We all have seeds of faith, and the Holy Spirit waters them

I wrote a fable a few years ago, before I was saved. I was raised in an atheist/lapsed Catholic home where church was not an activity we participated in. However, as a child, then as an adult, I always adhered to the internal feeling I had that there is immutable right and wrong, good and evil, black and white, truth and lies. I was forever getting yelled at. "Stop being so dogmatic!" I was told. "Everything is not black and white! There's gray!" I didn't buy it. Of course, the seed that He planted within me eventually blossomed into salvation. The one Truth is Jesus. There IS black and white. Hallelujah.

I went through some of my artwork from that period and I was struck by how biblical it is. The Spirit must have been working overtime in me. There are biblical allusions, biblical pictures, biblical concepts. I'll share one example, the fable titled "The Shark Tooth and the Rock." [click to enlarge]



















Once upon a time there was a shark. He swam the deep, dark waters endlessly, always hungry. He ate and ate, and preyed and preyed. He was always alone, occasionally cursing his lot of loneliness and predation. His fellow ocean dwellers swam away from him scared of his big teeth and his disturbing power. Eventually, the shark died. Soon the only thing left if this shark was its tooth. In the end, the tooth washed up on the shores of the cold ocean in which he swam. One day a little girl was walking the beach. She saw the darkly polished tooth, and picked it up. As she peeped at it in her palm, she wondered, "Was he happy being a shark?"














Once upon a time, there was a rock. He was a big rock, sturdy and strong. He lived through ages and ages and eons and epochs as a well-loved rock. As each age passed, he tumbled the warm waters of the ocean floor with his fellow rocks. Tumbling happily along, now and then he did good work like holding up buildings or making a beach. The eons of tumbling polished him to an even rounder and more pleasing proportion. As he tumbled down from his great size his inner gem-like qualities shone through and he sparkled. One day a little girl was walking the beach and she saw the splendor in this rock. She picked it up and held it warm in her hand. As she gazed at it in her palm, she marveled, "I love this rock."







"Free will means being able to choose the most loving way to be."




I leave it to you to determine the biblical allusions. For me it seems that in my little fable there is a predator endlessly going to and fro seeking whom he may devour; in the end he perished, the cover's 'city on a hill'; the stone's refinement by tumbling in the 'waters' until its inner qualities show; Light; and free will's goal, choosing Love.

All this to say, that the Holy Spirit has an amazing ministry on earth for each and every person on it. Saved or unsaved. What I was doing at that period in my life was create artist books and stories without limits and that allowed the Holy Spirit enough room to work in me. My soul knew that there existed an absolute: absolute truth, justice, right and wrong. My soul knew it. I would not let the world take that little seed of faith out of my hand. Finally, when the Spirit deemed the time was right, it grew. If you feel that things should be 'right' but they aren't, if you feel something is missing from your heart, or that things seem just a little empty and pointless, it is the Spirit talking to you. He is knocking at the door to your heart. He is the living waters that will grow that seed of faith. Will you let Him in?
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art notes: paste paper, suminagashi, artisan paper, artist books, real shark tooth scanned, real rock scanned then photoshopped with lens flare.