Kaleidoscope Twists and Turns by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA)
If you’ve read much of my blog, you’ve seen a lot of the things I do for fun. Almost anything kaleidoscopic, colorful, sparkly, or created with words gets my attention. I believe I am creative because I was made in the image of my creative Heavenly Father. Like the aspects of my own parents that I see in my own life, I am thrilled to model aspects of The Lord in my creativity.
The first thing I do for fun is spend time with Yahveh Almighty. Maybe it’s singing to Him, offering praise, giving thanks, reading and studying His Holy Word, or just having a pleasant conversation. However I interact with Him, it truly is a fun thing getting to know The One who put the universe together in infinite ways beyond my finite understanding.
The second thing is spending time with the love of my life, my soldier husband of almost 35 years. We plan to be together “forever and 3 days” because one day past forever isn’t enough. 🥰 Time with him includes more time at home these days, but I have great memories of travel to see my family out west or for vacations to my favorite places like Branson, Missouri, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Even a few short trips like the Red Skelton museum near Evansville, Indiana, and a really cool trip to see the World’s Largest Rocking Chair/Mailbox/Pitchfork Wind Chime/Mousetrap and more in Casey, Illinois. Check out these cool sites…
The third thing is writing. If I didn’t have fun writing, even this blog might seem like work. Although I have had some time where writing wasn’t as fun when I didn’t have the members of my wonderful Louisville Christian Writers (LCW) group to encourage me. And, actually, it wasn’t that writing was not fun so much as my life had so many big things going on just before the start of 2020 that all creativity seemed stifled, so writing and this blog took a hit. But now I’m back here and at LCW, so writing is becoming more fun every day. I hope I get back to poetry soon as well. I’m working on a children’s book from the lyrics of the first song I ever wrote at 7 years old, but I’ll save that for its own post.
The fourth thing is kaleidoscopes. My favorites of these include oil cells with floating pieces of sparkly and colorful stuff like dichroic glass. The two mirrors reflect the pieces into a mandala shape filled with moving designs that have a positive effect on the viewer’s endorphin level. And my wish list for new scopes is pretty big, but with just a few small purchases, it was enough to be considered a collector at my favorite kaleidoscope store: Nellie Bly’s in Jerome, Arizona. I love kaleidoscopes so much, well, you can find a whole album of my inside kaleidoscope pics on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/gp/crystalwriter/cmBKQ5Rp2k And I believe that what I see when I look down the tube of a kaleidoscope is similar to what God sees when He looks at His creations (and people) on this earth. All the designs are beautiful; and they’re even more beautiful when light, especially God’s light, shines through them.
Fifth: Viewing a kaleidoscope doesn’t use my own creativity (though I have built one and want to create more someday), so I love to wax kaleidoscopic and create designs digitally. I use any variety of apps and software to make designs. I started with making tessellations in the Silicon Mirror program by Torpor and later learned what a mandala was. You can still get the program for Windows for only $12, which is what I paid over 15 years ago, and it looks like they’ve come out with a Mac version for 5 bucks. Visit https://torpor.com/smk.htm to see the mirror and his other really cool programs and links to lots of images. My Flickr album for everything kaleidoscopic is at https://www.flickr.com/gp/crystalwriter/2148G1a628 and you can visit https://www.facebook.com/KaleidoscopesPlus to see images from other creative applications. The video at the top is a kaleidoscope transformation made in Mirror Lab. It was a huge file, so I compressed it and added music in Video Show for Android and then let Jetpack’s VideoPress optimize it here. And here are a few static kaleidoscopes I made from the same source as the video was made from.
3 Mandala Kaleidoscopes in a Collage from Photo Studio Pro. Image created and edited by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA)
The 3rd and 5th items could just be called creativity, and there are even more creative pursuits in my life like creating new recipes to cook and spending hours making images with Wombo Dream and a few other AI programs. I hope one day to create a magazine that will include many of my creative outlets along with creations and ideas from others. Getting back here to write again is stirring the creative juices and renewing my hopes for these future dreams. I hope my readers join me in the fun. 😊
SPOILER ALERT! FIRST, read today’s commentary before you watch the video! This is the video I promised I would look for back when I told you this story was upcoming. It’s by my favorite parody group, ApologetiX, and this is their official video for the song, “Downer of a Sister” which is a parody of the song “Chop Suey” by System of a Down. If you would like to read the lyrics and learn more about this amazing band who writes and sings Christian parodies of songs from a variety of genres, visit this song’s lyrics page on their site at http://apologetix.com/music/song.php?freebie=true%20&song_id=383 Once you watch the video, I would love to hear your thoughts about this song, and other ApologetiX songs you may have listened to, in the comments below. Thanks.
Now, today’s reading comes from Genesis 29:18 through Genesis 30:18, and it continues the story of Jacob’s love for Rachael. Jacob loved Rachael so much that when Laban asked him to work for seven years in order to have her as his wife, he worked happily and said the years were like only a few days. And then the wedding and feast were set in order.
On the wedding night, Laban snuck in Leah because she was the first born, and Jacob did not know until the next morning that he had slept with (and therefore married) the wrong sister. He was angry at Laban, but Laban explained it was just the way they did things. He promised he would give him Rachael at the end of the marriage week if Jacob would promise to stay and work for another seven years. He wanted Rachael enough that he agreed to the request.
When he took Rachael as his wife, he was much more in love with her. Yahveh Almighty saw that Leah was unloved, so he made her fertile and Rachael unable to bear children. Leah bore 4 sons to Jacob before she gave birth no more, and each time she was certain that having the children would cause her husband to love her. She named her first three sons Reuben (see, a son), Simeon (God hears), and Levi (companion). But when she had a fourth son, she turned her praise toward God instead of hoping that her husband would love her, so she named him Judah, meaning praise.
Rachael was still infertile, so she gave her handmaiden to Jacob who bore him two more sons, Dan (he judged) and Naphtali (my wrestling). Leah, unfortunately still struggling to feel loved, then gave her own handmaiden to Jacob who also bore him two sons, Gad (fortune) and Asher (happy).
I truly feel compassion for both of these women. I am sad for Leah in feeling unloved, and having plenty of experiences to push her to feeling that way. I wish, for her sake, that she would have been able to have a relationship with God the way people these days are able to, with His Spirit of Comfort able to dwell within us, but somehow, she did know that it was God who was hearing her needs, and that is why she named her children as she did. I think when she named the last one Judah, she was giving praise directly to God, and maybe that’s why the lineage of our Messiah comes through that one.
I also felt bad for Rachael because of being childless. I know that feeling from my own childlessness. I know there is comfort in having children by proxy, and I love the nephews I was privileged to raise for a few years from the depths of my heart–even when they have hurt me. But I also know that there is a part of me that will always wonder what it would have felt like to have known a maternal bond from conception and birth. And yet, as Leah when she had her fourth child, I can still say, I will praise God.
Oh, and just to keep with the NaNo updating, my word count today is 22,731
Crystal is, like her name, multi-faceted. She can even write about herself in third person and only feel a little awkward about it. 🙂 She loves to write; she loves kaleidoscopes, fractals, and all things colorful; she loves her husband, her family, and her feline furkids; and mostly she loves Yahveh Almighty, her Creator. She believes her creative mind is in her DNA from Him, and she believes He sees His creations as she sees the images inside a kaleidoscope–all different yet all beautiful and most beautiful when light (His light) shines through them.
Crystal Writes A Blog 
This Time, I Will Praise God
SPOILER ALERT! FIRST, read today’s commentary before you watch the video! This is the video I promised I would look for back when I told you this story was upcoming. It’s by my favorite parody group, ApologetiX, and this is their official video for the song, “Downer of a Sister” which is a parody of the song “Chop Suey” by System of a Down. If you would like to read the lyrics and learn more about this amazing band who writes and sings Christian parodies of songs from a variety of genres, visit this song’s lyrics page on their site at http://apologetix.com/music/song.php?freebie=true%20&song_id=383 Once you watch the video, I would love to hear your thoughts about this song, and other ApologetiX songs you may have listened to, in the comments below. Thanks.
Now, today’s reading comes from Genesis 29:18 through Genesis 30:18, and it continues the story of Jacob’s love for Rachael. Jacob loved Rachael so much that when Laban asked him to work for seven years in order to have her as his wife, he worked happily and said the years were like only a few days. And then the wedding and feast were set in order.
On the wedding night, Laban snuck in Leah because she was the first born, and Jacob did not know until the next morning that he had slept with (and therefore married) the wrong sister. He was angry at Laban, but Laban explained it was just the way they did things. He promised he would give him Rachael at the end of the marriage week if Jacob would promise to stay and work for another seven years. He wanted Rachael enough that he agreed to the request.
When he took Rachael as his wife, he was much more in love with her. Yahveh Almighty saw that Leah was unloved, so he made her fertile and Rachael unable to bear children. Leah bore 4 sons to Jacob before she gave birth no more, and each time she was certain that having the children would cause her husband to love her. She named her first three sons Reuben (see, a son), Simeon (God hears), and Levi (companion). But when she had a fourth son, she turned her praise toward God instead of hoping that her husband would love her, so she named him Judah, meaning praise.
Rachael was still infertile, so she gave her handmaiden to Jacob who bore him two more sons, Dan (he judged) and Naphtali (my wrestling). Leah, unfortunately still struggling to feel loved, then gave her own handmaiden to Jacob who also bore him two sons, Gad (fortune) and Asher (happy).
I truly feel compassion for both of these women. I am sad for Leah in feeling unloved, and having plenty of experiences to push her to feeling that way. I wish, for her sake, that she would have been able to have a relationship with God the way people these days are able to, with His Spirit of Comfort able to dwell within us, but somehow, she did know that it was God who was hearing her needs, and that is why she named her children as she did. I think when she named the last one Judah, she was giving praise directly to God, and maybe that’s why the lineage of our Messiah comes through that one.
I also felt bad for Rachael because of being childless. I know that feeling from my own childlessness. I know there is comfort in having children by proxy, and I love the nephews I was privileged to raise for a few years from the depths of my heart–even when they have hurt me. But I also know that there is a part of me that will always wonder what it would have felt like to have known a maternal bond from conception and birth. And yet, as Leah when she had her fourth child, I can still say, I will praise God.
Oh, and just to keep with the NaNo updating, my word count today is 22,731
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November 11, 2013 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Adonai, Almighty, Asher, Bible, Bible Gateway, Bible reading, Bible study, childless, Complete Jewish Bible, Creator, crystalwriter, Dan, Gad, Genesis, Genesis 29, Genesis 30, God, Holy Bible, Jacob, Judah, Laban, Leah, Levi, Lord, loved, marriage, Messiah, Naphtali, Old Covenant, Old Testament, Parashah, Portions, praise, Rachael, Reuben, Scripture, Simeon, sons, The Complete Jewish Bible, Torah, Torah commentary, Torah Portions, Torah Reading, tribe of Judah, tribe of praise, trick, true love, unloved, wedding, Word, Word of God, Word of the Lord, www.biblegateway.com, Yahveh, Yahweh | Leave a comment