Art by Kurt Caddy
I stood in awe before the 40” x 40” print, my eyes drawn to the colorful vastness of the heavenly starscape, reminding me of similar images shared by the Hubble telescope. The reds and golds just underneath the horizon line stood out in stark contrast to the blues and purples; their earthy tones brilliant in their own respect, but lost to the overwhelming magnitude of lights from millennia past still sparking.
“It’s just a photograph of my father-in-law’s driveway,” Kurt said.
I had no reason to doubt that Kurt Caddy, an artist and friend, was telling the truth. He created this piece.
And then I started to see the photograph behind the art. The horizon line was just a crack, separating the old concrete from the new concrete, with the weathering on the older part significantly smoothing out the bumps and holes.
Kurt takes pictures of the broken and crushed things in this world. Using techniques refined for decades, he looks for the hidden beauty in the mundane and helps others to catch glimpses of a world transformed.
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My friends Brennan and Lesa went to a hockey game. They went with their twin sons and three sacks filled with 140 stuffed animals — giraffes, in honor of their daughter Tori who passed away from Krabbe disease — for the Teddy Bear Toss at the Hershey Bears. Barely 8 minutes into the first period, Bears’ defender Christian Djoos scored and more than 45,000 stuffed animals rained down onto the ice.
The video is a sight of pure joy.
The stuffed animals will help brighten Christmases of children across the community, and a donor matched the dolls with donations to the Children’s Miracle Network.
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Jeremy is another artist friend of mine. A passionate Royals fan, he lives in Puerto Rico, taking morning swims with the fishes and eating 6-pound lobsters. A couple of years ago, he created a Bo Jackson head shot that would be perfect for an ugly Christmas sweater, except I will never, ever call Bo Jackson ugly.
I laugh every single time I see the drawing.
Bo knows Christmas.
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The light was green and I waited, debating whether or not I should honk. At most, this particular light will allow four vehicles through the intersection before changing, making me wait another two to three minutes to cross one of Springfield’s major thoroughfares.
In the side view mirror, I could see the driver’s downward gaze and knew he was distracted by his phone. I exhaled in frustration and honked. He immediately stepped on the gas and sped through the intersection. I followed as the light changed. Thankfully, no one was behind me.
These are the days of our lives.
We live distracted, unaware, and inundated with daily responsibilities too numerous to mention. Always on the go. Always in a hurry. Always on the edge of anger and frustration and one more snarky comment at someone else’s expense.
But.
If a caricature of a baseball player wearing a stocking hat can provide a good laugh, maybe every single breath we breathe is a gift.
If hockey games can provide celebratory remembrances of life, maybe playing can bring hope and healing.
If driveways can look like reflections of space, maybe every single step we take is on holy ground.
We live in a wonder-filled world.
May you catch a glimpse.
