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Forgiveness

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Thursday, 18 July 2019, 22:53

Going back to the previous post, on the question of forgiveness, part of why I find forgiveness difficult is because there is an arrogance about it. To say to someone 'I forgive you' seems to me to be rather self-righteous.  When Jesus was forgiving people in the Gospels he didn't say, 'I forgive you', he said 'you are forgiven' or 'go away and do not sin again'.  Don't worry, I'm not about to go off on a religious kick but there is a lot we can learn about ourselves and the nature of humanity from the stories in, not just the bible, but in other ancients writings like those of Lao Tzu. 

Lao Tzu was a Chinese philosopher who is credited with founding the system of Taoism. If I had to choose a religion, Taoism would be my first choice although there are a lot of similarities between Taoism and the teachings of Jesus. I'll have to check out what he says on forgiveness and come back to this.

In the meantime, I'm heading to England tomorrow for a long weekend and it's getting late and I have an early start in the morning.  I have a few outings lined up.  I'll be checking out the Van Gogh in Britain exhibition at Tate Britain on Monday and I'm dining out in Bel Canto on Saturday night which I'm really looking forward to. Fine food and opera all in one, should be fun!

And as to forgiveness, I'll leave that to 'God'.


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Edited by Aideen Devine, Tuesday, 22 Aug 2017, 19:44

When I was young, I used to get the Once Upon a Time comic and, as the name suggests, it was full of fairy tales and stories about the usual subjects, princesses being saved by princes, tales from the Arabian Nights and as far as memory serves, it was also where I first encountered tales of Brer Rabbit.  It was the highlight of my week and I loved it as much for some of the colourful artwork as the stories.  I was always drawing and colouring-in as a child and I even had a painting exhibited locally when I was in P2.  There was an exhibition of local art and somehow I was nominated to paint a picture for my class/school, I'm not entirely sure which.  Anyway, I got the afternoon off lessons to paint a picture of a hen.  I don't remember if I made that choice or if that is what I was told to draw. 

A few years ago, I took up art again and, I have to say, I love it more now than ever and I try and get to exhibitions and galleries as much as I possibly can.  I even sold a painting when I first showed some of them at a craft fair.  This actually happened by accident as we thought the paintings were being used to decorate the room but they were put on a stall instead.  

I was in Dublin on Saturday to meet a friend so I headed down early so I could spend some time in the National Gallery and came home with a pair of 'Starry Night' socks!   There was a Vermeer exhibition on but it was booked out so I couldn't get to see it but I still enjoyed a roam around the gallery.  Then last night, I spent an hour on Facebook watching video presentations on Van Gogh's Sunflowers, from art galleries around the world.   Van Gogh would probably be my favourite artist and I do like his work in general but Starry Night would be my favourite painting, hence the socks.

A friend of mine recently shared a video of Jim Carrey, the actor, talking about art and discussing how creating art had helped to heal him after a particularly heart-breaking time.  Jim isn't the first to find healing in art and creativity and I have to say, I too, find it very therapeutic. 

In the video, Jim talks about how he was sitting in a 'grey New York' and felt the need to bring some colour in to his life.  A sentiment I understand, more so considering the state of the world at the moment.  While I am political in my outlook, when it comes to art, I leave the politics aside and take the aesthetic road.  I don't want to create political statements with my artwork, I want to create something of beauty to transcend those miserable and grey days of life.  On this one, I'll leave the politics to Banksy.

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