Vocation. During the service this morning, a lovely service, the priest talked about Vocation. He said that there was often a misunderstanding about the meaning of that word. Strange, I used to think (not having been to any Catholic masses growing up) that they were rather more...fiery? Perhaps they tone it down for funerals.

He said we tend to think a Vocation is a choice, that we've chosen to be a priest, an artist, a teacher, a mother.

He said this isn't so at all. He said that a true Vocation is something we're given, a charge, a gift, a calling, a blessing. The only *choice* that's ours is whether or not to accept it.

My Grandmother had her Vocations . That of a teacher, a wife, mother, grandmother, and that of a devoted woman of Faith, he said. She was given that Vocation, he said, and embraced it joyfully and with devotion. Strange, that although I diverged from her path, I find myself teaching, loving, nurturing. Strange that all the little things she likes, I'm finally discovering I like too. I want to bake, to sew, to paint saws!

Makes me think about art. My grandmothers, both of them - one Anglican, the other devoted Catholic - have always told me that 'your art is God's gift'. They told me that the drawings I always took for granted were a blessing, something the God they loved had given me, presumably out of that same love.

Makes me wonder if I've been taking it for granted too long.

General -

- Yes, I'm still a moderator on the Victorious [link] and yes, it still takes up the bulk of my freetime. JOY.
- Lindsey has gotten me into Battlestar Galactica. Oh, dear. I'll have to take a break from Blackadder fan art for a while... *sigh*
- I am working on getting an art site together! It's been hit and miss, but I'm really hoping it's going to start coming together. However, I really need to meet someone with web skills, who wants to take my ideas and make an awesome site out of them. Do you know any-one like that?
- I am putting a LOT into scraps. Stuff that I love but it just so old, stuff that I can't be arsed to clean up, stuff that I scribbled but that really gets something across. So! Pleasepleaseplease, if you watch me, watch my scraps as well. Otherwise you may miss the best stuff!
- I am slowly but surely working on Ganglands again! We're taking the character away from the setting they were born in and giving them a new, slightly more dystopian world. This is a pretty intense process for me and , while indubitably rewarding in a way I can't express, is terribly exhausting so it's slow going. But never fear. They shall live again!
- Of course, the new beloved baby that's taking up most of my time nowadays is Clockabye. It's a world, it's a community, it's a writing project, it's a companion to the Victorious, it's all of those things. But what it is mostly is just starting up, so now is the time to get your fingers dirty if you care to. [link] . And here is the blog: [link]

FRIENDS and CONFEDERATES!