Dan’s 2022 Favorites

5 Favorite slices of life from this year

It’s been such a joy to have friends share in this year-end tradition by writing their own lists! Make sure to check them all out at FridaySwell, a Medium Publication I created with hopes of more collaborative writing in the future.  For continuity sake, I’m posting my list again here on weekendswell, but head on over to FridaySwell to read mine alongside others.

World Cup

1.What category is the World Cup in?! It delivered beyond expectations this year, and all the shows listed below pale in comparison. A worldwide, month-long, 64-game event watched live by over half the world (3.5 billion), its massive scale is less important than the way it brought my small worlds together. Reconnecting with friends from college on a group chat, building bonds in the soccer channel at work, and even within my own family: Knowing Argentina was up 2–0 in a quarterfinal, I casually stopped by the store on the way home until all of my kids TEXTED ALL CAPS

Living the Painting: Advent Week Four

If the Return of the Prodigal Son were a theater production, which part would I audition for?  After spending Advent immersed in the story, I know I could play either son well.  But do I have what it takes to play the father?

I set out on this writing project without knowing it would end where it started:   

Lost in Advent: Week Three

Last week the Peace of Advent was seen in the prodigal son’s return to the father of Advent Hope from week one.   This third Sunday of Advent – themed on Joy –  I’m seeing myself in the older brother.  And it’s not hard for me to do.  Especially

Child Again: Advent Week Two

The prodigal son was once an innocent child, and then he wasn’t.  And now he wants to be again.

Last week‘s Advent focused on Hope by sitting with the Father on the porch, “actively waiting for that moment when the child turns home.”  This week I’m inviting myself to return home with the son, who like the second week of Advent, is yearning for Peace.  I’m spending time with Rembrandt’s painting and Nouwen’s book to cast new light on my favorite parable.

The prodigal son was a child, a young man, who declared in the most dramatic way, “Myself.” My daughter as a toddler would pull

Loving Vincent

The faces stare me down with unbalanced eyes and colors swirling.  Fixed on a museum canvas, only imagination could add to Van Gogh’s story of their lives.  Until last night,

Letting Go

What I learned in a watercolor class that was so good, I knew immediately that I had to drop the class and not go back:

 

There are four keys to being a good artist, he told us, swooshing his brush across the cotton paper.  He painted much faster than he spoke.

Learn to use your medium: how to mix, how it meets the paper – this would be the first step.

Standing at his camera tripod-turned-easel, working left to right, he painted the sky in less than a minute.  It looked scattered and messy, like a child’s first attempt at Chinese characters.

Step 2:

Creating Competitively?

In my campaign for creativity, I’m lobbying myself to move the creative processing outside my head and into the world.  I wrote about shedding a fear of failure, and capturing creative energy as ideas rush in and out like the tides.  Sometimes we need a push to get an idea out into the world, especially when complicating factors like pride get in the way.