Seventeen years later, she is an amazing wife and mother of two equally amazing grandkids.

It’s a rare experience for parents to see life through their children’s eyes–perhaps even rarer when you both see the same thing.  In May of 1998, in her first assignment for her Communications 343 class at CSUSB our oldest daughter gave us a glimpse .

Suspiciously Superstitious?  Surprisingly Supernatural
My Life: Eighteen Years of Extraordinary Events
By Carrie Anne Still

“Thank God!”  “What a coincidence!”  “How providential!”  “That was lucky!”  “I’ll take my chances .”  We holler in excitement.  Theses verbal symbols are excepted by all to mean that fate has shinned her golden light upon us.  I myself have made good use of many of these expressions.  And with good reason, over the course of my eighteen years!  For me, serendipity has become a way of life.

Life in itself is made up of circumstances working together, in a way that promotes or inhibits us.  That either helps or hinders us, that pushes forward, or keeps us back.  They can cause grief, or bring joy.  So what are these circumstances?  Who or what causes them?  How do they happen?  Everyone has an answer of their own.  Some call it fate, others call it coincidence, and still others call it Supernatural.  I can only share with you my side of the story, and let you make up your mind from there.

I’m from a family of ten kids.  Some think this is a miracle in itself!  It’s true that in a family this size, unusual things are prone to occur.  However this was different.  I’m not superstitious, but I do believe in the Supernatural.  How can I help it?  It’s the only rational explanation for a whole lifetime of irrational events.

The Reign of the Extraordinary

It was 1978 in Ellensburg, Wa., there they were: Mom, Dad, and three little boys (my six sisters and I weren’t born yet), sitting calmly at an empty dinner table.  Having just said grace over the food they didn’t have, they waited for “God to provide.” I have to admit that the situation was a mite desperate.  There was absolutely no food in the house, and even less money.  However there were still five hungry mouths that rested quite idle and empty.  I really don’t know what they thought would happen.  I guess they were waiting for a miracle.  Well it came, in less than five minutes!  A knock was heard at the door, and low and behold it was my parents friend and pastor.  In his arms he carried a bag of groceries he was giving them.  My parents hadn’t told a soul about their dilemma, so there was no reason for such a visit, as far as they could see.  What caused this man to stop by on this particular errand of mercy, at this particular time, to this particular family?

Coincidence? Maybe.  Fate?  Possibly.  Supernatural?  Conceivably.  Who is to say.  A one time freak event isn’t much to go by.  However, it did happen again, and little did my parents know that it would happen over and over throughout their lives.

That same year, my mom and dad moved to Cle Elum, Wa. with the three boys.  They ended up next to a trailer who’s occupants were atheist.  This figured, since my parents are staunch Christians.  Well the neighbors were curious to know how my parents were surviving, and asked them one day.  My dad answered that they were living by faith.  The atheist neighbors of course thought that they were crazy.  2 to 3 weeks after they had moved in my “crazy” parents again had no money, and on this particular morning no food.  About the time they started to wonder what they were going to have for breakfast, and after my dad had prayed that the Lord would provide, there come a knock at the door.  It was the neighbors.  They said to my dad: “You probably think God is doing this, but our electricity went out and the refrigerator is down.  Here’s some food…”  Whereupon they loaded my parents down with breads, fish and other meats.  My family ate a good breakfast that day, and many days after.

The neighbors knew nothing about the food situation that was at that very moment looming over the family.  How did just so happen that their refrigerator broke at that specific time?  Why not a week later, or a few days before”  How did happen to pick our family to give the food to, and not any of the other neighbors?  How do circumstances work out so perfectly?  These were the kinds of situations I was born into, in April of 1980.  I already had a rich background of weird and wacky events, making me a believer at birth.  But a believer in what?

In 1980 my parents moved to California, and we lived with my grandparents for the first ten years of my life.  In 1986, when I was six years old, my grandmother wanted to visit her sister in Iowa for her birthday.  But since she didn’t have the money (this seemed to be a perpetual problem in my family), she just sent a birthday card with a short note inside that said she was praying for $500 to be able to fly out.  As she walked out the front door to mail the card, the mailman was just walking up with a certified letter she had to sign for.  My grandmother signed for it, then gave him the birthday card to mail.  When he left left, she opened the letter.  It was from a cousin whom she had only met once, and never kept in contact with.  The letter said: “I had this money just laying around, and thought that you could use it more than me.”  Inclosed in the letter was a check for $500.

The exact amount?  On the exact day she sent the that letter out?  This blew my mind.  What power was at work here?  Surely it could not have been an accident!

From about 1990 on, there were events that I was old enough to remember personally,  In ’91 my dad was with out a job, and we were really struggling to stay afloat.  By this time the family had expanded to six kids, and we had no idea where rent was coming from, but by this time we had learned to just wait and trust; it would come from somewhere!  On the day that rent was due, my dad received a teacher’s retirement check in the mail for $1,300-the exact amount that was owed.  I can recall the excitement and the thrill of witnessing  yet another … well, another what?  Miracle?  Coincidence?  Maybe.

The retirement check could have been sent at any time in the year, and we certainly were not expecting it at this time!  And the fact that it was the exact amount that we owed, and came on the day we owed it, it forces you to stop and ask how?

That year there was a whole slew of incidents like the one just mentioned.  Just to get a feel for the situation, on November 16th my dad made a $7 deposit into our bank, which covered some overdraft charges, and brought our account up to a whopping $1.73.  On the 22nd we deposited $20 to cover a check for $20, which left us again with $1.73!  Not a lot for a family of eight to live on.  But our family seemed to be living off something stronger than money.

In the middle of November we owed a bill of $50, that we were again unable to pay, and the day it was due, a payment of $50 came in from a dishwasher we had sold a while before.  We were also skimping on food, and that same day a friend (who knew nothing of the situation) came by with a load of food she was evidently trying to find a home for.  On December 5th the water bill, electric bill, and rent was due.  That day my dad received advance payment for a graphic design job, for the exact amount we needed to cover all three bills, and some back rent.  That year the story went on and on.  When we were out of food, a friend or neighbor would stop by with something they “just didn’t want” of they “couldn’t eat before it spoiled.”  Or that was “a good deal at the store” and they thought that they would pick some up for us.  When I asked my dad if he ever told anyone, he said, “No.  I never make it a habit to tell people that sort of thing.”

Cars were the other thing.  Sometimes it seemed that we were loosing cars as fast as we were gaining kids.  I remember one time in ’93 that was pretty remarkable.  My mom was driving home with the two youngest kids in the car.  (At this time we were living in La Verne, Ca).  She was 4 or 5 blocks from the house when the engine caught on fire.  She jumped out of the car and tried to get the kids out of their child safety seats, and as she shot up a short prayer for help, a man drove up and immediately stopped to help.  It turned out that he was a volunteer fireman, and knew exactly what to do.  In a matter of minutes a fire truck arrived.  But by this time my mom an the kids were already safely home, via the kind volunteer.  Now we had no car, an eight kids to boot.  But did we have cause to worry?  Of course not!  Later that month a lady from our church called and said she had a car that she felt “the Lord wanted her to give away.”  She had already decided to give it to us.  She had no idea what had just happened to our car.  In fact, no one knew.

In 1992, it was the same old story.  We had no food, and my dad was still out of a job.  I can recall eating biscuits every meal.  But still, no one knew.  One night my mom and I came home to find boxes and boxes of food piled on our dinning room.  I counted them and came up with 57 cases of food!  We had just met the family who had benefited us a few weeks before.  They knew nothing about our situation.  I decided to call for this report, and ask them some questions.  When I asked how they knew that we needed food at that time he said, “I didn’t.  I guess I just put two and two together by listening and understanding.  You know, sometimes God just prompts you to do something.  He just put it on my heart.  All you have to do is learn to listen, Carrie Anne, just learn to listen.”  When I asked if he had experienced any unexplainable events in his life, he replied, “Oh yes!”  Even the children had.  Apparently his son had recently been praying for $300 to buy a monitor, and a week later he got an anonymous check for $300.  Included was a note written in unfamiliar, shaky handwriting: “With congratulations, you won.”  No one knows where it came from.

In ’95 for a period of about five months we received an anonymous check of $200 almost every month.  And without fail, it came at the time we needed it most.

The stories go on and on.  Almost as if an insider was there throughout it all, leaking information to some fairy benefactor who would always catch us just before we fell.  Is it fate?  Is it coincidence?  Is it luck?  Or is it Supernatural?  I believe the latter.  Organization does not happen on it’s own, it is the trademark of intelligence.

What do you think?

[After you’ve thought for a while, why don’t you click here to checkout the art gallery.  Maybe you find something you’ll like.  Maybe you’ll be someones “fairy benefactor” – part of the organized “intelligence” Carrie Anne eluded to.]

The post Family: Carrie Anne first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

I used to play my kids to sleep at night.  I never sounded like this!

[Since you are already in an artsy mood, when you’re done listening to the music, click here to checkout the artwork]

The post Music: Awesome Guitar! first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

Used by permission, copyright /RED EDGE IMAGES

I love the idea of greatness.  I would love to be great–to be called up before throngs of people, to be heralded for a lifetime of something special.  I revel in imaginary praise and adoration until I remember how badly it fits.  I wear accolades like a four-year old strutting around in Daddy’s suit.  The suit fills out with my pride, but while I’m in it, all I can do is strut.  It’s too clumsy and heavy for me to run and jump and play and accomplish.  Of course, I wasn’t made to wear it–it belongs to Daddy.

I admire people who can wear the suit without falling all over themselves.  Then I think, maybe they don’t see themselves in this suit of adoration.  Maybe they don’t see themselves or the suit at all.  Maybe they’re just… in the moment.

Only Moments

People aren’t great
Only moments…

Great moments,
Which flash in the dark spaces of life…
When a person turns…
To reflect the light.

A glimmer of wisdom, a flicker of goodness…
Guiding lights…flashes of courage and strength.
Moments of Truth.
Moments of trust.

People aren’t great
They remember the moments with Pride…
And carry the memory into the dark spaces…
Thinking the light was theirs.

They spread the memory across the spaces…
And in their darkness they turn…
To reflect their Pride,
More often than the light.

Humility has no memory
It stands in the moment.  Invisible…
Seeing only the light…
Of God.

People aren’t great
Only moments.

[Click here to see the artwork]

The post Poetry: Only Moments first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

Of Sleeping Near Woods

I hear a tapping in the woods.
Yet dusk hides it from my sight
Leaving it to my ears
And to my faith, that it means me no harm.

What causes the branches to crackle so?

My eyes can’t tell me.
And my ears tell me only that there are branches that crackle.
Yet, my faith tells me that it is a crackling in the woods.
And not of a branch that hands have touched.

And this if nothing else is good.

For nothing adorns the sound.
It is no less and no more than what it is.
It’s purpose for God and nature to know.
And it is mine, while not to see it,

Yet to believe.

In like manner:
I feel a prickling at the knee.
No doubt some bug descends on me.
My choice … to brush it off or not.

But for the dark I can’t see,

And were it just a blade of grass
It would prickle just the same.
No pain, but yet a presence.
Something besides me …

Having business with my knee.

What business it is I don’t know.
For what does it matter?
When, through its knowledge, I may be alarmed;
By faith it is merely a prickling.

While, in truth, it may have the means to give discomfort.

Still, by faith it does no harm.
And when I awake in the morning,
No scars upon my knee,
And the tapping sound had long since gone;

Yet, I wonder what may have lurked this night before?

Whether by wild beasts I was surrounded,
And my faith delivered me,
Or just a trick of winds and grass.
No matter … for what ever it was

God wrestled…

And won.

[Click here to see the artwork]

The post Poetry: Of Sleeping Near Woods first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

Used by permission, copyright /RED EDGE IMAGES

He walked into my classroom, poetry in hand, with his tormented eyes, spiked, black-dyed hair, black trench-coat over black shirt and pants, hiding a disturbing array of silver spikes and chains. He was a brilliant high school student in my multi-media computer class in San Jacinto, CA., in the fall ’99. And his notebook was was full of anguish, torture and murder. I had thought we could connect over a shared interest in poetry, so I asked him to bring some of his work. I was to read some of his poems and respond with one of my own. The italicized lines below was my response and “The Challenge” tells the story…

The Challenge

He was Goth…poet-genius of despair, speaking anguish and death,
Exalting bitterness through the cosmic eyes of a child.
He spoke in poetry.
And I, using his language of torment, answered …

You felt the warm color fade from your eyes.
You saw the rose melt.
You said love had died.
The empty space child consuming your mind,
Savage sensations…
United in sorrow.
Hate overflowing, consuming tomorrow.
Trapped by believing, as the little child cried,
Yet unaware…
That the little child lied.

I returned his tortured verses …
Answer shrouded in hope.
But he read my answer, and ran, with a furtive glance…
Through eyes, clouded in confusion and fear…eyes I was seeing for the last time.
Time passed, the end had come.
Goth was dead.
The demon child banished.
The poet-genius of despair…
Stood before me…radiant with life, resurrected in hope
Rose reborn and alive with love
A newborn child of the Truth …
Set free. Born of the answer far beyond the scope of my words.
Leaving me with joy… and hope that I played a part.

……………….

He had come back to visit me in the spring and I didn’t recognize him at first. The black and the spikes were gone. He wore his natural brown hair, radiant eyes and a smile. He said he had found freedom in Christ and he glowed with transformation.

[Click here to see the artwork]

The post Poetry: The Challenge first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

Granddad at about 35 – Circa 1914

In 1955, as a five-year old grandson, I worshipped the ancient ground he walked on.  He was Granddad, born in 1879, in Paso Robles, CA – the first and deepest root in what is now a five-generation California heritage.  He and Granny lived in a court of six, old, Spanish-style, four-room bungalows, on Second Ave., in Arcadia, CA.

The houses were set across from each other in two tidy rows of three, perpendicular to the street with a central walkway between them.  Around the perimeter of the court there were the barriers.  A neatly trimmed three-foot hedge that ran along the sidewalk, parted in the middle to form an entrance.  There were neighboring fences to the north, the forbidden alley to the south, a spotty row of haggard shrubs and small trees to the rear.  But to a troubled child  the hedge was a mountain range of make-believe, separating the magical interior of the courtyard from the frightening world of home.  

At the age of 75, he and 78 year old Granny, were my shelter from the raging family tornado.  Like Dorothy and Toto, I came to them in the midst of the storm. I can still feel the spinning confusion and the vague impression of a cold and gloomy darkness.  The clouds were inside of me, as I approached their front door and entered.  In the dim, musty warmth of their aging living room, as if by magic, the gloom began to dissipate, replaced by a weary peace.  It was Granddad who created the magic.

I do not remember how it happened, the mental images of that day jump without transition from scene to scene.  Time and space between the living room and their bedroom had vanished. I was on his knee, nestled in his arms.  I was out of the storm, away from my world, traveling across the verdant fields within Granddad’s mind. He was the magic.  He was the story.  Inside of him were other times, other places, and other worlds.  The stories he told had calmed my storm, reality had given way to the safety of make – believe.  But in the arms of Granddad the safety was real.

In the land of Granddad, make believe was real, too.  The artifacts of his imagination cluttered the shelves, tabletops, cabinets, and chairs like museum pieces and souvenirs.  They were the tangible relics of inspiration – tin boxes filled with page after page of word pictures, deep in thought and rich with color and music – poems, songs, and short stories.  Real cowboys and Indians, coolies and vaqueros, intertwined with the history of a boy growing up on a California ranch, in the home of a frontier doctor.

The products of Granddad’s ingenuity did not stop with the written word.  Homespun inventions and mechanical marvels made a frequent trek from fantasy to fact.  Hanging on the bedroom wall, was an electric bell, with a hand wound copper coil and an oscillating mercury switch. It was remotely activated by a button made from an old crib spring, flat pieces of scrap metal, and a plastic medicine bottle. In every drawer were hand carved cats, beavers, alligators, dragons and lizards all with tails hewn into letter openers.  There was a dragon that rolled forward on wooden wheels, flapping its wings and snapping its mouth, as you cranked from behind on a flexible cable.  With the push of a medicine bottle button, another dragon would lunge at the unsuspecting operator from its wooden perch atop the living room buffet.  On the floor of the adjoining storage room, another dragon of similar design, recently escaped from his fairyland imagination, was flanked by boxes of spare wheels, and legs and medicine bottles that had migrated in from Granddad’s workshop behind the courtyard.

Something of Granddad must have awakened in me that night, as I nestled in his arms.  I would no longer be enveloped in the fear and gloom of the tempest.  Make-believe built a small sanctuary in my mind and the architect of peace waited patiently at its door.  Of all the monuments to his imagination, peace was the greatest treasure I drew from Granddad, on that soul wrenching day. No storm, including my own, could buffet Granddad’s tranquillity. It towered like a huge monolith over the feeble tragedies of life.  The pervading calm of his soul enveloped me. It wafted over me like the scent of honeysuckle. For me it was the incense of hope and a reason to trust.  It was a light shining on a world beyond the turmoil of home.  In the course of an evening, he had shown me how to see beyond my trials. For even with his eyes closed he could still see beauty with his hands.  The light from within him shone on me, even though he could never see the light.  All the trophies of his creativity had been made in darkness.  His tranquillity had been born of trial.  Fifty years of blindness had opened the windows of his heart and he saw through the darkness with eyes of love.

[In life Granddad never had a chance to see my artwork.  Click here to see what he is looking at now through Heaven’s eyes.]

The post Family: Granddad first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

I’m thinking, “Click the picture–checkout my artwork.”

I’m a Science, Math, English, History, Geography, Computer teacher turned artist.  I was raised in Temple City and Pasadena, California, went to college in Oregon, had three boys in Washington and came back.  The love of my life is Mary Sue, my wife of 40+ years and the mother of our ten children.  I’m interested in everything and try to do as much of it as I can–not nearly as well as I would like.  I played baseball through my third year of college, earned a master’s degree in Instructional Technology, wrote one play, several poems, half a song (without words), played the guitar, told stories, made up tunes and sang to my kids until someone got too old.  I can’t write a word without spell check.  I’m fascinated by quantum theory, zero to the zero power and fell in love with the Bible after I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior in a cow pasture.  God has given me far more than I deserve and my passion is to find creative ways to pay it forward.

The post Welcome: Rick’s Bio first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

Click the picture to see my first acrylic painting.

Thanks for dropping by our Blog.  Mary Sue and I are on an adventure and you’re invited to come along.  I hope you like what you see and decide to join us.  After 22 years of teaching, I’ve decided to become an artist and to make a business out of giving to those with needs greater than ours.  It’s a two step process: first I look for silver linings in the clouds of life and paint them.  Then I sell the prints and give half the proceeds to people and organizations committed to dispelling those same clouds.

Here’s some of the background to our journey.  I was a middle school science teacher (if you want a few more details about me click Bio).  In the summer 2010, Mary Sue and I decided that working until I’m 80 in order to afford retirement was not an option.  That decision left us with three choices; starve, live with our kids, or make more money.  Starving seemed to be a short lived solution and living with our kids seemed redundant.  So we opted to make more money.  The question is, can I make a difference in the lives of people, give away half the proceeds and still make the money we need to live on?  The answer to that question is our adventure.  If you’d like, we invite you to follow our story and see where it leads.

But I’ve got to tell you, the best stories are found in the artwork and in the lives that are changed.  Each painting has it’s own page on our blog site.  Why don’t you find a painting you like and follow the stories?   Who knows, it might become your adventure as well.  Click here to find a story.  Click here to see the artwork.

The post Welcome: Our Adventure first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.