Hawkish eyes darting quickly through the layers of color and shapes

Making sense of each riddle in turn, seeing the pattern in the parts

Problems become joined into solutions and chaos begins to be shaped into order

Heart and hand, eye and mind, vision and patience all work in concert

At the joining of things once pulled apart

And upon the workbench of possibility shapes begin to emerge

What will the message in the medium be?

The puzzle master sees the picture in his mind

Only he knows how one piece might fit within the whole of the body

But with one piece missing the puzzle is not complete

Each piece is precious, sacred, worth holding onto

And so the puzzle master sits at the workbench, the creation unfinished

A labor of love out of the broken pieces of life

A puzzle, a challenge, a riddle

Out of brokenness, wholeness

Out of pieces the picture

Out of diversity some mystical unity

Without the puzzle master’s perspective it is merely jagged edges

A cacophony of color

More problems than solutions

More questions than answers

More pieces than places

And yet in the patience and vision of the puzzle master

It is the beloved masterpiece that he has poured his life into

And until all are again one

Until all the jagged edges form a smooth surface

Until the wounds of time are healed

The labor of love continues

Composed by Neil White, 2013

For my son’s 14th Birthday