, telling us that they had a team of 12 officers working on it. would be picking him up in two to six weeks. It was pending.
And slowly, very slowly, I began to realize the magnitude of their visit. There really was a person out there with a name who was soon going to be charged with the first-degree murder of our daughter. In time we would find out his name. We were no longer going to be part of an unsolved mystery.
Once they were gone, Wilma and I dissolved into laughter of relief, but also the absurdity of our suspicions. Yet we had to admit to each other that the fears were not entirely gone. This was only the first wave of words to live through.
It was during this time, I chose to sculpt Jonah
I identified with this man. Jonah had been hit by a career curve ball like none other and he was in a state of fragmentation just like me. To make a long story short, he’d been asked by his God to preach to the meanest and cruelest war mongers known to man in those days, the Assyrians, who lived in their capital city of Nineveh.
The last thing Jonah wanted was for these evil people to accept the love and forgiveness of his God, the God of Israel!
What did Jonah do? He made the decision very quickly to react. He ran! He did not consult with any other prophets or priests to discuss the nature of this unusual God directed task! I’m sure they would have all sympathized with him, possibly suggested ideas how to approach this difficult audience, but no, he isolated himself from everyone.
He just ran. He boarded a ship, paid the fair to go to a very distant location, in the opposite direction!
He made snap decisions without thinking resulting in weird inconsistent reactions and decisions all along the way.
Wow, could I identify with all of that! In keeping with my new Jordon Van Sewell influence, I gave Jonah the head of a Rottweiler a dog that never lets go, to symbolize his stubbornness. I also gave him a muscle-bound body to symbolize his desire for power to have things his own way. No repentance.
To bring him into the current day, I had him driving a speed boat on the water, remember he decided to run, so he’s going nowhere fast.
His boat is full of holes. He doesn’t care that his boat is a wreck and that he won’t get to nowhere. He’s ignoring the fact that his anger is destroying his boat. His anger towards God will bring him disaster. He will sink! And he’s not seeing it or accepting it!
Wow! I had exactly these issues myself and thankfully I saw them and began to deal with them.
It’s all about words…. Jonah finds himself in the belly of a whale and has to change his words, to survive.
Like Jonah I had to go deep, change my vocabulary, identify the lies I was telling myself, change the narrative, realize that others are more important than my own agenda.
Like Jonah, I resented life imposing on me a different story than I wanted. I was afraid when I saw it torn to shreds by a storm, I only came to peace when I accepted the new story of my life.
As we were to learn through the trial process, that it was important to pay attention to the new story being formed.
The birthing of a new story can be as painful and complicated as the natural child birth and just as dramatic, yet full of hope.
There is something in us, as storytellers
and as listeners to stories,
that demands the redemptive act,
that demands that what falls at least be
offered the chance to be restored.
― Flannery O'Connor
and as listeners to stories,
that demands the redemptive act,
that demands that what falls at least be
offered the chance to be restored.
― Flannery O'Connor
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