HIS WORLD HER WORLD THEIR WORLD

Remember the words freedom and responsibility, both needed to create your own balanced personal physical, mental and even spiritual “world,” or call it your own “personal garden,” as I like to call it. We all have this “personal garden.” I have one, you have one, they have one.

I will never forget the Sunday when the grocery store closed at 5:00 pm and took these employees, who volunteered, in the alley with a globe and a camera to take these pictures that I used for this painting.

They all joked and laughed and thought I had lost it. It was all so strange and funny then. But for me it was crystal clear in my mind what I was doing, today we have a very symbolic painting that will help millions realize how easy it can be for all of us at home, work, school and around the world to live, work, and worship in peace, agape (love), and understanding.

This painting is about the necessity for balance and understanding in recognizing and accepting differences among personalities, life styles, beliefs, convictions and cultures.

In the first tray we see a young person, Jim is his name, “his world” he told me includes love for his cat, the study of art and computer graphics, and a liking for hamburgers and a Greek book on metaphysics. Jim has developed his own belief system and world view and life based on freedom and responsibility.

Whether he is “right” or “wrong” depends on how his system compares with others, and if it is based on scientific reality. Jim’s “personal garden” the way he “leaves” and “holds” the world—will cause no problems or pain to others.

The next illustration depicts “her world” that’s Nancy’s “personal garden.” this particular young lady’s “world” includes an affinity for computers, Pepsi, making money, and of course the love of her dog. Let’s imagine further that an addiction to watermelon happens to play a dominant role in her world.

The history of humanity is filled with examples of how individuals, families, towns, or nations crossed the line into the “worlds” or “gardens” of other individuals or nations using deception, lies, force, aggression, fear, brutal force, terror, oppression, war and death.

In the third illustration, we see harmony among different worlds. Jeff and Sarah in the third tray have different interests-they “hold” “their personal world” in different ways. Jeff enjoys music, karate and soft drinks, while Sarah enjoys Mexican food, school books, and the Bible.

Yet, with all their differences, they are sharing the same world, and are living in peace with no complaints, no screams, no yelling, and no shooting. They have agreed to live and let live. They have agreed that the kitchen at home is a “family garden” and not “a personal garden” and everything has a place and everything should be in its place at all times.

They all have agreed to respect the majority’s desire to put up a traffic light down their street, and they will obey the man-made laws. And they will not interfere with the freedom and responsibility of others to live, to rest, to play, to work, to save, to spend and to buy what they need, want, or desire.

They all agree also to have and pass rules as laws with others to be able to keep as their own legal personal, family, city, state or national property. And many times, for the sake of love, peace, harmony, and common sense, they know, they might have to say “let us agree that we disagree. Let us go to sleep and talk about it some other time.”

The image of the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. symbolizes a storage place of happy or unhappy mental world of each of the people in this painting. The building symbolizes the storage place for their individual beliefs, their memories and the contents of their respective minds, “their personal happy or unhappy memory folders and files in their own Personal Sears Tower” their own mental worlds which create their habits, their character, their personality, and their destiny.

For us to exist, achieve our goals, be happy, and live in harmony with each other, across races, religions and nations, we must understand and accept that the content in each of our own “Personal Sears Towers” is different. This in large part is what makes each of us so unique with unique “personal gardens.”

Yes, live and let live. Plant roses in your garden, I will plant spinach if you don’t mind. Let us have an understanding dialog of our different worlds. We must learn to accept, celebrate and cherish our differences. By so doing, the delicate balance between people’s differences—their “worlds,” their own “personal Sears Towers,” can be maintained, in balance, and we can be happy and flourish as individuals with freedom and responsibility and as a diverse society on a very tiny planet of ours, that is our only Home.

BALANCE FOR A BETTER LIFE

To explore and understand the exciting material presented in the Balance for a Better Life oil paintings, we need to be aware that several basic themes are contained in the paintings.

These basic—and very important—themes include the natural progression of human concepts, ideas and thoughts, and, the representation of balance in the form of a scale with three golden trays.

In this, the first painting of the series, we see a nail, a steering wheel, and a key in the first tray. Each of these objects represents a direct, simple, “single component” thought or idea. Many of us, especially children, would see them as simple objects and nothing more. However, as we mature as individuals, societies and nations, simple thoughts will evolve naturally into progressively broader concepts or ideas.

In the second tray in the painting we have a hammer, an automobile and a lock. These items are of course related to the simple objects in the first tray. In the third tray, we see a set of four tires, a door, a wood post, and a piece of plywood painted white, perhaps to be used for a For Sale sign.

What we are representing here is the normal maturation and continuation of our thought processes, wherein objects and ideas evolve into end uses or “applications” that broaden and enrich our lives. The items on these trays represent physical evolution to meet needs or solve problems.

The hammer, automobile and lock are “applications.” We use the lock and key for protection, and the steering wheel, automobile and tires in modem transportation. We might use the nail and hammer to hang pictures or notes, to enhance communication.

Inevitably, we start combining ideas, concepts and applications. For example, the key and lock can be used with the car to protect our investment.

A scale with three golden trays is another basic theme in the Balance for a Better Life paintings. We will strive to balance that scale in every painting, and will come to understand that full and equal importance must be accorded to all three trays in every painting.

Besides the objects on the trays, our first painting also shows Earth being supported and surrounded by a variety of individuals with different skin color and clothing, representing the different religions, beliefs and cultures that comprise our tiny planet Earth.

There is also a measuring stick or ruler that symbolizes the necessity for us to assess our progress or lack of progress as individuals, societies and nations.

How far we grow, how high we can climb physically, mentally and spiritually in our thoughts, words, and actions will determine whether we travel paths of progress or of destruction. Many societies throughout the ages have chosen destruction.

Those two white doves at the top of the painting? Please remember that they symbolize freedom and agape, the Greek word for “love.”

No matter how close you may be to holiness, perfection, and balance, if you do not love yourself and others, or if you do not respect and cherish freedom for yourself and for others, then you will need to sit down and wait for your own personal physical, mental, and spiritual evolution.

We all need to become aware of the real nature of life, with its responsibilities and infinite possibilities.

Yes, life presents responsibilities. The most important is to make every effort to achieve social, academic, economic and spiritual balance as we progress and mature. We need to balance what is represented in the three trays in our paintings, to balance our lives.

Balance for a Better Life, based on freedom and love. It is THE way.

Please continue your journey now, into the next 32 oil paintings; we believe they will change the way you look at life, and the way you live your own life!