Doodle

When I was young and obliged to sit through church services, I would pass the time during sermons by doodling.  One of my earliest doodles was to draw an outline of my hand and fill it in with hundreds of little jelly bean-type shapes. Hey, it kept my hands busy and my mind focused, often even on the sermon, believe to or not.

Doodling became a habit of mine.  I doodled my way through phone conversations, classes, meetings, seminars...anytime when I was a captive audience, so to speak.  I doodled in the margins of my notes, on napkins, on bulletins, on scraps of paper, sometimes even on my skin.  Naturally, these little meaningless scribblings weren't permanent or noteworthy; they certainly weren't what one could consider art...or were they? 

I just discovered that there's a thriving art form out there based on DOODLING!  Be still, my doodling heart!  It's called Zentangle and I've suddenly found a home for my aimless and wandering pen.  Doodling with a purpose. Ahh...I'm on my home planet on this one. A wild idea just occurred to me. Jesus stooped and wrote something on the ground with his finger in John 8. People love to speculate about what He was writing, but what if He was just doodling?  Doodling while the people chewed over the words, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone."  Doodling while the Holy Spirit did His convicting work on their hearts. Doodling in the dirt while exposing the dirt in people's souls. Don't worry; I'm not going to place a lot of weight on that somewhat absurd speculation, but it makes me smile.

So here are my first two Zentangles.