• Princeton, New Jersey
about my background, about my faith,

The "Seed" is ....the beginning of the thought, the idea, the Word planted in the heart......................................

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My earliest memories are of playing in the woods; "spring beauties", "jack in the pulpit" and "skunk cabbage" that announced the Spring and catching "minnies" in the creek. My parents loved nature (and painters of nature) and it rubbed off on me and my siblings. We vacationed in the woods from one end of the country to the other. We were not a particularly religious family although we did go to church. I remember a brush with a kind oƒ Christianity in which the cross was supposed to mean something important but my father disagreed and I forgot about it. However our father did read to us; Swiss family Robinson and Dickens and we had some exposure to Christian views in that way Dad was a staunch liberal. We listened to the news together, and heard the school desegregation cases and "hoped for a better day". If there was anything that I knew about God other than that He was the creator, it was that he cared about all races of people. When I was 15, I was asked to paint a picture on "the meaning of America" and painted a black child and a white child playing together on a beach, a prophetic painting for me. In 1960, I attended the Phila. College of Art and although it had been my plan just to "have fun", I found it necessary to take a stand one way or the other on issues that before had been purely theoretical. Art schools are famous for their philosophical extremes. I knew people who were reading Sartre and Camu and others reading Nietche and even Hitler and in addition it was the beginning of that notorious decade, the 60's! Why was it that I so much preferred Jonathon Edwards poetry which I was reading for my American lit class to Sartre who everyone thought was so cool? I was appalled when my friend wanted me to read Hitler and I began looking for the civil rights movement and met my future husband in that process. He worked in a coffee house where the civil rights of minorities were a hot topic and was a kind of philosopher there. We took part in the rallies and folk singing of that era. At home we read Tolkien and Hess, had two sweet children, and lived in a third floor walkup near "Powelton Village" and "hoped for a better day". During those years, my art was confined to charcoals, small portraits of my children and the musicians and their wives who were our friends. Abstract flowers, remnants of my past life found their way into my few paintings. Marijuana was popular among the people we knew and at least three friends, all musicians, became addicted to heroin as well. Others, we knew of, died of overdoses. Neither my husband or I ever tried it, and I thank God for that mercy. How desolately sad it was to see people we cared about killing themselves.

As racial conflicts escalated in the city and distrust grew, the civil rights movement became bitter and life became dangerous for us. Social conflicts were pulling our social network apart and tearing at our marriage. My husband wanted to move into a communal group I felt suspicious of. Then a friend and I each, separately, became victims of violence. Eventually my husband moved into the commune and I left with the children and moved to Princeton. We didn't have life sustaining answers to the problems we were facing. In the leadership void that followed the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, two people whose leadership I respected, I worked in a liberal church, then went to San Francisco to look into a radical left wing political group. But their philosophical base was very different from Dr. King's. Dr. King was nonviolent, a follower of Ghandi who learned the principals of nonviolent protest from Tolstoy who gleaned them from the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus. One day I went to the ER because of a nagging cough and was shocked to find that I needed heart surgery. Suddenly I was faced with illness, my own mortality and political doctrine seemed woefully inadequate at that moment. I could imagine my children growing up as orphans and what had I taught them that would sustain them? I left our Marxist friends and we went to the home of an aunt and she and her Brethren prayer group began to pray for us and then we went back East. On my way into surgery I remember praying, "Oh God, if there is a God, you know what I'm like. If you want to help me, please...". I experienced an initial lightning recovery and glimpses of the Unseen but soon forgot God and my healing stagnated and began to regress. A second heart valve was failing. Then when I really despaired of life, my sister and her husband, who had just returned from the West coast moved in with us for a few months. They had become Christians in a revival taking place there, "the Jesus Movement". I initially thought they had lost their minds. They were trying to talk to me about "Adam and Eve"...! Then I had a fantastic dream. I was in a garden and in front of me was the tree of Life. Nobody had to tell me what it was. I thought "well, I'll get me some of that fruit right away". Then I heard a beautiful voice, the most beautiful that I have ever heard, telling me to leave the garden and I didn't even care what it said because it was so beautiful. I fell on my knees in worship and then woke up. It was the clearest dream I ever had and I knew it came from God. I knew that there must be something I had never seen before in that old story. But because it baffled me so I began reading in the New Testament for surely something uncanny was going on and I needed to know more so I could talk about it with my sister and her husband. I was beginning to feel a strange mixture of hope abd fear. They had been living by the Bible in a group started by a Hebrew Christian for about 6 months before they came. As I read the gospels, the first surprising impression of Jesus was how much he cared about people who were oppressed or poor or ill! Then an internal quiet voice began to talk to my heart in such a personal way. Was it my imagination? And the Voice in my heart and the Word in my hands and the reality of what was going on began to coincide over the days to come. I read about Jesus healing someone and I asked it "Do you still do things like this"? "Why don't you try me?" so I asked for healing- for time to care for my children and by my next Dr's appointment my heart valve was working much better- I know because not only did I feel better, the Dr. was amazed. I recovered to a large degree and kept on reading the New Testament, I knew I was dealing with a Reality at this point and in it found "sin"(that old Adam and Eve story)and forgiveness and new Life, God's way of dealing with sin, purchased for us at the cross, enough forgiveness for the whole world. For thirty eight years now I have continued to respond to His Word, and God's Spirit has continued to teach me and to set me free. Over the years my husband and I became close friends again. He became an Orthodox Christian and we found ways to be more mutually supportive of our children. He died of COPD last year but I expect we will see ech other again someday. Although I still get lost in the fog sometimes, God keeps bringing me back to Himself and I have the sense of purpose that I need and also the correction. He is still growing my faith and teaching me to trust Him. "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in Him."

Most of my adult years, I've lived in minority communities, for six years in the city and for many more in the town of Princeton. Raising my children there was a precious God given calling and involvement in the community backed by my church, and proceeded by prayer was often with children, sometimes using art. My church background gave me a strong interest in missions and when my child rearing days were over I began using my art and graphics training for that purpose. I also painted for the love of it. Then once again family took precedence what with grandchildren and the illness and passing of my husband and father. And now I think God is pulling me toward art again. I will have to find a structured way to make room for it as it is just too easy to respond to the immediate and art requires quiet unfettered time.