Permit me to show you a partial study today. I want to stop here and leave this sketch alone because, well, I know what I want to put next to it on the left side but I like it just this way, too. So I'll do another and let that be a surprise for you for tomorrow.

I want to thank everyone who is looking in each day --or frequently! It has been a blessing to me to have this online venue, to use thie images in the church services, and have them hanging in a public gallery. To make this opportunity each day as I'm thinking about images in relation to the gospels is very useful in my spiritual discipline. As we're all preparing for Christmas, to daily or nightly sit down and put to paper or canvas my ideas and then to write something about the image is both demanding and thrilling. But if I didn't have this discipline I really wouldn't do some of these pieces. A few may have worked out in little drawings but nothing

like what has developed. I've been there before in an infertile period, sometimes while producing a great amount of work for commissions. I'm not taking commissions anymore and have a busy life at church, but adding this small amount of art is a necessary thing for me to do, I'm rediscovering! While over my career  I have made lots of paintings and fulfilled many commissions and pieces that I've wanted to create, and I always have plenty of items and concepts that come to mind, --this is a different experience  I like the idea of having to do something by my own obligation and commitment and I'd like to say thank you for looking in and being a part of making the 2013 Advent Calendar  happen. 

Standby for tomorrow's image which will probably be related to this one of the holy family moving from one town to another before the baby arrives.

--Pastor Jack