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Girl Tattoo For Back Body

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"...Star differs from star in glory..."

(Vincent Van Gogh, "Starry Night over the Rhone," 1888)

I Corinthians 15:40-44:

"There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body."

I had a magnificent set of evenings over Memorial Day weekend sitting out among the moon and the stars--even sleeping out all night in my yard one night, it was so glorious--and seeing the lightning bugs begin their summer debut for the season. It was simply a magnificent weekend to be a speck in God's Universe. The sheer size and awesome timelessness of the "big" things in nature--the sky, the stars, the ocean, just to name a few--have always been the major spiritual grounding rods for me, my entire life. People just don't do it for me the way nature does.

I looked at the stars these last few nights and pondered the paradoxical dance that "people" seem to occupy in my existence, thinking how each star, in its own way, is its own "person." How like the stars in the sky, we are called to community, and how each of us in our own way feels called to individuals in that community. Yet for me, the paradox has always been nothing gets my goat like people sometimes. I can only handle people for so long, and then that secular monastic in me takes over and I retreat to my safe hermitage of my country life. There is my daily retreat from work, as well as "add on" forms like my occasional "silent Saturday morning," and my "stay-cation retreats where I never leave home." Yet I never feel "un-called" to be a part of a community. When I am home alone, after a certain amount of time enjoying my alone-ness, I think of what it is I am supposed to "do next" when I enter back into community. When I am in that community, after a while I start daydreaming of what I want to do next in my "alone time." Each needs the other, and truthfully, each feeds the other.

On one of those nights, I sat out and thought about different people with each star--what they were experiencing in their lives, and how it is that I am supposed to combine with them to light up the sky, yet maintain my own individual "star-ness." Each one of us with the incarnational light of God within us, but manifested in so many unique ways.

There seem to be at least three kinds of stars in my life experience. Most valued are the "stars I can always see"--for instance, in the winter, I can always find the constellation Orion, and in the summer I can always fix my gaze on Scorpio. They are like the people in my life who have now been my friends for three decades or more. How we relate to each other has changed drastically over the years--sometimes not even close to the roles in which our relationships started out--but we somehow can always adjust. Sometimes their light is very intense and intimate in my life, and vice versa; other times, the light is dimmer. But they are constants. They are appreciated for both their longevity and their versatility.

Then there are the stars that once were a major focus, but I now no longer pay much attention to. I really don't pay much attention to the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, or the North Star itself, per se. But there was a time I always looked for them. They are like the people who were once very involved and intimate in my life--old lovers, intense best friends, etc.--and somehow no longer figure much into the tapestry other than to be a thread once cherished, but no longer. Some of these fizzled out in a supernova of conflict, whereas others just sort of atrophied and slowly burned to extinction. Sometimes their light returns--but it is almost never of the same intensity that it once was, nor does my need to tend to that light return with the same intensity. I appreciate those stars for the history they have given me, even if it includes hard lessons.

Finally, there are the stars I just got around to noticing, like the time I first recognized all of Ursa Major, rather than just its "dipper." The first time I realized the dipper could be converted to a bear, it was an exciting time. It made the sky seem a little bigger than it used to be. I think about the gifts and talents in people I just now got around to appreciating in people who have been around me all along, or about the new people that come into my life over the years, and something about them challenge me to tend their light and let them tend mine. I appreciate those stars because they represent hope and promise.

Even the stars are perishable--which enhances my knowledge that people are perishable. It makes me understand the urgency of the Gospel of Mark, and in Paul's letters. If even stars are perishable, then people definitely are. Yet timelessness and infinity rides within all of them. What a beautiful, but messy, dance it all is!

Tattoos Pictures

Bob Marley Tattoo

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Good Arm Tattoo for Women

Commercial Sniping - In a few steps

This is my newest contribution for The Circuit Magazine to accompany part 3 of 3 articles on the history of sniping. After staying relatively loyal to the concept for the first 2 articles I got slightly more adventurous for this one, as you can see. Although the weapon is the British Army's L96A1 sniper rifle!

Anyhow, I just thought I'd post a few shots in progress of my process for creating this piece to accompany the ScreenCast I recorded of the illustration (which you can see on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojPjantpr5Q )

Step 1 - Initial concept thumbnail.

After playing around with a few poses I decided to keep as much relevance to the subject and article as possible (considering the lack of it in the character) I went with the traditional prone position but still wanted to emphasise the characters seductive curves, which brings the focus directly onto the buttocks!

Step 2 - Defining the Character

Next I decided I wanted an exotic looking female and used photo reference of beautiful curvy women of Caribbean origin. and penciled out my idea and scanned it into photoshop at 600dpi before reducing it to 300 at the painting stage. Notice, I don't really go over board on the sketch and prefer to build it up as I progress through the painting stage.

Step 3 - Colour Flats

Using the pen tool to create selections of anatomy and accessories I fill them all with the paint bucket tool and keep th

em on independent layers to give me greatest flexibility later on.

In addition I paint in a rough background to link it together and in preparation for choice of light direction.

Step 4 - Airbrushing

Using the selections I'd made earlier by keeping all opposing areas on separate layers I use a large, soft edged brush at a low opacity to first apply shadows and then highlights to pinpoint light direction and start to brin

g depth to the illustration.

Step 5 - Background

I now decide its time to build up the background and I virtually spin it around and paint it in reverse to the original concept. Again using the pen tool to build the basic structures and then an airbrush to lay colour and light direction down fast before using a more hard edged brush to add some texture. I also work in some accessories such as the goggles on the helmet, the drink, dossier, bino's and ammo tin.

Step 6 - Fine details/finishing touches

I finish off the painting by adding a few layers of a deep bronzing, orangey colour to the flesh areas. I paint in shadows, foreground foliage, slightly alter the expression and finally add some highly effective camouflage paint to her skin. Now she's hot and ready for action.

Acquire, Aim, Squeeze, Kill, Mojito to go!

Nice Modern Tattoo Design for Sexy Women

Kat Von D High Voltage Tattoo

Beautifull Tattoo On Girl

Real Tattoo Images

Wounded Angels

("The wounded angel," Hugo Simberg)

Hebrews 13:2:

"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that, some have entertained angels without knowing it."

People's Facebook status reports can be interesting, at times--not so much for what they say, but for the stories they remind us of in our own lives.

I had that experience this morning. A friend of mine recently celebrated her third year of remaining alive after a massive stroke in 2007 almost ended her life. Her story is a tale in itself. She had essentially no known risk factors. She was relatively young for this to have happened. She had been given virtually zero chance of surviving it. Her doctors had told her husband that if she did survive it, she would very likely be severely cognitively impaired. Given the fact that she is a writer by trade, death seemed like a better option. Yet she not only survived, she is pretty much the same person she was prior to the stroke, if you had known her before vs. after. She will tell you she notices some cognitive deficits, but it ultimately did not affect her ability to make a living with words.

She credits me with something I know that I truthfully don't deserve--having saved her life. For some reason, I had called her early the morning of her stroke and not reached her. It was the result of one of my habits that actually annoys my friends. The urban legend among my friends is that I don't sleep. (Well, actually I do, just not as much as most people.) As a result of my odd hours up, my friends often become annoyed with me, as I have a habit of "calling people when I think of something." That might be at 6 a.m., or it might be at 11:30 p.m., with an occasional blind eye to the time zones.

That phone call, although not answered, awakened her husband, who noticed she was not able to be aroused. She had suffered the stroke in her sleep, and his prompt action resulted in her being promptly treated.

More than once she has credited my phone call as the key event that started the ball rolling that ultimately saved her life. I am always reluctant to feel good about that credit, because I did nothing except behave like the annoying pest that I can be when I suddenly am inspired by my thoughts. Yet in her life, I am viewed upon as if I were an angel.

These are always hard things to swallow, and I don't think it's just me. I listened to another person's story recently of discovering being referred to as "beloved" in what was otherwise a very circumspect account of a situation. Most of us don't handle well the mantle of being the angel in the room. Why is that? Don't we believe in an incarnate God? Don't we believe in the spark of the divine in each of us? Sure we do...as long as we are talking about someone ELSE.

It's so much harder to see our own divine stuff, because we think we know every single thing we have done wrong, every error, every single person we've hurt. If we extrapolate beyond that, we lean in the negative direction--we think of all those sins we probably committed we don't know about, rather than the good we did that we don't know about. It's so much easier to believe in The God Who is Disappointed in Us, rather than The God Who Loves Us Unconditionally--because we know we are incapable of that kind of "unconditionally."

When I see all the angel-related merchandise out there, I am struck by how we default to making these images of angels "someone who I'll never be." It's like the first time I remember seeing a Barbie doll as a child. I was immediately struck with a huge pang of "I'm not her." Not only, "I'm not her," but "...and there is no way I will ever be her, so why bother?"

Yet I point to people who have truly been the angels in my life, and others point to me and do the same thing, and I can't believe we aren't all seeing the same thing. We see the Incarnation in each other when we are incapable of seeing it in ourselves...and maybe that's okay. It's probably dangerous to be too full of one's own Incarnation--pathological, in fact, because to do that diminishes our capability to see it in others.

So there we are, a squad of wounded angels, carrying each other around on stretchers and pushing each other in wheelchairs, and crutching along with a steady human hand on our shoulder. The God Who is Disappointed in Us would never stand for such a thing...but The God Who Loves Us Unconditionally simply laughs and says, "I intended that, you know."

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The Stations of the Resurrection--Fourteenth Station--The Holy Spirit Descends at Pentecost

("Pentecost," quilt by Linda Schmidt)

The Fourteenth Station--The Holy Spirit Descends at Pentecost

Leader: O Risen Christ, Light of the world, we adore you;
People: God's plan for the disciples was made known in tongues of fire.

As the disciples pondered what God had in store for them next, they were more than likely not prepared for quite so dramatic an answer. As they were together in one place, a noise started to build--a rush of wind. Some of them must have looked up--was a storm brewing? There had been no distant noise of wind, no stillness before the storm, as one would expect.

Suddenly, the entire house was filled with the roaring noise of wind, as if a tornado had burst into the house--but instead of everything in the house blowing around, tongues of fire sprang from the air and landed on each of them. Many of them jumped, thinking they themselves were on fire, but the flames could not be patted or smothered out, and they did not wipe off. What was happening?

Certainly they were also noticing these tongues of fire on each other. Perhaps the one who spoke first looked at another and said, "Hey, you're on fire!" But his utterance didn't come out in Aramaic; it came out in some other language. Yet both the speaker and the listener understood each other. They must have all tried speaking after that--did each of them suddenly have this gift? As it turns out, they did, and the room must have been a marvelous hubbub of many languages and smiling faces as their bewilderment and fear turned to amazement.

Not only was the Holy Spirit in the room, she had distributed herself to each of the disciples. Suddenly, Jesus' having left them was not so worrisome, because it was apparent that they would not simply have to "soldier on without him." A power bigger than themselves would accompany them, and they would not be doing this alone.

Leader: God distributed his Holy Spirit among all the disciples;
People: Just as God has distributed the Holy Spirit among each of us.

Leader: Let us pray.
(a brief period of silence is observed.)

God of power and might,
sometimes we long for your small still voice,
but instead, you answer us in the rush of a whirlwind.
You distribute among each of us gifts and talents,
skills that land on us like tongues of fire,
that we cannot brush off, no matter how hard we try.
Give us a sense of awe about them and speak to them
instead of stomping around trying to extinguish them.
When we see your gifts that you have distributed to others,
open our mouths to praise them, no matter what language we use,
with the trust that our words are capable of being understood.

People: Amen.

Leader: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
People: The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Concluding prayers:

Leader: Lord Jesus Christ, you rose again, conquering sin and death;
People: Empower us to be messengers of your light and glory.

Leader: We thank you, Lord God Almighty, for the miracles of Easter--stories of resurrection, recognition of your power, and the realization of the Incarnation of your Son that resides in each of us.

Remind us that we truly are an Easter people--that in each of our life chapters of exodus, exile, and repentance, resides a resurrection and a restoration.

When we feel the wind of your Holy Spirit, persuade us to merely hold out our hand and catch what your divine wind blows into it, to close our hand and hold it close, ingest it, and continue to spread it throughout the world. Make every day of our lives a Pentecost, to hear your word and speak it in many languages--the language of our willing hands, the language of our actions, and the language of a humble heart.

We ask these things of you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever,

People: Amen.

Leader: This concludes our Stations of the Resurrection. Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
People: Thanks be to God.

Chinese Tattoo Designs - The Amazing Chinese Tattoo Designs

Most of the time, the Chinese tattoo designs that I see depict big, red dragons soaring on clouds drawn along the back of men (nowadays even on women) and Chinese mafia or gangs. You'd rarely see "good" Chinese guys sporting fierce tattoos. In the movies, it's always the bad guy with that stiff upper lip and piercings on every pierce-able body part who, before a big one-on-one fight with the good

Bikini Butterfly Tattoos

Traditional Tattoos

love tattoos

Love can be represented in a multitude of ways and when it's meant to represent more than two people a difficult balancing act has to be struck. There's three main types of love tattoo ideas you could opt for.SymbolsAn obvious choice of symbol is the heart but you can choose to decorate it with names, flowers, flourishes of color or even birds and bees. A good variation the heart theme is a

The Stations of the Resurrection--Thirteenth Station--Mary and the Disciples Wait in Prayer

("Pentecost," by Sadao Watanabe)

The Thirteenth Station--Mary and the Disciples Wait in Prayer

Leader: O Risen Christ, Light of the world, we adore you;
People: Your mother and the eleven waited, but they were not sure why.

The disciples still could not wrap their brains around what just had happened. Jesus was gone again, but this time there was hope. Not knowing what else to do, they returned to Jerusalem, to the upper room, with Mary, and Jesus' brothers, and prayed--and waited--and prayed some more--and waited some more.

What did this all mean? What were they to do? Where were they to go? All eyes in the room looked at Mary. She was the closest thing they had to Jesus now. Mary looked back at them, trying to hold her composure, trying to appear steady for them. She had no idea what to tell them. She again thought back to that day the angel had announced that she was with child, and told her about Jesus. She knew this was finally all coming true. But what was she to tell the disciples? She had not received any special signs. But she knew the most important thing she could do right now is be their mother. She could not be Jesus, but she could be their mother, the mother of Jesus, and what these men needed most was a calm, unfluttered mother in the room.

Mary sat, and she prayed. She thanked God for the gift of her son. She asked God to speak to all in the room. She asked God to simply reveal his will. She had no worries about these sorts of things, she'd been in this territory before. But her heart ached for these young men. She could feel the yearning they had to follow Jesus in a way they knew he would be pleased. She could not speak for her son--but she could pray for his work to go forward in the disciples.

Once in a while she would peek at them during her prayers, and she breathed a sigh of relief. They did not appear anxious. They were earnestly prayerful, but not anxious, or fighting, or high-strung. Mary could not know exactly what was going to happen, but she knew something was in the air, in that age-old maternal way that mothers "just know."

Leader: Mary and the disciples sat, waited, and prayed;
People: They were unsure, but they were not fearful; hope filled the air.

Leader: Let us pray.
(a brief period of silence is observed.)

Ever-patient God,
we thank you for that wonderous mixture
of Incarnation and humanity within us,
but sometimes we don't know what to do with it.
Teach us to wait and listen.
Patience is not a natural state for us,
but we desire to do your will.
When we are unsure,
comfort us to the place where we can sit still and pray.
Calm us enough to simply attune the ear of our hearts to you.
Let us look up in our apprehension
and see your Son's Blessed Mother,
a calm and consoling parent to our souls.

People: Amen.

Leader: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
People: The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!