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This has been one of those days! A real roller coaster of emotions for my extended family, my own family & for me. Friends suffering the breakup of their marriage and all the emotions of grief surrounding the celebrations of others’ anniversaries. The highs and lows of a lost and found bipolar family member, who is even now being admitted to the psych ward for treatment.
Good old facebook, as much as we deride it, was the instrument of sharing to get the word, her picture, and her need across a broad section of the city. Strangers found her, called for help, and miracles happen. I can only hope one day I hear good news about my own daughter in California.
Richard Rohr wrote about the wave in Buddhist thought. It can strive to be a great wave and be proud of itself until it crashes upon the shore and becomes small, or it can remember its true nature, which is always to be water. If the wave remembers its true Self always, then whatever happens to it doesn’t matter. It is always united with the wave.
Today I was repainting one of my old works, working a theme of the Christ wearing the crown of thorns by Fra Angelico with the landscape, or the world.
It reminds me of the verse (John 16:33)– “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”
Most of the time the iconographers paint Christ enthroned on a quadrangle, for the four corners of the world. Christ appears as a king in majesty, regal, often with angelic attendants. This Christ suffers with the refugees fleeing from Syria and Iraq, and bleeds with the innocent who die on the streets of our world every day from crimes of violence against humanity.
I may live a more cloistered life today, but the world still presses into my small cell. I try to be one with the wave, and remember that the hand that created the wave can also still the wave.
I walk on Thursday evenings in the historic downtown district of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Most of our buildings are from our salad days of the Victorian period and early 20th century. We are building new construction, such as this new Regions Bank Tower, which will replace the one directly behind my back. I often leave my car under this overpass while I huff and hustle my way up to the cold spring at the entry to the mountain route to the observation tower. From there I walk past historic hotels, small and large, until I get to the site of the old Majestic Hotel, which burned to the ground in 2014. If I turn around for the start again, I can put in nearly 2 miles on a good evening. Even if I’m the last to finish, I’m still faster than the ones who never started.
Our creative and spiritual lives are like my walking discipline in my downtown, which is both dying and being renewed. I notice some shops have closed, but new ones have taken their place. These aren’t all tourist shops, but some are tradesmen serving the needs of downtown dwellers. Each of us needs to take care of our long term needs, not just our whim wants.
For our spirit, paying attention to our relationship with God through silence, contemplative study of scripture, and service with the poor will help ground our identity in God rather than in our own self. In our creative work, keeping the disciplines of our trade can be important. By this I mean, remembering to draw, to use color, value, to work a series, or to explore a subject fully. If we write, we pay attention to the skills of this craft, or if we are musicians, we never neglect our scales or any other skill sharpener in our toolbox.
Sometimes we get to the place in our lives when everything burns down to the ground. Like the storied Majestic Hotel, once a home to professional baseball players during spring training and mobsters down for the gambling, our life as it is won’t stand up to the elements or to the vissitudes of fate. A stray cigarette or a frayed wire takes the whole building down, along with all its memories and its derbis inside.
Sometimes we too have to start from scratch by making a fresh start. Yes, saving a historic treasure would be nice, but sometimes not very cost effective because the structure isn’t sound. Then it’s best to turn our back on that old life, grieve for it, and find a new hope and a new vision for the future. “If only we had done something with it 30 years ago!” Yet the will wasn’t there, was it? We can’t turn back the hands of time.
In 1992, I answered God’s call to ministry. I spent twenty-two years away from my original calling, art. When my health took me out of parish ministry, I took up painting again in 2009. Five years in my studio relearning color, value, shape, composition, and emotion has felt like burning down a great old edifice and building a new one in its place. To date I’ve stayed close to the subject, except for the color. Lately I’ve felt constrained by those boundaries, and I’ve moved to s freer brushstroke. Will it stick? I’m enjoying it, but I feel emotionally exhausted afterward. I’m tearing down a boundary and am about to climb over a barricade. I’m excited about this adventure, even if it tastes of danger.
Most of us have grown up on the teaching that Jesus is “The Lamb that takes away the sins of the world,” this is known as the Substitution or Atonement of Christ. He is the sacrifice instead of us, that sets us free from the bondage to sin and death. 
What if instead, Jesus were “The Bread of Life?” If he were the ancient scythe harvesting the weeds from our fields so that our grains could grow strong and provide us with the food for our rolls, our muffins, our flat breads and our pizzas, then he would be our provider of nourishment and strength.
He would be feeding us, making us stronger day by day and building us up to be protectors of the weak, the needy, and the defeated of this world. If we hold to the substitution theory, we stay on the weak position always.
We will always need God, for it is in Christ that we have our victories. As Romans 8:37 reads, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Because we have the victories, we are called to go out in power to defend the cause of the marginalized, the ones who have not found the power of God for themselves. We aren’t given this power to build our own mansions, enlarge our own kingdoms, or build up our own wealth.
God gives us this victory to secure food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and care for the lonely. When we meet their needs, we meet the needs of the Christ who said,
“This is my body broken for you.”
Watching From Afar
acrylic on canvas
16″ x 20′
No one wants to be on the train that’s wrecking. Not many want to watch the disaster unfolding, but when you care intensely about a person, sometimes you cannot take your eyes off the pain and trauma. You watch from the cheap seats in the balcony, rather than paying the full price of orchestra pit, where you can get the front row view, up close and personal.
The Gospel accounts of the crucifixion tell us that the Temple leadership and the Roman soldiers had front row seats at this execution, but the crowds and the followers watched from afar.
Those that had an interest only in the spectacle left once it was over. Those who cared about the person hanging on the cross stayed even after he spent his last breath.
“And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” (Luke 23:48-49)
This snow scene is the fourth in a series of a single tree representing the various stations of the cross. My personal banker, who’s a member oft church, jogs past this tree all the time. It’s near the Hot Springs Country Club at the corner of Malvern and Bellaire. I took several photos, played in Photoshop in my camera+app and went to work painting on 16″ x 20″ canvases.
I divided the canvas almost equally into quarters and halves. The heavens and the earth are top and bottom. The Christ tree almost splits in two the right and left halves.
“At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.” (Matthew 27:51)
The quiet stillness of the snow reminds me both of the pause of death and the hope for the resurrection. Both are contained in the cross of Christ, but those who watch from afar at this moment do not yet have this hope.
The people who live their lives as one train wreck after another want to get off this track, but don’t want to give up control of their lives to a power that can break the chains of death that have held us. “To die to our old selves” is to become a train wreck in the flesh. As we give up these old parts of us, old relationships are rent and have to be reformed in a new manner or we have to part ways with old friends and make new ones instead.
“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The good news is that the cross of Christ unites both heaven and earth, life and death, hope and despair, as well as peace and travail.
I should never begin working with power tools without caffeine. Having said this, I’m glad to report that I still have all the fingers on each hand and no body parts remain glued to a flat surface, unlike Tim “The Tool Man” Allen. My only error was to put my battery pack backwards into the charging unit. This meant I needed an extra hand to help me pull it loose. God provides, for my young neighbor was handy to pull the charger away while I held the battery’s release mechanism. Two minds are better than one, and two efforts double the power.
My friends at the Canvas Community Church in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, work with the homeless folks there. Street people are made in the image of God, just as you and I are. They have broken lives, just as you and I do. Their brokenness is out on view for all to see, whereas ours is often hidden behind elegant facades or ordinary tract homes. Canvas will host a Good Friday Stations of the Cross worship service for their community. Their art outreach program with the homeless produces some of the art, but other artists offer their works for exhibition and sale also. A portion of the proceeds befits the church’s outreach ministry.
Icons are such sacred objects that they have acquired a sense of holiness all their own. This attribution of holiness to the icon itself, rather than to the person or subject represented, led to the Iconoclast Controversy. Some destroyed many precious works of art because they thought the image was being worshiped, rather than God or Jesus. We do this today, of course, when we worship our “litmus test issues,” such as which Bible translation is the only sacred cow, what age the earth is (a cover for the Creation science or evidential science debate), or picking a Christian candidate to support (by virtue of the proof texting quotes with which we agree, of course).
My thought is that we still worship the image, but fail to worship God or Jesus. If we were to go beyond the icon/image, we might see more of us meeting the Christ who lives on the streets, in the prisons, and in the sickbeds of our nation:
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ (Matthew 25:34-36)
In the ten hours I was in my studio assembling this icon, I had time to remember where I found all these items that make up this altarpiece. The two red supporting decorative brackets are from a home decorating project that never got off the ground because I decided to tear out the old counter space rather than to make a mosaic there. I hauled the wood shelf back from a walk. It was once a scrap piece of a fence that kept someone out or in. I pick up sticks that feel right, and scraps of wood or crushed soda cans that call out my name. The debris of this world has a beauty of its own kind, just as the acknowledged fine materials of our convention have value. If one day we found a way to manufacture gold, the metal would become base in a heartbeat.
That Chrysler hubcap was a real find! I may have found that on vacation when I stopped along a quiet roadside to snap a photo. The old crosses are from my days of living in large homes, rather than a small condo. The green glass cross broke in a move, but I couldn’t give it up. Most of us can’t give up our brokenness to the Christ who said, “This is my body, broken for you.” This is why we share our broken lives with all who are broken by sorrow, illness, pain, or hurts. We may wind up rusted on the side of the road, like the windshield wiper or we may end up painted over and stashed away in a garage like the board on which this icon exists. I also used beads and old pieces of jewelry that needed to be recycled and repurposed, in the great icon making tradition.
The power of the icon isn’t in the materials. I’ve made icons of macaroni and plastic jewels that read “holiness” as much as any ancient icon. I’ve had people make icons from their grandmother’s jewelry boxes. These too read as holy icons, even if they are nonrepresentational. The power comes through the Holy Spirit into the artist and then into the work. When I make a work such as this, my hands are steady, my pace is slow, and I lose all track of time. I enter into another realm, so to speak, that of the icon itself. The ancients believed that the icons were a window into heaven. I believe this is true, for the power of such an object is to take us out of our ordinary experiences and into a world where there is no more hunger, pain, or grief.
The icon’s great mystery and power is to remind us that ordinary materials can open us up to the truth and beauty of the holy. When our eyes are jaded by the ugliness of the world about us: wars, beheadings, poverty, injustice, economic destabilization, and human insensitivity, look upon the icons and enter into the power of the one who makes all things holy:
“He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” (Philippians 3:21)
For some reason facebook decided that my 7 pages of art, cooking & spiritual formation seemed unconnected. They thought that my Page Manager App perhaps wasn’t really run by one person. How indeed, could one person have so many varied interests? How could they find all the ordinary aspects of this life relating to faith? Oh, I guess, only those who grew up reading that one good book and hearing the stories of everyday life spoken in the ancient parables and metaphors of a distant age and land would understand how to translate this way of speaking into a modern language.
I guess our world today is too one dimensional and too targeted, or perhaps facebook has fallen victim to its own splicing & dicing. We too often only share that part of ourselves that we think others want to see, or we hide that part that we think is not approved by others.
We forget that our weakness is often the key to opening the pain of others so that can begin to heal, or that our struggles are what help others to have the courage to try one more time when the going gets tough. Our world is so sold on the outward appearance of success that the inner self can be falling apart at the seams.
This is why we go through the motions of life, but the fire no longer burns inside. This is why we acquire many things, but have no satisfaction in their holding. This is why we yearn sometimes to have only a small garden, or just a backpack, or to be in a deer stand alone to see the sun come up through the pines. We may make a living, but we may not be making a life.
Once we lived under one umbrella and sought to find one large tent or tree to shelter as many as we could, but now we each seek a tiny pup tent for each person’s own comfort and solace. How many of us have progressively cleaned our facebook friends until we find just those who vote like us, eat like us, think like us, and are like us?
Soon we will no longer feel the fire, no longer want to burn up in the flames of power, and we will be content to watch the Hunger Games on our TV sets. The young will burn and catch on fire and we will be content to pass commentary upon it.
I hope I never get that old. I plan to always be hungry at CORNIE’S KITCHEN, making art at ARTANDICON & CORNELIA DELEE & celebrating faith at ART AND SOUL FUMC HS, ARKANSAS SPIRITUAL FORMATION ACADEMY, & TRIBE OF DAN.
A few months ago, I woke up with this Franz Marc blue horse in my mind. Clouds were overhanging the Rocky Mountains in the distance. On the high plains stood a solitary tree that had several Spirit feathers attached to the limbs. Red threads fluttered in the breeze. This horse, which I knew by now was my own self in a spirit animal form, was coming close to this tree.
So, is it a Tree of Life? An Ancestor Tree (burial site)? A Good Luck Tree for Travelers and Wayfarers? Or is it a Marker Tree that says “Killroy was here”? Maybe it’s just my brain “taking out the trash of the previous weeks and days,” so that I can deal with my waking life more easily!
I’m still pondering the meaning. I had to paint this image to get it out of my mind and into the real world. Maybe here I will discover its truth for me.
I also needed to work on something that I could finish quickly and feel the joy of immediate accomplishment. I’m involved in a number of long term projects in my creative life right now. I’m on the third draft of THE WANDERING SOUL, my first installment novel, which I’m posting as weekly chapters at http://www.souljournieswordpress.wordpress.com. I’m also writing a second novel, THE ACCIDENTAL VACATION, which is in the journal or handwritten stage just now.
I have been painting butterflies, but have a commission for an icon. With my own work, I can go crazy and push the paint wherever the Spirit moves me. The icon, however, falls within boundaries and rules. I have to have my mind and heart still in order to submit to that discipline. It’s not my first nature! I do it, however, because this focused work allows me more power and freedom when I return to my own creative process. It’s a mystery, but sometimes we go left to turn right.
Progress: the 13th hour on the Pantocrator Icon.
Acrylic on gold primed canvas. 18″ x 24″.
Good things come to those who persevere.
Painting an icon is one of the ancient spiritual disciplines. The artist isn’t just copying by rote or filling in a design, as in a paint by numbers craft piece.
Instead, the artist is rendering a true copy of a window into heaven. As I focus on the image, the image is also focusing on me. As I seek to be faithful to the forms I see, in a mysterious manner unknown and unseen, the icon’s presence allows the Spirit of God to work within my heart and mind to transform me and bring me closer to God’s original image.
There are days in my life when I think I should paint more icons. There are days in this world when I wish all people honored and venerated the holy icons, or at least honored the call for peace within their own religious traditions. Perhaps that day will come in my lifetime, but if not, I can live in peace and not contribute to the warring nature of this world.
Everyone should take at least one accidental vacation, at least once in their life. This event will throw you off your game plan, sweep away your plan B, and leave you up a creek without a paddle. This is your Kobayashi Maru, your Waterloo, and your Little Big Horn all rolled up into one. Most of us think we trust God, but we really trust our own strengths, capabilities, support systems, and friendship ties. We aren’t prepared to “go to a land God will show us” or to go as the 12 were sent, taking “nothing for our journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, not even an extra tunic.” (Luke 9:3) I planned to be gone to visit my nephew’s organic farm for 2 weeks; I was gone a whole month. I got bit by an attack telephone pole on my way out of the gas station. It’s my story, I’m sticking to it. Once I got the big red Ram rental truck, I headed out of Dodge in my Dodge. By the next day, I was on the beach in North Carolina.
Like a pirate, I stayed as long as I had a room, and then I moved on. Some accommodations were great, but some I bought cleaning products for my personal safety. I found a welcome everywhere. I ate mostly from the grocery and the icebox in the rooms. Fresh fruit, cheese, cottage cheese, spinach, carrots, mushrooms, avocado, and bread made up my living off the land menu. One night I did get fresh cooked shrimp from the deli for a great salad. My last night on the beach I treated myself to a fake pirate’s ship venu restaurant, but it was a fine meal. I ate the appetizer sampler platter and a salad, so that was more than enough rich food for me!
When I came back to the tiny town where my busted baby sat, I stopped in the arts coffee shop to ask the barista if she knew a nicer place than the motel on the highway. They called Yvonne at the bed and breakfast, and talked her into giving me a discount since I would be an extended stay and was here as a “victim of circumstances.” I was glad, for the highway motel looked suspect and I was ready to be treated as a princess for a change. I guess all my pirate swagger had “swigged” out on the trip back. I was ready for lace curtains and 48 acres of piney woods quiet, not to mention three course breakfasts in the morning. Those breakfasts were to die for! My spirits were being revived daily.
While I’m not much of a drama queen, I do tend to worry. This is one trip that I did not worry, for I realized that I was getting a beach vacation out of this, due to my prime of life coverage, as well as the rental car. I might as well enjoy it to the fullest of my ability, within the limits of the finances available to me. The beach provided long walks for the morning and evening. Then of course, I did have to climb America’s tallest lighthouse, just to say I had done it.
The second week at the B&B would be on me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that, so I could be thankful that I got a great price from the locals who showed hospitality to me. I vacationed in town, ate there, took photos, wrote, drank coffee in the cafe, and hung out. I was relaxed. I did pay some bills and wire some money to the bank, just to be safe. I washed clothes. An ordinary life.
What isn’t ordinary is leaning on others and receiving from them more than I gave in return. As a giver, I am always on the pouring out side. This time I was on the receiving end, and I have never been so filled in my whole life! From the day I hiked up the Rainbow Falls Trail, I discovered that while I might be able to almost get there by myself, I sure couldn’t get down without help. Thank God Trevor, Angie & that unnamed angel turned up with the hiking stick to help me down! The clerk at the hotel upgraded my room to the jacoozi when he heard my story, and I was again thankful.
Most of us don’t receive well, because it puts us in the weak position. We would rather be in the giving or strong position. That’s why we like that verse “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (acts 20:36) it claims to quote Christ, but no gospel contains that quote. Someone always has to receive, however, for the giver to get the blessing. If we aren’t on the receiving end, we rob the giver of the blessing of generosity. If we aren’t in the receiving end, we rob ourselves of the blessings of humility and poverty. These are blessings because in them we can share he nature of Christ. It was for our sakes, that though he was rich, he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).
So I commend to you the idea of an “accidental vacation.” Perhaps you won’t need to bash in the front end of your vehicle to get the message, but some of us are like ornery mules: God needs to get our attention in a big way. Even the worst events God can use for good, for those who love God and are called according to God’s purposes. I discovered that each person I met on this trip was at a crux in their life, just as I was. They were at a decision point, a transition point, or a new calling was taking hold in their lives, just as it was in my own. Perhaps what seemed to be only an accident to some, God was able to make into a greater design for good: not just for me, but for the people who shared their stories and lives with me on my accidental vacation. I’m looking forward to retirement, but for me that just means redefining my calling to “word, sacrament, & order.” My word will be my creative endeavors, both painting and writing, serving the sacraments in the congregations and communities in which I fellowship, and being faithful to my brothers and sisters in our order of the elders.
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