In the Classroom of Silence. Completed.

I completed this mixed media piece last week but have been so busy with the One World One Heart event that I have lost all track of time! As a last minute update...the event will culminate with the drawing for my give away as well as the other participants give aways at 11:59 PM tomorrow. So even though the event is ending for this year, I have discovered so many wonderful blogs to enrich my soul for many weeks into the future, I feel that the actual prize will keep on giving through these wonderful blogs.

A bit of history here about this work. I was asked to donate a piece to my twins school for a raffle type fund raiser. No problem... I had my same doubts (see entries below) but no problem. As I was working on this piece early in January, I received news that a good friend of our family and in particular, my husband, has pancreatic cancer. The prognosis is not good at this time. And so I wanted the work to evolve into something that reflected how I feel. I looked for quotes but found nothing that really conveyed what was in my heart. So I wrote my own using a graphite pencil:

"It is in the calm before the storm when we find ourselves, when we learn just how strong the human spirit is, when we realize in order to march forward we must enter the classroom of silence to converse with our Lord, when entrusted in His loving arms we fine peace, not peace as in the calm before the storm but peace as the calm during the storm." KL.

While these words aren't earth shattering, worthy of a Pulitzer, or even note worthy, they convey a sort of helplessness as we face a storm in our life and a realization that sooner or later we must give it up to the Lord. I have been praying day and night for our friend. Cancer is a terrible thing, any kind of cancer.... There is symbolism in the piece and I hope whoever wins it feels and sees it.

k