John Janaro's Blog, page 30

Our Anniversary: 28 Years!

Here’s what I “said” to my wife today…on my social media platforms, because I don’t mind if the whole world hears it. I am full of awe and gratitude.

Here on the blog, I’m also posting the original, higher resolution photos that I used in the composition of this “virtual card.” 

Summer 2024 is Here

The Summer Solstice has arrived for 2024. Over the next week we'll have our longest days of the year, with nearly 15 hours from sunrise to sunset.

And, although I'm not at the beach as I was "dreaming" in my last post, there is much to be said for living in a place that looks like our Shenandoah Valley in June (above).

Happy Summertime!

I Would Love to Smell the Sea Air Again

I virtually dabbled my way from a photograph of a local meadow and ordinary foliage to this scene of breezy palms and gathering clouds on a quiet coast. Seawater and salty air, warm but with gentle wind currents... perhaps a subconscious longing led my imagination in the direction of a place I would really like to be right now. I love water. Especially, I have always found that being near the ocean rejuvenates me. Unfortunately I haven't been to the beach in eight years. I'm glad that my beloved "Happy Creek" flows through our neighborhood, and the legendary Shenandoah River is just a few miles away. My memories are enriched by many experiences of many waters in my younger days, boating, fishing, swimming, or just strolling on the edges of shorelines and the shallows of riverbanks. The movement of water stirs up my soul.

There is cool water in the bottle at my bedside. Overall, I'm having a harder time doing simple things. On "good days" I can walk in the long evening daylight and even spend some time in the main room of the house with Eileen, Jojo, and various adult children or grandchildren who may also be here.

On "bad days" I have lots of pain and spend most of the day in bed. I have access to all kinds of media and, of course, books to read (if my aching fingers can manage to keep them open in my lap or on my chest). And there's always music. Above all, people pop in to keep me company for a bit.

I’m always happy and grateful to see people. Certain “little people,” of course, can really make my day.

It's been a tough period of time for me, but also it's been a time for beautiful surprises. Still, I'm struggling.

We are all enduring many trials. Let us remember to pray for one another.

A Fatherhood Collage

I just put these few pictures together in honor of Fathers’ Day. It is amazing that my son, who was once a baby in my arms, and then a growing boy, is now a fully grown man and a father himself.

Thus we contribute, each in our turn, to building human history, generation after generation, parents to children, father to son, then son to his children in turn.

The Lord Gives Us Time….

The source of so much of my frustration is my lack of patience. I must ask for the grace to be patient, and to resist the temptation to become discouraged. I suppose this is a problem we all have. May God have mercy on us all.

Pope Francis reminded me about “patience” in his Angelus message for June 16. The selection below is worth quoting:

“The Lord places in us the seeds of His word and His grace, good seeds, abundant seeds, and then, without ever ceasing to accompany us, He waits patiently. The Lord continues to take care of us, with the confidence of a Father, but He gives us time – the Lord is patient – so that the seeds open, grow and develop to the point of bearing the fruits of good works. And this is because He wants nothing in His field to be lost, that everything should reach full maturity; He wants us all to be able to grow like ears of grain.

“Not only this. By doing so, the Lord gives us an example: He teaches us too to sow the Gospel confidently wherever we are, and then to wait for the seed that has been sown to grow and bear fruit in us and in others, without becoming discouraged and without ceasing to support and help each other even where, despite our efforts, we do not seem to see immediate results. In fact, often even among us, beyond appearances, the miracle is already underway, and in due course it will bear abundant fruit!”

Some Reflections on "Offering Everything" to God

When we wake up in the morning, it is good to pray a "Morning Offering" in which we remember Jesus and offer everything that awaits us each day in union with the all-embracing sacrifice that His love has accomplished on the Cross for our redemption. 

There are many versions of this prayer, or we can use our own words. We might say something like: "O Heart of Jesus, we offer You all our thoughts, words, and actions, our joys, sorrows, and sufferings of this day. We offer You everything."

Through Jesus, we are able to live in an inexhaustible and super-abundant way the "vitality" that is at the foundation of all created things—their relation (and ours) to the Mystery of God.

What is it that we do (or at least desire to do, however forgetful we may be afterward) when we "offer" our day to God? "Offering" involves a fundamental recognition; it entails the affirmation of the reality of things according to that inner secret that constitutes their being and goodness: the fact that they belong-to-Another.

And so we cannot possess things by dominating them and reducing them to our own measure. Our life becomes "offering" when we use and possess and love things in a way that takes them completely seriously, because things are a hymn of rejoicing to the One who makes them be, and the only way to truly love them is to join in that hymn.

The ecstasy of the beauty of things is their giving-back-of-themselves to the One who sustains them and calls them to their own fruition. We offer our day when we join in with the "giving" of things, when we allow their song of rejoicing to enter into our awareness, when our engagement of reality becomes a prayer, a "blessing of the Lord" that gives voice to the hymn of creation: Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord. Praise and exalt Him above all forever!

How does this "offering" extend to love for another person? The greatest gift, the greatest beauty in all of creation is the other person. There is much to be said about this. For now, I can only reflect that in loving other persons I am loving others who, like me, are called to the joys of eternal life. This is where the true identity of every person is found. Every person is created in the image of God and called to share in the likeness of God and the life of God. This unique, sacred, personal vocation to belong to God is at the heart of who each person really is.

When I engage in a relationship with another person, I "offer" that relationship through the recognition that this someone is not primarily a source of satisfaction or utility for me, but someone who has a vocation, a fulfillment corresponding to their own freedom, a personal destiny—who is "for Another." To offer to God my love for another person means also to love that person for who they truly are, that is, to love them for the sake of that Other and their relationship with that Other. It is to love their destiny.

More Digital Art by JJ, with a nod to Saint Anthony

Here is some of the latest artwork from JJStudios!

I’m not referring to the fifteenth-century image of Saint Anthony of Padua (Anonymous, from Cordoba, Spain) that you see here first. Rather, as Summer draws near, I wanted to present some of my own “Scenes of May and June” (below) on today’s feast of Saint Anthony, who is one of the beloved patron saints of my late father, Walter Anthony Janaro II. I miss Dad. He always appreciated my “nature posts” on this blog. I think about and pray for my Dad especially on Saint Anthony’s Day.

And, of course, Saint Anthony is important to his father before him (WAJ I, the grandfather I never met who died in 1944), and the still-very-much-alive Walter Anthony Janaro III—my older brother, who is generally known in these parts simply as “Walter” (just one name, like a rock star) or, around the family, “Uncle Walter.” It’s funny that I have gone into all this description of three generations of Janaro men, because this post was not supposed to be about them. It’s a “virtual exhibit” by JJStudios, but things, and relationships, and our work, and our plans are wider and more meaningful than we realize. Saint Anthony knew this, and he continues to help us to recognize and remember God’s love and mercy in the ordinary details of life.

Saint Anthony, pray for my grandfather, my father, and my brother. Pray for all of us.

And now, about these pictures—they are works that arise from meditations on the natural world and experiments in digital artistic techniques of different kinds. They usually originate from photographs that I have taken in my local environment. In the past—historically-speaking it was not too long ago—photography itself was considered a new and strange technological “trick” for capturing and presenting “realistic” images. It took some time for photographers to discover the proper artistic possibilities of their own medium. They had to work at it and take pictures, lots of pictures. 

Now we have new digital techniques for manipulating photographic images. There are more and more of them all the time. They seem like techniques for cheating, deceiving, and banalizing image-making. But we hope that they can also be used wisely, and in the service of beauty and creativity. We must discover the possibilities of digital and even so-called “AI” as complex tools, as further media that can be shaped by bodily persons whose ways of communicating always involve the use of “physical” media. It will take time and much attention to discover distinctive visual portrayals with these media that authentically convey the vision and labor of human personal creativity. But we have every reason to think that here too, beauty can shine through.

That is certainly my hope. This blog continues to be a place where I share my efforts and experiments and—mostly—failures as a digital media artist. 

I am not afraid of the failures (though, of course, I don’t aim to fail, and I certainly don’t like to fail). Mostly, I try to learn from failure. I learn the limits of these media, and become more focused on their real possibilities. I move forward in an education in craft, creativity, and finding beauty.

Feast of Saint Barnabas the Apostle

"The Church in Jerusalem... sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. And a large number of people was added to the Lord. Then he went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the Church and taught a large number of people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11:22-26).

In Loving Memory of Christina Grimmie, After Eight Years

On June 10, 2024, eight years later:

Renewed Day By Day

"We who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh... Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.

"For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven... While we are in this tent we groan and are weighed down, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a first installment."

~2 Corinthians 4:11, 16-18; 5:1, 4-5