The Miracle of Life

I call this piece "Three, Six, Nine (and doin' just fine)." Don't forget to click on the paintings to enlarge them...

This one is called "The Miracle of Life," a topic which has been on my mind of late because my youngest daughter, Jessi, is eight months and two weeks pregnant. Yup. It could happen any day. My miracle baby is about to have a miracle baby of her own. And she shall be called Lillian Pearl Sadler or Lilly for short. Yes, a baby is growing inside of Brandon's wife. He's giving it love and Jessi, well, she's giving it life. And so there are three hearts where once there were two as two loving parents stand waiting for you. And your grandma and grandpa can't wait to touch you, Lilly, to see if you're real, although we've already felt your hiccups.

And here she is! On this, the 26th day of August, 2009, I proudly present Lillian Pearl Sadler, my sixth grandchild. To say that the miracle of birth is among the most magical events in the universe is an understatement. And I have found the births of my grandchildren to be even more profound than the births of my children since the births of my children were always tempered by the weight of responsibility (and a sense of inadequacy) which I always felt the moment I first held them in my arms, but holding my grandchidren, just moments after their birth, those are experiences beyond all comprehension--tempered only by love, and even though, during those moments, my eyes are always blurred with tears of happiness, they are moments, more than any others, when I glimpse the purpose of existence and absorb the energy of the universe with a clarity that exceeds perception.

"How Bad Do You Want It?"

Something I've learned being a businessman, a vocation in which I have engaged for 25 years as a means of supporting my teaching habit: Sometimes, you have to decide how badly you want the gold at the end of your rainbow, or in this case, the treasure chest beneath your sea, because reward is seldom realized without risk. It's a good idea, however, to calculate the risk before "going (diving) for it." If the odds were one to one (one shark, one diver), I think I'd still bet against the diver in the foreground, whose impatient preoccupation with the treasure chest may be clouding his perception of the situation (his back is to the sharks), but eight sharks and four divers? I'd say this one is a no-brainer: Sharks four, divers zip! Moral to the mousterpiece: Plan carefully; keep one eye on the prize and the other on the obstacles (sharks) in your way. You'll live longer, be happier, have more time to enjoy the prize and, hopefully, you'll be inclined to utilize much of that time to engage in activities more satisfying than the prize itself: That of sharing the prize with others and assisting those less fortunate. Aside: I usually don't moralize, which is what this comment sounds like. Sorry. I prefer to leave moralizing to others, although, at times, I've been known to dispense take-it-or-leave-it advice, which is a little less presumptuous than moralizing.