Timothy J. Pruitt's Blog, page 390

Watercolor Selfie

I thought I’d see how difficult a self portrait could be, I’ll let you be the judge of my “Selfie”.

iPainting Foggy New York

We hope you enjoy “Foggy New York”, this Sunday afternoon.

iPainting The Cafe

Quick iPainting of “The Cafe”.

Eddington A Coffee Stained Threat

“What do we give them? Even a fake treasure is hard to come up with quickly.” Otecko laughed. “Not so hard as you say. A fake treasure only has a handful of requirements. The chief of those, it must be old. I’m an octogenarian, almost everything I have is old.”

Stef and I went with him to his home, to help him select the right thing. He brought out different trinkets, all of them I thought would work. He rejected each, knowing it had to have the proper connection to the past.

Finally, he chose a small rosewood case. In it was a beautiful necklace. It was simple, handcrafted, and had what appeared to be green jewels. “They are called moldavite, and are native to Bohemia, in the Czech Republic. This will work.”

Part of a CEO’s job was marketing, and I went to work. We polished it until it sparkled, careful to leave areas of the patina to keep the ancient look. Next, the story you tell, and that had to be the truth.

If you were to boast about the treasure, they would know what we were doing. If you down play it, they’ll want it more. I blogged about this family artifact that would now be on display at our local library, as part of an exhibit about my ancestry.

That was easy, when your sister in law is the primary librarian of all the city’s libraries. Kate agreed to put it in a case with books about moldavite, and the region of Bohemia. She slipped the story to a reporter she had met at a local book reading.  

We booked the unveiling for Saturday morning, and waited. Nothing happened the first day or two, but on Friday something happened. I was at Stefaniak’s, doing busy work, and I noticed something.  

A customer had left some trash on a table, I went to pick it up. On a napkin, underneath the coffee cup, was some coffee stains, and a message. It read, “The necklace, or the old man?”  

I don’t like threats, especially to my family. They didn’t know it, but they had just made a mistake. There plan was to scare us, threats don’t do that to me, they just make me mad enough to fight.

Pencil Sketch Winston

New #PruittWrites pencil sketch of one of my heroes, Winston Churchill.

To Our Veterans

To our veterans, thank you for all of the sacrifices you’ve made, not only on the battlefield, but off of it. Thank you for the time spent in transit, bunkers, and on ship.  Time that took you away from the arms of loved ones, family events, and holidays.

For Thanksgiving and Christmas’ spent reading cards, or watching videos of those you couldn’t be with. All so we could embrace our own, and spend moments we will never forget, because of you.

 

You not only saved lives, defended our country, and gave us hope.  You blessed us with the time to do the same.  We will always remember, honor, and pass on to following generations, this gift. 

We will tell them of the brave men and women, in every American conflict, that spent themselves for our freedom.  To our veterans, thank you, and may we do more than say it. May we live in a way to bring pride to those who serve.

Divine Welcome

Your welcome, it’s the natural response to thank you, but have you ever thought of it from a spiritual sense? God is worthy of all our praise and gratitude, He deserves each act of worship. Yet, any act of our love, which itself is a response to His, is echoed back by a loving God.

Let me use two examples to show you what I mean, starting with the prophet Ezekiel. In his vision of the temple, near the end of the book, there were four tables of hewn stone. On them were placed the sacrifices for the temple, and all the instruments used to prepare them. However, in Exodus, God told Moses not to build any altar of hewn stone. This meant, no tool could be used to shape the altar itself.

He said that using a one on an altar of stone would corrupt it. There was preparation in the selecting and sacrificing of the gift, but not in the acceptance of it. In the building of Solomon’s temple, no hammering was heard. Each stone was prepared before they brought it to the site. Once there, it was fitted into place, not forced.  

There was work in the shaping of the tables, and the gathering of stones. It took labor to select the sacrifice, and to prepare it. Once you presented it, God took over.  

God has called us to offer a small handful of the blessings He’s given us back to Him. You must place your gift in His hands, but once you do, He answers as only He can.  The response is far greater than the sacrifice. 

Fire accepts the offering, The Cloud feels the Holy of Holies, and we see God’s mercy in action. That’s why the four tables were so fascinating. They were crafted by man, for the preparation of an offering, but there, the work ended. Everything in the Old Testament is a type and shadow of the New.  

The Gospels say that Joseph of Arimathea hewed the tomb out of the rock. He selected it as a place to keep his body. If it had served his intended purpose, the story would have been anything but exciting. Instead it was Jesus’ whose body was carried in, and walked out. Joseph didn’t know it at first, but he prepared a place for God. There, He would accept His own sacrifice for our sins, and rise to silence death itself.  

Joseph placed The Lord’s body as an act of love. It was a response to his love for Christ. Jesus gave His life, and accepted His own blood, to redeem us all. He did, what we could not do, and we are forever grateful.

If that were all He did, it would be so much more than enough. However, for every offering of love we bring to Him, He answers us with Heavenly gratitude. It’s not that either gives out of expectation. Out of love we offer what we can, but out of Divine love, He releases blessings that echo throughout our lives.  

This Heavenly cycle is about more than just giving. It’s about relationship with God, which, just the fact that it exists, is more than we could hope for. An it is so much more than we could have ever accomplished. No human means could grant us salvation, everything we tried, failed. God was saying, “I expect you to seek me, but only I can save you, and that’s merely half of the good things in store.”

Just as the tables paled in comparison to the altar, and Joseph’s gift was illuminated by a resurrected Savior, so are our lives. What begins with Salvation, continues with every interaction with God. You and I are living today off the blessings from offerings one, five, and ten years ago. Salvation was more than we expected, but it was not the stopping place for God.  

He has called us to bring a small portion of our time, our tithes, and our offerings to Him. He knows how hard you work, and how deeply you love Him. He is moved by the heart behind the act, the consistency, and the commitment. It was never about the act of giving, but the deepening of a relationship with Him.

As deep as the love is that you give out of, and as much care as you put in your gifts, He responds. Only His response is like an echo, magnifying and resounding through our lives, and eternity. Every “thank you” of man, is answered by the crescendoing “your welcome” of God. 

iPainting Bernard P

We hope you enjoy this Sunday afternoon art post “Bernard P”.

Eddington Bold Americano

The security team handled the mess, he didn’t expect that. I kept a few things from my days running a company, like home protection for my family. They had the guy in the vehicle subdued in a few minutes. What I didn’t expect, was that this was only a distraction.  

While we were all focused on the guy in the car, the other guy slipped past them. I found this out when he set off the silent alarm at the window. He didn’t get in, but by then, any hope of sleeping was over.

Now I called Otecko, he answered on the second ring. “Are you okay Tomáš?” 

“How did you know anything was wrong?” I was so rattled that I didn’t expect logic. “When my called ID shows my Grandson is calling at 1:30 in the morning, I think something is wrong. This is not difficult.”

I explained, and asked him again. “What is so important that they would try all of this?” “Tomáš, that is not the question. The question is why such stupid attempts.”

“Otecko, there’s no rule that said they have to be intelligent.” He sighed before answering. “Unfortunately, every evil man to ever threaten our country, had a black heart, and a brilliant mind. This is like that soy milk at the store for the health conscious. It looks the same, but very sour. Something is very sour with these attempts.”  

Then it hit me. “Grandpa, lets talk more in the morning, at the store, night.” I know it sounded abrupt, but Otecko got the message. You see, that’s the reason we never called him Grandpa. Otecko means papa in Czech and Slovak. Grandpa is the family code word for trouble, if any of us ever use it, that means something is wrong.  

Otecko was at the gate in twenty minutes, along with Joe and Stef. I waited til they walked in, handed them each an americano, and started. “This has all been a decoy, a way of drawing us out.”

“Everything since the start was trying to get a rabbit out of it’s hole. I think they’re listening to our phone calls, maybe even stalking us. Trying to figure out where the thing is Otecko gave away. Now, that we know that, what do we do.”  

Stef was always the adventurous one of the two of us. She was ready to charge at any obstacle, that’s what made her great in her work as a photographer too. Anxious to take chances to get the shot. So I expected bold when she opened her mouth.  

“Simple, they want a treasure to steal, give them a treasure. Draw them out, and we’ll take them down.” It would have sounded more effective, if she wasn’t wearing purple slippers, and adding peppermint mocha to her coffee.  

The Native: Busy Season

I imagine he swept the rooms, and made the beds. Straightened the decorations, double checked the list. Trying to remember everything, so he wouldn’t have to go back out during the season itself. The life of a Bethlehem innkeeper, on the eve of the Roman census, was a busy one.

The first three sentences sound familiar? To me, they sound like us. We project so many things on the one who said there was no room. We imagine from one end of the spectrum to the other. He was either too greedy to find a decent place for them, or compassionate enough to let them use all that he had.

We don’t know his name, or his background. What we do know is, he was busy. He had to be, this was the biggest empire on the planet, and one of the largest events, even they had attempted. In the midst of being justifiably busy, he missed the most important event to ever arrive on Earth.

It happened around him, it happened on his property, it involved him. The sad thing is, it didn’t happen to him. People complain a lot about this season becoming either trivial, or commercialized. I’m not concerned about that argument, something else attracts my attention.

I know how hard this time of year can be. The last four years, for ourselves, and our loved ones, have been a struggle. The Lord Jesus was born into a struggle, not even having His own bed to lay in. Soon, He was the focus of a murder plot by Herod.

He began His ministry, knowing it would lead to Calvary. Yet, along the way, He took time to heal Simon’s Mother In Law, raise a widow’s son, and rescue a tormented child in a strange land. For all His busyness, and preparations, He didn’t miss the moments He could never call back.

I understand, your time is short, and the financial worries. I know it doesn’t feel the same as when you were a child, but it’s the only time you’ll get to be this age at Christmas. Most importantly, He still visits busy people with special events.  

Take the time to slip from the chaos of your involved life, into a special season with Him. Spend the months celebrating Thanksgiving and the birth of The Savior, truly doing that. Give thanks for the blessings of God, most importantly His birthing a new life in you.  

‘Tis the season to be jolly, not because everything is what we want it to be. It’s not, but it is the season to draw closer to Him who makes us better than we ever could have been on our own. Forget about the list, the stops, and the wrapping.

Watch how The Light bounces on your soul. See His smile as you enter the cave of wonder, and kneel at His throne. Hear the voice that called out to a troubled world from Mary’s arms. It was more than a newborn’s cry, it was a promise. “Help has arrived. There is joy, now, to the world, and I will never leave you.