Five paintings today. 10,000 paintings in five years. Each one is a prayer. Click on any of the featured images to view the gallery.
8,294 Soul Portraits to go!
My Brother, my Sister, dearest friends,
What’s your name?
I’ve been talking to a young man who married an American and has been living in this country (the USA) for a number of years. He grew up in Jerusalem and told me of the beautiful city of his childhood, the aromas, sounds to awaken, sounds to stimulate, senses and appetites, a full tilt boogie, so alive, but then he suggested seeing the city at night so one doesn’t see the two Jerusalem’s: Arabs and Jews, religious and non-religious, paired opposites engaged in battle thinking history has been sealed.
His father was Syrian and…wait.
His father was a Syrian Arab, or was he a Palestinian, a Druze, a Muslim…plink, plink, plink…an Arab Christian…plink!
Or was his father a Syrian Jew, an Orthodox Jew… plink,plink, plink!
Everyone’s opinion jumps around and then falls into place like a marble in a Pachinko machine. If the young man’s father is an Arab — plink, plink, plink — some readers will categorize the son one way and if a Jew — plink, plink, plink — another way. It all depends on who we are.
We wait for the marble to drop.
We listen to the marble plink from one arbitrary nail on the game board to another. The same name, same voice, same look and we’ll know the son and father differently, vastly differently than a neighbor or a friend.
Here’s my opinion: There are no enemies or foes in the land of Israel, Jews and Arabs are not enemies – arguments to the contrary are embracing an illusion.
I’ve said this before, the answer is Love Not Fear. When I lived with what knowledgeable and well-meaning physicians considered nails in the coffin, foes and enemies (paraphrasing their words), I learned they wanted me to embrace an illusion.
It is the same with us, the opinions each Jew or Arab takes into their heart is what separates us. I chose to live and agreed to paint 10,000 paintings for Jews and Arabs to know joy. I was surprised as anyone when I learned the two realities are connected and are one.
We will live if we learn how to love and not fear.
I’ll know and share more what this all means in time, soon and with each painting I learn more. I have the time.
For today, I’ll say this, it’s just too easy for people to go plink… I’m not playing the game (anymore).
Not playing the game,
Daniel
To find our joy we need to heal, be healed and forgive. 8,284 paintings to go (of the 10,000). Find the painting that speaks to you, for you.
10 Thousand Souls 