Imagination

A DEEPER SOURCE OF WATER

Creativity, Health, Imagination, Italy, photography, Spirituality, Strength, Stress, Travel, vision, Work

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I’m sixty five years old. I have an iPhone. When I see an interesting image, I stop and park my car. I take a little walk, getting in a few more steps for my otherwise sedentary life. The viewpoint then becomes important, otherwise I’m just taking snapshots. The place has “called me,” as we say, for I’ve driven past hundreds of trees on my way home, but this one tree stands by itself, calling for a visitor to commune with it. As I clambered down into the stream bed, I noticed the water flow was weak due to our lack of rain. The large black basalt outflow rocks were quite dry, so I sat down for a lower vantage point. This was good, but I decided to lie down, to get one last view.

Did I mention that I was wearing bright red pedal pushers and an equally bright yellow blouse? The sight of a gray haired gal taking photos while lying down in the midst of a stream did get celebrated by a number of the passing vehicles. I waved back, it’s Arkansas. Folks don’t often do out of the ordinary here.

When I was an art student, I had the privilege to study art history for a summer in Italy. Two days a week our professors took us on bus trips to see art in situ and three days we worked in the studios over the town square of Cortona, our home base. In a historically rich and artistically wealthy nation, the Italians don’t bat an eye when they see an artist sketching or painting in front of a monument, sculpture, or landscape. I even found that putting my tool box with coins and paper money down near my feet would bring additional gifts of appreciation from passers by.

In fact, the Italians are downright spoiled by the beauty that surrounds them. (There’s a Borromini church! Uh? Oh, so?!). We too are sated by that which surrounds us, but it isn’t a reverence for the cultural treasures of antiquity. The Italians have an art history that extends back through pre Etruscan times (1000 BC). Our history begins in 1620 at Plymouth Rock. We are a people who would rather tear it down and build something new. When I see this tree standing strong, offering its branches and shade as a shelter to any who come near, I think of an old home or an old church that has protected and provided for generations of families that have come under its “roof.”

Just as I had no fear when I lay down in the middle of the stream, the tree has such deep roots that even when the stream itself drys up, it has a deeper source of water to tap. This is where most of us fall apart in our daily lives, our creative lives, and our spiritual lives. I speak as if these were three separate items, but in fact, each one is only a facet of a singular treasure. When our daily life is stressed, our creative and spiritual lives suffer. When our spiritual life is ignored, our creative and daily life withers. When we aren’t creating, we don’t feel alive spiritually or humanly.

We each need to find the deeper source of water, that will refresh our thirsty souls and spirits.

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit.”
~~ Jeremiah 17:7-8

THE PARK MAY BE CLOSED BUT THE CITY ISN’T

at risk kids, Creativity, Food, generosity, Imagination, Meditation, photography, poverty, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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I took the back way home. Even though I was using the GPS, I deviated from her well intentioned directions. Perhaps I was just intent on exploring, or perhaps I had “authority issues” I needed to work out on leadership, since no one in our country’s Capitol seemed to care for the the poor and the weak any more. “It doesn’t affect me, so why should I worry? Most people won’t notice anything amiss in their daily lives.” How easily we discount “the other.” We think so often only of ourselves: of me, myself, and my. My exploration, as I call the GPS recalculating mode, led me to an island of peace in the heart of the industrial zone of Hot Springs National Park.

Because of the current government shutdown, the park spa, museum, and natural spaces are shut down. We can still walk up to the fountains of the ever flowing springs and fill our water bottles for free, but hiking the trails are forbidden until the money flows from DC. The City of Hot Springs National Park belongs to the state of Arkansas, so it was Wednesday as usual. Our schools had lunch and adults went to work (unless they were federal employees or national guardsmen).

I ended my exploration at Sanders Plumbing Supply. There I found an old wooden railroad trestle bridge crossing both the road and the creek that runs beside it. I parked in the business lot, took my iPhone and crossed the street. The slope down into the creek was gentle and dry, for we haven’t had much rain in these parts. As I clambered into the shallow stream, I walked on an extruded basalt flow. That this old volcanic rock had coursed across the earth in an ancient time and still persisted reminded me that life is more than just today. Even the years of water had not worn it down. I made a short instamatic video of the rippling water, the waving weeds, and the sunlight touching the water. I was finding my peace again.

These black basalt beds were big enough to stretch out on, so I took advantage of this position. Folks in Arkansas aren’t much used to seeing a gray haired lady dressed in bright yellow and red lying in the middle of a creek bed and taking photos. I got a lot of friendly honks & waves from the passing cars. Then again, a person of any age doing something out of the ordinary is apt to get encouragement from the folks who aren’t quite up to stepping out of the safe path themselves.

When I came home, I made this little drawing in a Strathmore watercolor sketchbook. It’s no bigger than an iPad mini. I used an ordinary ink pen, the same tool with which I journal on most days. To focus on the antiquity of the natural elements and the constancy of God’s divine providence for God’s creation reminded me that this day’s problems are being handled by a higher power. As I drew the old railroad trestle bridge, I realized that “this train is bound for glory” (Woody Guthry). We may not see the train right now, but it won’t carry the self-righteous anymore than the hustlers or the sinners. It will carry the humble, the ones who put their trust in God, and care for all of God’s people, not just for the ones who can return the favor.

“For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:11).

The Sunlit Tree

Imagination, Meditation, Ministry, photography, Spirituality, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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I am not a point A to point B person, but what right brained artist is? Yet, making a work of art requires planning and structure, just as building a house requires plans, or both will fall apart before very long. This is why some of our efforts continue to please us many years into the future, while others, with our more experienced eye, now are relegated to paint over land.

This field of trees caught my eye, not because it was full of light or promise of abundance, but because only one great tree stood proud with a glorious yellow robe amid a field of dried up stunted trees and weeds. It was so different that I had to detour from the interstate, retrace my path on the old state highway and take a picture with my camera. I’ve kept this photo for a dozen years, waiting for the time when I had both the skill and the spirit to bring it to life as a painting.

I have shown this photo to various people over the years. “That’s nice, a big tree, it’s a lot of yellow and brown, and it looks half dead and half alive” are some of the comments I’ve heard. I’m used to this, for most folks don’t have vision. They cannot see the promise in the grey clouds of the rainbow to come. The rainbow must be there in all her radiance, dancing all seven of her colors across the heavens, for the hope of the promise to be written in bold enough letters for most of us to read it in the sky.

A few rare people have vision. Some are cooks, some are tinkerers, some are prophets, and some are artists. If I had copied this photo, I would have made a very different painting, one in which all the values are nearly the same, for it was an overcast day when I took the image. As a photograph, it was unworthy, but as a sketch or a plan for a future work, it was worth keeping. My mother saw this photo and said, “This is a strong tree that survives and shelters others.” My Mother had vision.

I could have gone in several directions with this painting. One choice I considered was the gathering grey clouds anticipating a certain storm. The lighting of the trees and the field would have been more dramatic. I decided to go with a brilliant autumn day, with the sky and fields full of light. All the trees were in their full dress glory as the winds shake their leaves of yellows, oranges, and reds.

The verse from Ezekiel 17:24 came into my mind: “And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.”

This vision of sunlight, warm wind, healing and uplifting the dried up landscape brought hope into my heart! We may be discouraged for a season, but our standing rooted as we trust the God who loves us means that we will be there when God’s promises come true. If we are the dry tree, we will flourish! If we are the low tree, we will be made high!

As artists, we are constantly creating, so we share this activity in common with God. Do we have the vision to see beyond our circumstances to God’s promises that await? Do we have the courage to continually work along side God to bring God’s vision into reality? Take your sketchbook, your easel, or your camera this week out into the countryside. Find the tree that calls you apart from your designated journey. Enter into a conversation with this place. Perhaps you are not used to being still, or quiet. Listen to the sounds of this place. Do not be too quick to hurry off to worship the idol, “I’ve got better or more important things to do with my life.”

THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD

Family, Food, Health, home, Imagination, renewal, Spirituality, vision, Work

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Balloon bread: this was our childhood name for Wonder Bread back in the 50’s. Today it has the name because it is so light and fluffy, it might float away, but then we named it for the red, yellow and blue circles that reminded us of clown balloons. Our town had a Wonder Bread Bakery that welcomed school children on field trips. I remember going there several times in my elementary years, and each time was as fascinating as the first.

Making bread on an industrial scale is very different from home baking or even the 1960’s era Easy Bake Oven (which heated by means of an incandescent light bulb!). Huge portions of flour, water, sugar,yeast,salt, vitamins and dough conditioners are put into giant mixing vats and blended with huge blades until the dough glistens. Then it’s balled up, put into a warm room to rise, kneaded by machine again, separated by a cutter, popped into loaf pans, conveyed on a belt into another rising room, and then moved into a cavernous oven that would engulf the entire kitchen in which my Mom made our family meals. The size of this process always took our breath away, but when we came up for air, I and all my classmates could smell only one fragrance: the very bread of heaven.

These bakers knew how to win the hearts of children, and thereby win the pocketbooks of their parents. For each of us got at the end of the tour our own personal loaf of fresh baked Wonder Bread. Made just for us, each child sized loaf fit into the palm of our hands. Holding that warm loaf was no doubt the beginning of my love affair with food.

We children got to see, from a safe distance of course, what the adults did when they left home every day. In my great-grandparent’s day, folks still worked on the farm together or the children had after school duties in the dry goods store in town. In the 1950’s, life was more segregated, and not just racially. Men were the primary industrial labor force, many women could stay home to raise the children and we children were organized into schools, sports, and hobbies. Only at night did our families settle down together over the evening meal and talk about our day.

My family was big on dinner conversation. My younger brother didn’t get a word in edgewise until I left for college. Up until that time the folks thought he had a stuttering problem. My other brother and I just jumped in and finished his sentences. Give a guy a space and you might find out he can talk. Sharing daily life experiences around a meal knits a family together. Doing things together produces memories, but until you articulate your experience in words, even if you have to struggle to find a better word than “awesome,” you haven’t fully shared it. You may as well have been two separate loaves of bread, all cooked in the same oven, but held in different hands and tasted by different tongues.

We kids had bread for snacks quite often. We made kid friendly sandwiches of various condiments: mustard only; mustard and mayo; butter, sugar and cinnamon; peanut butter and jelly; butter and jelly; and I remember, but did not partake of, ketchup and mustard. I will not tell whose palette was so unsophisticated as to enjoy the latter concoction, but it was not one of my gal pals from the neighborhood.

Oddly, no one liked the ends of the bread or the crusts. My Nannie used to say, “These will give you curly hair,” in an attempt to entice me into eating these despised pieces. I did want curly hair, but not enough to eat the crust. We would save these pieces for feeding to the ducks and geese that lived along the bayou. This dodge didn’t work with my daughter either, as I recall, and she enjoyed feeding these beggar birds also.

We always bought prepackaged bread at the store, as my Dad used to say about anything new and improved, “It’s the best thing since sliced bread!” My great grandmother baked her own bread in an old cast iron stove. Her old wooden bread bowl, which I still have, has a burned out hole in the bottom from her trying to hurry the dough’s rising. Yet, by the mid 1920’s, my grandparents were buying the new modern loaves from their grocer and my Mother never looked back. As a young married couple, my husband and I wanted to live closer to the land, even though we lived in the city. We grew an organic garden fertilized with circus poo, ate deer meat from the fall hunting season, and I baked bread each week. It was a simple life and fit well with our self employed days.

Some thirty years have passed now, and I no longer have to meet the beck and call of others or punch the clock for the bossman. I am once again self employed, which is another word for retired. I have revisioned my life into another calling. Now I am an artist, a writer, and an explorer. Sometimes I explore spirituality, creativity, health, wholeness, or food. I can test my own ideas in the kitchen, the gymnasium, the studio, or in my blogs. I don’t really want a premade loaf that is uniform in size, texture, color, and weight. I rather like the accidental and unique characteristics of the individual loaves that come from under my hands, what we call “the artisan loaf” when we pay $2 more per loaf at the bakery.

Sometimes we might think, “If only we had a baker who would provide us with our daily bread, then we could have a good life.” Everyone would have enough and no one would be hungry, but we would only want more or different. When the Hebrews were wandering in the wilderness, God gave them a daily blessing of manna. If they gathered more than a day’s worth during the week, the excess spoiled. Only on the eve of the sabbath would the manna last two days in a row (Exodus 16). When Jesus fed the 5,000 with the five barley loaves and two small fish, the people wanted to make him their king right then (John 6:15).

Everyone wants a sugar daddy, a giver of blessings, a distributer of free bread and circuses, and no responsibility but to receive the gift and make it one’s own. The Little Red Hen baked bread the hard way: no one wanted to help her plant the seeds, cut the wheat, carry the grain to the mill, grind it into flour, carry it back to the farm, and bake it into bread. Then all the animals on the farm who could have had a hand in the making of this bread wanted to claim a share of the finished product, but the Little Red Hen ate alone. If we want a simple life and a healthy life, we have to invest our time and energy into it.

Like I say, everyone wants a sugar daddy or a baker of free bread, but if we want a healthy and whole life, we have to share in the lifestyle.

CORNIE’S KITCHEN Low Sodium Whole Wheat Bread
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=2562276

History of Wonder Bread
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/wonderbread.htm

A BUTTERFLY IN THE HAND OF GOD

butterflies, Health, Imagination, Physical Training, purpose, renewal, Travel, vision, Work

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My usual walking route takes me from the local YMCA around the Mercy Hospital and Physicians Buildings until I make the mile and a half loop back to the gym. I take this walk on the days it’s not too hot or humid to be exercising outside, for I like the transition of the landscape against the sky, the changing shapes of the buildings as I walk past, and the patterns that the occasional breeze makes in the tall grasses of the ditches beside the access road that is my outdoor track.

This summer has been a blessing, for our usual 100 degree days didn’t appear. While we did have “heat factor 100 degree and then some” days, our early mornings were still bearable in the outdoors. It was on such a walk as this that I found this beautiful butterfly. Usually they are fluttering about with vigor on whatever imperceptible currents of overheated air that we call late summer in Arkansas, but this one was lying on the asphalt, no longer going about its appointed rounds. It had joined the cast off cigarette packages, the empty 5Hour Energy bottle, the smashed turtle and the carcass of the bird that marked the stages of my journey.

Gently I took it from the ground. This could not be its final resting place, for something so beautiful needed to be remembered and to be celebrated. I carried it with me as I thought of our great cities and their historic beauty. We tend to tear down our old architecture and put up new in its place with great abandon, yet we pay dearly to go to Europe and Asia to see ancient cities. I live in a 1960’s era high rise condominium on a lake that is near a bridge where bats live. Because some of these endangered species have made a nuisance by nesting in a few of the condos’ decorative cinderblock patios, our board proposed covering all these balconies with painted sheet metal. We live in the oldest and tallest solely residential building in Arkansas. We are a cultural and architectural icon. We wouldn’t want to look like a ten story trailer park!

Do we hold our traditional skills in honor any more? Are we willing to invest the time, effort, and sweat to fully develop our craft? Will we live below our means so that we can enrich the world with the products of our imagination and our spirit? Will we mentor anyone to follow in our footsteps, or will we be the last ones of our kind? Do we honor the living treasures or do we fawn over only the latest hot shot?

In this life, we may have many walks, along many paths. We can choose our direction, our companions, and our departure dates. We may think that we are self sufficient, but we are just butterflies in a moment of time, for in God’s “hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being” (Job 12:10).

The Art of Life

Children, Family, Food, Imagination, mystery, purpose, Spirituality, Work

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Just a little water, a little rest, and a straight edge scraper will clean my palette so that I can begin to work anew. Sometimes we wish we could wash ourselves, rest a bit, or scrape off the remains of our day and start over, try again better, so that even if we don’t come up to our hoped for outcomes, at least we will have failed a little closer to our mark.

It’s that stubbornness that gets us up again before our chosen medium to push it, pull it, noodle it, cajole it, or scream at it until we lock ourselves into the rhythmic dance of call and response, fear and dread, passion and exhaustion that we call art. Yet art isn’t just what we make in our studios, for life itself is art. Art is a skill as a result of learning or practice (Latin), whereas the Greek root means complete, just, or suitable. (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=art)

In the case of one person I know, he lives his art and life by skillfully cutting his daughter’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the old cutting board from his boyhood home (http://lettherebedragons.com/husband-and-father/). In the spiritual life, we call this being present in the moment. If we treat each moment of life with intensity, rather than living on autopilot, we will discover our life and art to be more full and more immediate.

Instagram in The Garden of Dreams

Fear, Food, Health, Holy Spirit, home, Imagination, photography, purpose, salvation, Strength, vision, Work

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I am never too busy to heed the prompting of that inner voice that calls me to stop and smell the roses. In my case, the voice says, “Stop and Instagram this moment!” I’ll be driving down the road, just going from point A to point B, singing my favorite Bon Jovi tune, when I feel that pull on the steering wheel from my Higher Power. Sometimes I have seen the extraordinary play of light shimmering through the trees beside a rural road and other times one magnificent tree stands out from the crowd of its kin. Sometimes I snap several photos around an area before I “see the real image” that was calling out to me.

This prompting of the Spirit ought not to be denied, for we will miss our most inspired works if we are just fixed on getting to our planned destination. In art, as in the spiritual life, the journey is as important as the destination. We can miss some important opportunities for growth if we think that our journey needs to be easy, direct, quick and according to plan.

In my studio as in my life, I like to be on a schedule and have a plan/goals. The unknown is frightening, full of dragons, and has many places where I could “lose it all” by falling off an unseen cliff face or down into a sudden crevasse. Yet, meeting these challenges is what strengthens us. A child making a mess of his drawing has merely taken the media too far. We adults want to stop him before he makes a mess of it, but he has to learn the limits of the medium before he can truly take his creativity out to the maximum, but no farther. If we are pushing ourselves creatively, we will “lose it early and often.” (Ask Tiger Woods or any pro golfer who has changed his/her swing: the transformation is daunting, so only the passionate will give it a try.)

I’ve been eating healthier and exercising more, so my blood pressure medicines were working too well. My blood pressures were in the zombie zone, so I wasn’t perky enough to do much work in the studio. Once my doctor adjusted my medications, I discovered my housekeeping skills also hadn’t been tested for some time there. Many of the photographs that I’ve taken as inspiration were stuck together from a water spill. I microwaved them (with a bowl of water), peeled them apart, cut up the interesting fragments, and glued them together as a collage: “Garden of Dreams.”

I decided to use the collage as the sketch for a new painting, an idea which freed me from grieving the loss of the good things or the original plan I had in mind for these photos. I could concentrate instead on the better hope for the future that this new opportunity presented. My best laid plans may have come to naught, but “we know that all things work together for good for those that love God, who are called according to his purposes” (Romans 8:28).

The Shining River

Creativity, Icons, Imagination, Italy, Ministry, mystery, photography, Prayer, Spirituality, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, vision, Work

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”  ~~ Revelation 22:1-2

I have never visited a more beautiful city than Venice, Italy, with her

The river of God, flowing from the throne of God, with the tree of life bearing fruits in every month & leaves for the healing of the nations.

The river of God, flowing from the throne of God, with the tree of life bearing fruits in every month & leaves for the healing of the nations.

ancient mansions on the canals, her grand piazza opening up to the lovely Basilica of San Marco’s domes, and her delightful bridges, museums, and churches. Most tourists who visit here love to feed the pigeons, while I think they are a public nuisance. Then these birds take flight heavenward and I’m inclined to think of angels’ wings and brushes of glory.

With all these earthly visual delights, my eye still is drawn heavenward to the sky, for the clouds and the atmospheric haze of Venice give this city a unique ambience. If a painter were to lay the colors of the South Italian sky upon the watery bogscape of Venice, the discord would be marked immediately.  At dawn and twilight especially, travelers don’t need a GPS to recognize the location or even a town sign to mark their arrival, for the sky alone says, “Welcome to Venice, weary traveler! Rest your soul!”

Most of us are used to living on a city lot with trees and grass that is bounded by a concrete walkway, a grass “neutral ground,” and a street that separates us from a mirror image of our own property across that same road. Venetians live on canals in multistory buildings that double as homes and warehouses. The lower floors were for work, for the cargo hauling gondolas easily accessed these, while the upper floors were for the family retreat, since they were more private. Everything in Venice moves by some form of floating contraption, since the city was built on marshy land in the middle of a lagoon between several small islands.

Because there aren’t any motorcars, there is a different feeling to the city. On the larger canals, the big boats ferry people on the tourist routes and smaller motorboats act as taxis. The classic gondola with the human powered oarsman is a premium priced experience, much like a carriage ride in downtown Hot Springs or Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  Travelling to the nooks and crannies of this jeweled city is by foot over one of the many bridges and side paths, so it is a sightseer’s paradise.

This slower travel allows a visitor to feel the rhythm of the place, to smell the air, to note the patina on the marble facings of the homes, the worn indentations on the entry steps of the ancient homes, and the variety of colors in the handmade bricks. Walking down the narrow corridor between the homes doesn’t prepare the visitor for the sudden opening into a larger space and the overwhelming, all enveloping softness of lush rose, moist yellow, and puffy crème that make up the clouds of a Venetian sky. Perhaps someone else sees only a cerulean blue sky and a titanium white cloud, but I know what I see. I visited this beautiful city only once, some forty years ago, and I still remember images from those blessed days.

As I think about this crystal clear memory from my past, I wonder how we see our own world today and how we envision the world that is to come. Many of us have a very negative view of this world: the problems, the people, and the pains are all overwhelming. We have divided our world into an “us vs. them” place: rich or poor, black or white, Republican or Democrat, Developed world or Emerging world, Christian or Muslim, and the list of dualisms goes on and on.  Even in the Bible, folks were divided, until Paul set them straight, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

We aren’t meant to separate ourselves from one another but to find a way to come closer to each other. “If only we were all Christians,” you say, “and everyone belonged to MY church/denomination.” I think that what Paul also means by “one in Christ Jesus” is that all human beings share the image of God, no matter what church they belong to, and no matter what God they call upon. No matter how different they look from you and me, they still hold the divine image and imprint within them. If we are to truly live out our call to be “the living image of God in the world,” just as Jesus Christ was the living image of God in the flesh as the Incarnated Son of God, then we have to take that incarnation in our lives and the recreation of this world seriously.

In the Celtic Tradition, heaven and earth are only three feet apart. The “thin places” where we feel the presence of God are even closer. What if God intended all creation to be a “thin place?” The Garden of Eden seemed to be such a spot, for Adam and Eve not only lived and cared for the land here, but they had daily walks with the LORD in the cool of the evening breezes (Genesis 2-3). Unfortunately, our spiritual forbears decided that equality with God was more desirable than companionship with God, so they lost their daily privilege of the presence (Gen 3:22-24). This is called “The Fall.”

Ever since this Fall, all of human kind has attempted to recover the intimate relationship with God and nature that we once had in the Garden. Today some focus only on their spiritual lives and separate their souls from their flesh. Both Christian and New Age groups will do this: we deny our body sleep, good nutrition, or healthy exercise. We also see it when a proponent of some “spiritual doctrine” proclaims that the body is unimportant, so that it can be treated either well or ill, or can be used by the cult leader for “higher purposes.”  Or we claim that since our bodies don’t matter, we can use them for any purpose we want, for only our soul matters.

Since God created us with both a body and a soul (Gen 2:7), both must be valued by God. Moreover if God sent his Son into the womb of a teenage Virgin, so that he might be born fully human (both body and soul) and fully divine (still the Son, still part of the Holy Trinity), then God distinctly values the human body, both female and male. God sent his Son in human form to the earth, not just to redeem humanity, but to set all creation free (Rom 8:21).

When we spend time in a thin place, most often we are isolated and silent. Most of us need that time away from the hustle and bustle of life to settle our minds so we can hear or feel the presence of God. We need a “Garden of Eden” that is our place to meet God daily until we are able to meet him in the midst of the fallen world in which we live. How can we learn to feel the presence of God while we are within the “maddening crowd?”

I practice times of “tuning out” or letting my mind drift. Some call this daydreaming or a failure to stay on task. Creative people are task slaves until their idea has fully formed well enough to get them excited about working and then you can’t tear them away from their fever until they drop from exhaustion or realize they are about to overwork their piece.  We know our own work habits, and it usually isn’t on anyone else’s time clock. The creative idea is their master, not the schedule, the calendar, or some outside influence.

I will be in the car at a red light and hear a voice in my inner mind prompting me to look up and photograph the sky. I do this for no particular reason, other than I feel impelled.  It’s not an actual voice of a person; it’s more of an intuitive feeling that now is the time to take this photo. Perhaps I’m just bored, or I have better peripheral vision, or I need something to occupy my time so I don’t go silly waiting at the back of this long line. I think of these moments as “intersections of heaven and earth,” for these are windows in which our everyday world opens up into a world in which God is present and touches our world and our space and our time.

The painting which graces the headline is from a photo of the street outside of my condominium, beyond the small creek, looking over into the wooded lot beyond. The old asphalt road has become the River of Life, bright as crystal. There are many trees there and the golden sky tells us that we are in the presence of the glory of God. I go in and out of this gate every day, into a world in which God is ever creating and recreating. I have a much better attitude toward all the ugliness I see out there when I know it is passing away before my very eyes.

 

Generation to Generation: Learning to be Free

Creativity, Imagination, photography, Prayer, purpose, purpose, renewal, Spirituality, Uncategorized

old photographs, mostly unmarked, in decaying cigar box, found at grandmother's house.

old photographs, mostly unmarked, in decaying cigar box, found at grandmother’s house.

“The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” ~~ John 8:35-36 

With all the Paula Deen jambalaya on the airwaves lately about her treatment of African-Americans and her misplaced desire to have a plantation themed wedding reception with “slaves attending their masters,” I thought I ought to spend some time researching my own Southern ancestors.  Creeping age does that to one, as does the addition of yet another life to our family tree. I flew to Florida to celebrate becoming a grand aunt for the first time. Bringing gifts embellished with the family emblem, the fleur de lis, as well as handmade gifts that harken back to a simpler, earlier time when I was young, this child will know that he is a true DeLee.

I also brought a gift that has been another long-term project, my nephew’s family tree album.  When my parents died, as the oldest child I inherited the photos and memorabilia of their lives. This is that detritus of accumulated treasure of the deceased that they didn’t organize, identify, or otherwise “get a round tuit,” but they also wouldn’t get rid of it because of the love and memories they had locked up in those old photos and letters. This is the debris that the rest of my family either didn’t have the patience to deal with, or their emotions were too raw at the time, so they said, “Just set a match to it and burn it all up.” I knew I might not have the time or emotional capability to handle this task in the days or months after our last parent died, but the day would come when I would have that desire and the gift of time.

First I did research on the generations of our family tree for a Family Systems Class. I learned that each family or organizational system is interconnected across the generations, and our own lives today can’t be understood outside of this generational legacy.  Our history affects our present relationships: family, friends, and workplace.

I discovered some interesting “myths” about my Dad’s family that were told to “keep face,” for it seems not all my ancestors were such fine, upstanding citizens as my parents were trying to raise in their generation. I also discovered that my Mom’s people were all fairly straightforward folks. Maybe the fact that their history goes back much longer than my Dad’s people makes a difference, for my earliest ancestor I’ve found on his side is from the early 1800’s in South Louisiana, just after the Louisiana Purchase.  Jonathan Livingston DeLee married Mary Day, a young widow with a child, after she lost her husband who died of the measles after helping Stonewall Jackson defend New Orleans in the Battle of 1812.

My ancestors in Louisiana were all slaveholders before the Civil War, or “The War Between The States,” as my unreconstructed Daddy was wont to call it.  I discovered that I had great and grandparents in the KKK. I wondered how they could sleep soundly at night or keep their souls at peace by day. Their sons and daughters in my parent’s generation formed “private clubs” from public restaurants so that they wouldn’t have to integrate their dining establishments. This ruse didn’t last long, and now no one bats an eye, thankfully, because my generation marched with MLK in Atlanta and turned the world upside down for justice’s sake.

The question is today, how would any of us know the difference between the life of a slave and the life of the son/daughter in the family? If we are all “free people in these United States of America,” are some of us yet living in bondage, while some others have been set free? In the matter of faith, some of us are still slaves, while some of us have the freedom of the sons and daughters of God.  Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He also said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (same verse). To have this abundance is to live by faith in the work that Christ has done for us. The thief is our delusion that we must be good enough to earn God’s love or that we must work hard to be loved by the God that already loves us beyond measure (“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ*—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” ~~ Ephesians 4:4-7)

Some of us have spent our lives trying our hardest to earn our parents’ approval, our loved one’s approval, our child’s approval, our boss’ approval, or our friend’s approval.  We can’t turn around without trying to please someone else, only to discover that what pleases one displeases another! Now we are caught up in the anxiety circle, for we are stuck halfway and please no one, not even ourselves.  There is the third party whom we can never please, The Contrarians, for this group isn’t happy with anything we do and will surely find fault in us!)

We think that God is also like this, only bigger and more difficult to please. We have heard the verse, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We pile rule upon rule for our lives and the lives of others to measure up as “good enough.” This is why we are not “free to love God as a son or daughter,” for we are like slaves always looking out under the corner of our eyes to see if we are going to be punished for doing the wrong thing.  We can’t allow God to love us freely, for we are in bondage: slaves to the managed life, the life of rules and regulations, bound to the prison of punishments for failure to attain perfection.  We cannot love a God who keeps us in chains, for we are slaves and slaves want to be free.  If we only knew that “perfect” in Greek meant “complete,” then we might have a different take on how we live our lives.

The daughters and sons of God love their Father freely, for they will inherit all that their parent has. I may have received the house and the bric-a-brac along with all the photos from my earthly parents, but I will inherit the kingdom from my heavenly Father (Matt 25:34), as well as eternal life (Luke 18:18). If our goal as a person of faith is to live our life with a heart so full of the love of God and neighbor that nothing else exists, surely then we will be “perfect/complete in love” in this life. We live by faith knowing that God enables us to grow toward this goal of complete love day by day.

As you reflect in your journal on the faith of a son or a daughter versus that of a slave or a servant, consider: are you just a hired hand for God, showing up faithfully when God rewards you with a blessing, but being scarce or quitting on God when the “paycheck” seems short? Journal your feelings or use a stencil to make word art that sums up your feelings.

The Butter Queen

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“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness,  we lie, and do not the truth…” ~~ 1 John 1:6

 Oh, Paula Dean, the Butter Queen! Once you were everywhere seen, 998661_10200934855966494_49237487_nbut now you just seem awfully mean. Or were you just good at hiding your true self until you got so big that you thought you were untouchable? Worse, did you lose your good self in the chase for fame and fortune as you left your humble startup beginnings behind you?

The famous Peter Principle may be at work here: we will all rise to the level of our incompetency. As befits our food metaphor, “The cream that rises to the top always sours.” The further up the food chain we go, the more we are surrounded by “yes-sayers.” These are folks who approve our every whim and never tell us “no.” Like politicians, movie stars, athletes, and anyone else in a position of power, those who surround them say, “yes” so that they too may stay in the shadow of power also. Sometimes these folks need someone to tell them NO: “No, Justin Bieber, having a monkey isn’t a good idea if you’re traveling to Europe.” “No, Tiger Woods, having affairs with umpteen hot honeys isn’t smart if you want to keep your wife and baby and sponsors happy.” “No, Lance Armstrong, blood doping is wrong, even if everyone else is doing it.” We really wonder why no one said, “NO, Paula Dean, allowing racist or sexist comments and pornography at your restaurants isn’t a good idea.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/dining/paula-deens-words-ripple-among-southern-chefs.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2)

Our first knee jerk response is to support Paula Deen because she is a southern gal who made her way up to the big time on her own. She is a real rags to riches story and this resonates with us, for if she can do it, any of us can have a shot at the American Dream.  Along the way she became a caricature of her former self, or an actor playing a part. When Ms. Deen was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, she kept this illness a secret and continued to produce recipes that were toxic to persons with her disease (http://www.businessinsider.com/paula-deens-10-most-unhealthy-recipes-2013-6?op=1).

Only much later did she reveal her disease, and then as a paid spokes person for an anti-diabetic pill. Some would say this is crass, and not sass. The proof is always in the pudding, as my Nannie used to say. Her cooking show on the Food Network lost audience share over this issue of untruth. When her show was up for renewal, the Food Network cut her expensive show to concentrate on their reality/competition food shows that appeal to a younger demographic. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323998604578567832751771860.html)

The floodgates opened: her tears flowed as fast as her partner companies dropped her. Why was she not forgiven? She said, “I’m sorry? I said something wrong years ago, but that’s not me!” It seems that it may not be so. She may not be able to tell the difference between the sweet gal she used to be and who she is now. (http://www.businessinsider.com/paula-deens-controversial-career-2013-6

When King David was confronted with his sins of adultery and murder, he repented before the LORD and asked God to “create in (him) a clean heart, and put a new and right spirit in (him)” (Psalm 51:10) When we recognize the wrongness of our former ways, we ask God to help us change so that we can become a different person and leave our old ways behind us.  When the doctor tells you that you are now a Type 2 Diabetic, this is usually a wake-up call for most people. This diagnosis changes your whole life from the food you can eat, to the exercise you must have, and the constant monitoring of your blood sugar. You learn to read the nutrition labels on packaging, discover that processed food is off limits for you because it’s mostly carbohydrates, and you discover how to cook from scratch. You throw away your Paula Deen Cook Books because they are the “pellets with the poison” and learn to cook from scratch using whole foods from the perimeter of the grocery store.

We can’t live in the darkness about Diabetes or its precursor (reactive hypoglycemia), but must share our condition. I personally have found that no one makes meals on retreats that are suitable for my health needs, so I usually pack in extra foods and have them for my own meals or snacks. Otherwise I will be fed a high dose of carbs, which will make my blood sugar crash and I will be irritable. I don’t consider this to be my “true personality,” but if I eat the wrong food, I’m not a kind person.

When Paula Deen failed to have her heart changed, or her “come to Jesus moment,” she failed to realize that what she did in the past is still continuing in the present.  She became more like Lance Armstrong who came to the first stage of the Tour de France this weekend and said, “winning wouldn’t have been possible in (his) era without doping.” They both act as if the worst thing they did was to get caught, but they don’t have real remorse for their act itself.  This is what we call “walking in darkness…and do not the truth.”  Paula had Diabetes 2 and continued to build a $16 million dollar empire with recipes that bring on the condition.  Tiger Woods and Martha Stewart got rehabilitated because they took time off (Tiger in sex rehab and Martha in jail) and had the opportunity to strip away all the circus of fame and power to get down to the person, to the human being that puts on her blue jeans one leg at a time, that ties his sneakers one shoelace at a time. They discovered their true selves again, found their roots, reconnected with their faith, and met others that had made a mess of their lives. Sometimes we have to break down, take our consequences and take our losses before we can appreciate forgiveness and redemption.

She was on the buttered slippery slope months ago, but this “fall from grace” may be just what Our Butter Queen needs. Ms. Paula will have a “time out” from the excitement of power to enjoy the humility of her own life again, and to remember who she is, where she comes from, and to whom she owes her success. When she recovers her true self, she may find that God will call her to a new mission, a hopeful, and a healing mission. After all, nearly 155 million Americans adults are overweight or obese, including our very own Butter Queen. Add to this number 24 million children and the number of butterballs rolled in sugar is amazing. I include myself in this number, for my BMI is 34.2 (above 30 is obese) (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bmi-calculator/NU00597).

Perhaps Paula will recognize that her recipes contribute to her disease and to America’s obesity epidemic. If she uses this to remake herself into something new and better, more humble and more honest, and if her recipes reflect this, she has an opportunity for redemption.  However, if she brings back the same old package back with the high calorie, high fat contents, I think the shelf life of her product has hit its expiration point, for people today want honesty and authenticity in their food and in their relationships.

How can we have an authentic relationship with God and with other people? God is willing to forgive our sins, even if we think they are unforgivable. The world may hold a grudge against us for a long time, for this is the way of the world. God is not of this world, for when the world will not forgive, God will.  When the world remembers, God remembers our sin no more (Isa 43:25).  All we can do is to love as God loves, forgive others as God forgives us, and live a new life in love as God enables us.

To help clean your heart, take press on letters or stencils, or use a large font on your computer. Write out your negative aspects/sins/imperfections/brokenness. We all have them. If you need a kick start, google “7 deadly sins.” That should get you started!  Once you have those printed out on your paper, then write in large open letters (stencil font) the word “LOVE” or “PEACE”.  Color it as you feel led.  Use this as a prayer focus this week.