Healing

IRREPRESSIBLE SLEEPINESS 

art, Creativity, Faith, generosity, Healing, Health, Meditation, Ministry, purpose, renewal, sleep, Spirituality, Stress, texas, Uncategorized, United Methodist Church, vision

  
Irrepressible  sleepiness–it comes over one at times. 

My night class on World Religions at seminary with Ruben Habito began with silent breathing. Centering, he called it. Some of us called it falling asleep. A long day of work or classes, or both, with a short night of sleep before an early morning wake up alarm marked our days back then. We were fueled by liquid caffeine and too many carbs. We ran on the adrenaline of excitement and the necessity to cram two lives into one day. We were crazy people, but we didn’t know it.

We didn’t realize the gift of silence and quiet our zen master was offering to us. We were doers, not accustomed to being. To be silent, still, and to breathe in and out as we sought an unmoving center after the hubbub of our day was our bedtime ritual, not a preparation for learning. More than a few of us crossed over into LaLa Land. 

Some time during the class, we would return to this world, much refreshed from our power nap. We could get any notes we missed from a less sleep deprived classmate. Our zen master was also a priest, who knew our needs and offered this gift of ministry for his congregation. He wasn’t bothered by our sleeping through his lectures, for if we needed to rest, God would take care of our learning elsewhere. 

When I went out as a pastor in the church, I remembered this lesson of grace. When people fell asleep in church, I knew God would bring the message to them later from the ones who stayed awake. If their lives were so out of whack they needed to sleep in church, I needed to pray for them. After all, it’s not about me, it’s about God. 

“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!     — John 16:33

Cornelia DeLee: Christ Overcoming the World, acrylic on canvas, 2015. (36″ X 36″)

ONE OF THOSE DAYS RIDING THE WAVES

art, Creativity, Faith, Family, Healing, Health, Icons, Imagination, Meditation, Mental Illness, Ministry, Painting, Secrets, Spirituality, Stress, vision

imageThis 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.

imageToday 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!”image

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.

Destruction

art, Creativity, Healing, Historic neighborhood, Lost Cause, Painting, Reflection, renewal, Uncategorized, vision

 The old Majestic Hotel, a historic property in Hot Springs, Arkansas, burned and was deemed irreparable. The city became the official owner after several years of attempting to convince the true owner to clean up the wreckage.

After demolition, the site will likely become a park or amphitheater. The good wrought from this debacle is our people are organized better than ever to encourage renovation and repairs before other historic properties get in such dilapidated condition.

Perhaps we could take a hint from this event: when our life or health is on the downward slide, we might want to take care of our unmet “repairs” so we can have our best life for the most number of years forward.

1 Corinthians 3:17–“If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”

Coming Up for Air

art, butterflies, Creativity, Faith, Family, Healing

imageWhen I was a child, we would test ourselves at the neighborhood swimming pool. Holding our breaths, we would submerge our bodies with our eyes open. The first one of us to give out of air burst up through the surface of the shallow end of the pool. The few of us remaining below paid no attention to the giant whale crashing a few inches away. We were in another world and our friend was in another ocean.

The agony of holding our breath was only outweighed by the ignominy of losing this contest of wills. I would hyperventilate before going under to extra oxygenate my blood  those of us who led active, outdoor lives had an advantage over the “greenhouse lilies,” as my mother so quaintly referred to my less active, housebound friends.

In the art studio, as in life, there are moments of tension in which people can’t decide whether to keep holding their breath or burst out of the water with a mighty crash. Holding involves tensions and distress, but letting go means giving up. Most of us want to win easy and have losing be inconsequential. This is another world and a different ocean

I’ve been restless over the summer because my family has lost contact with my adult daughter who lives on the street in San Francisco. Mental illness is a part of many lives, so much so that the only way to explain families like ours is another world and a different ocean  I live in one world and my daughter swims in a different ocean of her illness. Yet her life’s crashing and thrashing tides still affect my world.

Once I have done what I can to remedy the situation, all I can do is wait.  It’s good  I learned to breathe deeply, to hold my breath and wait, for giant whales of crashing emotions fall from day to day. I couldn’t settle down to paint calmly, so I took a layout app photo of an opal stone as my preliminary sketch, and made an abstract painting from it.

Once I got the basic shapes and colors laid in, I left the photo and worked the painting. As the shapes materialized, I discovered both a landscape and a butterfly within it  this was painted at the end of July, which had a blue moon. “Once  in a blue moon” means rarely or not often, I don’t know if I’m moving into a new direction with my work or if this is just a one off event. I think I’m being called in a new direction, one of purer color and less structured images.

Perhaps the promise of this text will one day ring true for all of us, whatever world we walk upon and wherever we swim in an ocean:
“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.”  (Isaiah 25:6)

THE CURRENT HEAT WAVE HAS ME CRYING

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Cultural ChristActually, that’s my stunt double. Just like Chuck Norris, I’m too brave to cry. Or, the heat dries up any form of moisture that escapes my eyes. The stuff oozing from my pores is a different matter altogether. I think those 3,000,000,000 holes scattered across my body are each an eye leaking the tears our real ducts can’t cry.

The real Chuck Norris never sweats. He breaks any sweat that comes near him. Sweat is afraid of Chuck Norris, for he is the epitome of cool. How cool is Chuck Norris? We could defeat global warming if we unleashed his massive forces of chill. His sustained energy could bring down the ocean’s temperature by 4 degrees. In fact, Chuck Norris has the cooling equivalency of two Antarctic continents plus the Arctic ice cap.

Many things make my stunt double cry. Mostly they are those events, situations, or conditions that I cannot fix or make better for someone else. I spent years helping my daughter try to overcome the effects of her abuse. Others also gave their best efforts also. Her mental illnesses haves always impaired her ability to trust others or to stay on a treatment plan. Once she became an adult, she could choose, even if she didn’t make good choices, or have the ability to choose well.

I could cry about this forever, or let my stunt double have this role. I chose to grieve about this loss, shed enough tears, and find a way to live my own life by meeting the hopeless, the suffering, the despairing, the lost, the victims, and the ones “who’ve been down so long , it looks like up” to them. After all, this is where Christ met me. I knew if he could reach into my dark pit and pull me up into the light, if I offered Christ to others, he would the same for them.
When I get to the point of dragging out my Chuck Norris stunt double, I know it’s because good old Chuck is a cultural Christ figure. When I want a power for good to make a difference in my world, I call on this Texas Ranger. Instead, I should call on the spiritual power that flows through me:
“My soul clings to you; your right hand supports me.” (Psalm 63:8)

I may not be able to relieve the suffering of any one person, but I know God in his mercy understands and has compassion on all who suffer. God didn’t withhold God’s own son, but gave him up to suffer for all of us (Romans 8:32). Through this suffering we are united with those everywhere who experience wretchedness of any sort. Too often we hear that the winners of this world are our heroes, but faith tells us that those who lose their lives will gain their lives.

If we are to best grow into the Christ life, we cannot forget those who suffer while we are being healed, nor those who hunger or thirst while our stomachs are full. The real Chuck Norris would not send his stunt double to do good in this world.

THE DARK SIDE

Creativity, Emanuel, Family, Fear, Forgiveness, Healing, Love, Meditation, ministry, photography, Racism, Reflection, shame, Spirituality, Uncategorized

 An Old Homestead, Hot Springs, Arkansas 

Reading about the killer of the Emanuel Nine’s worry that these martyrs were “killing whites to take over” sent me to the FBI Crime Statistics Table. This mistaken idea comes from the various hate groups the killer associated with. They reject the other, the different. They see themselves as good and others as evil. 
The statistics tell a different story from their fear mongering. We tend to hang out with folks like us, so we tend to kill people like us. So we can quit worrying about the “other,” for it’s the near at hand who looks most like us that’s likely to do us in! Only rarely will an opposite be the source of our undoing. 

Maybe this is why we have a difficult time accepting our “dark side.” We can try to keep this other at bay by excluding the hated other or by practicing some form of ritual purity, such as clean eating or avoidance of some food groups. We may even avoid alcohol, even though we aren’t addicts or have enough medically prescribed chemicals in our bodies to make drinking unwise. We can demonize the other to make ourselves appear angelic, but if we strip away our masks, we are all the same underneath. 

We are all human, we are all in need, we are all incomplete, all less than perfect in love, and all in need of the saving grace of God. If some hate so greatly, may we love ever so strongly. 

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”  ~~ 1 John 4:18-21

FBI 2013 Crime Statistics Table

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls
 

MEDITATION ON RAIN AND REST

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Good morning! I’m back in my studio today. It’s a beautiful rainy day, just perfect for writing, but not for painting. Thanks to all who stopped by my booth at annual conference. We had our means of grace times! This gray day caused me to reflect that others might not have shared this experience:

Rain grows more flowers than thunder. While each of us might want to get back to work right away and catch up on our “missed opportunities” for ministry back home, a time of rest and contemplation might serve us better. First, we could process the events of the last few days during our time together. Did we find times to share means of grace with each other? Were we open to the call of the Spirit to stop and turn aside, or did we lurch from one agenda item to another to get things done? 
Did we take time to listen to one another or did we stand on the balls of our feet, poised to flee as soon as possible? Were our minds on the business of the meeting or on the person before us?

Second, we could ask ourselves, why do we not spend more time in Christian conversation with one another outside of annual conference? If sharing our lives together is a means of grace, why aren’t we offering that grace to one another more often? Perhaps we’re too busy working, or collecting our works righteousness points, for either the Lord or the Bishop, to enter into this self care and self love for one another. All we have to do is put this on our calendars as an appointment: prayer time, accountability time, study time, covenant group time, or support group time. 
  After all, Jesus had the disciples to go away with into the wilderness. Surely we could go to a parlor, parsonage or coffee shop somewhere with our preacher pals. Or are we afraid of risking intimacy? Do we fear that our human weaknesses will be rejected by those that are called to offer grace to all? Or is it because we have lost the Wesleyan understanding of “all can be saved by a God who is able to save all?”

Finally, we should sit and be quiet for a while, I believe, for with the rain comes either a nurturing and refreshing cleansing or a great flood with thunder and torrents that can’t be controlled. If we are to be the “non anxious presence” at the center, we need peace and quiet to hear God’s voice in our own heart and mind. 
Subjects for discussion starters: 
1. All are broken and fallen in this world. If Christ came to save the sick, that’s all of us. 

2. Historically scripture was used to advocate for slavery. We can’t imagine this now. We fought the “War of Northern Aggression” or the Civil War over this issue. 

3. If we are going to use one sin to get excited about, we should also pick up on those sins the Lord himself condemned. To name a few: divorce, adultery, greed, stinginess, swearing, judging others, and faithlessness. (Matthew’s gospel) 
We extend grace and forgiveness to constant practitioners of these activities, so we have a precedent for either deciding to include other “sinners” or excluding/purifying our pews of these additional sinners. We might all have to take up that “vile field preaching,” however. 
4. God gave each of us two eyes and two ears, but had the good sense to give us only one mouth. Maybe God means we should do more listening to others and looking at the world from their side of the street, and spend very little time speaking until we truly hear the heart of the other as our own heart. 
Then we can say with John Wesley ” If your heart be as my heart, then give me your hand.”

YOU CAN’T DO THIS WITHOUT PRAYER

Creativity, Family, generosity, Healing, Health, Holy Spirit, home, Love, Painting, Prayer, purpose, Spirituality, Uncategorized, vision, vision, Work

  You haven’t got a prayer. Not a chance. No way, Jose. At my age, I should know better. At least, that’s what the gray hairs on my head  remind me. “With age comes wisdom, or at least, experience. Leave these great deeds for the young and strong who yearn to make their mark on the world!”

Why would I listen to such sage advice from my sensible self? Creative artists appreciate a good challenge, a technical problem to solve, or a medium to master. If you tell us it can’t be done, we say, “Why not? It’s a boundary to be pushed, a line to be crossed, or a limit to be stretched.”  For us, the rule is made to be broken. Traditions are useful only to guide us into new arenas of unexplored territory. 

This scenario usually means Plan Alpha doesn’t pan out. At least I didn’t make it into Plan Zebra, but only because the good Lord hears the prayers of those in need.

 “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!” ~~ Psalms 30:10

I had a written plan, a sketch, which is more than most folks have when they head to Lowes. I also had a materials’ list, as well as a to do list. I thought I could execute these four 48″ x 72″ pegboard panels with three hinges on each side to make a four sided standing display stand in one cool morning. 

First I underestimated the length of time to wait for the cuts on these four boards at Lowes. Only one young man was doing his harried best to cut every piece of wood for all the customers lined up to take advantage of the $1 per cut fee. Asking for help never brought another worker, for that would have cost the company more in benefits and wages than it brought in sales. Checking facebook passed the time. Then another customer let me go first. His lot was bigger and more complex than mine. Besides, down South, most older gentleman will let a lady go first. Not the younger men, however; just the older ones. It’s a passing tradition. 

Getting these pegboards into my SUV are a trick. I can put a 48” wide canvas inside easily because it’s on stretcher strips. Pegboard is flexible and doesn’t stay in one place. It also gets caught on the seat belt straps. To carry these one by one is a trick itself, so I can always count on the helpers appearing out of nowhere to give me a hand. God has been known to provide mana in the wilderness and willing backs in the loading zones. I lacked an inch of space to close the back door, so I pulled my two front seats granny close. That and a push did it for us. Another fellow made sure I didn’t hit the cars behind me. I’m always thankful for help, even when I think I can handle it myself. 

Arriving at my condo, I pulled the pegboards out onto the carport floor. Gravity is a great help. We can thank God for this too, as well as for curious neighbors who can’t resist getting involved. Bill helped me drill, place and screw the door hinges onto the first two boards before another errand called him away. When I stood this pair upright, I realized my afternoon would be devoted to Plan B. 

All the designs and lists are for naught if one forgets that steel trumps composite wood. Yes, the hinges were stronger than the boards. Back to Lowes for more materials. Cedar fence shakes for $2.55 each were a better choice than finely finished pine for $3.25 each, plus I wouldn’t have another interminable wait at the cutting line. The cedar was already six feet long, but the pine was eight feet in length. Carrying Plan B to my vehicle was a piece of cake, maybe even a muffin top, for I needed no miraculous mana of help to materialize upon that asphalt. 

At home again, Bill brought Sue ought to check on my progress, along with a tall glass of iced lemonade. I’m not sure what I appreciated more, the cool drink, the encouragement, or the extra hands to get Plan B underway. I was fading quickly with each passing hour of the late afternoon. Together we slammed that structure into a whole. As we say, many hands make the work light. As long as it’s predrilled, I can put it back together again. I even labeled the sections by number to get then in order the next day. 

“How will you get it inside? How will you put it together?” My neighbors asked me. “Oh, there’s always someone who will help. It’s the way we are!” Stepping out in faith is what we do for a living. It’s our way of life. Asking for help isn’t necessary. We need only get out over our head and others will help us. God sends these folks to us. I’ve been the one sent to those in need, and I’ve been on the receiving end also. 

When I drove up to our local convention center, the arena staff saw my laboring over the dolly and these boards, looked at each other, and picked up the four pieces to hand tote them to my display site. Friends helped bring in the paintings and the college students from the Wesley Foundation at the University of Arkansas at Monticello helped me build the display. I was up and ready by noon!  

I may have begun this project by myself, but I had help the whole way. I had the tradition of the old masters who drew plans for grand buildings in their sketchbooks to guide me. Experts at Lowes gave me tips on hanging my works and  my condo neighbors stopped by to encourage me as I worked. (They also checked on the unusual activity over at my carport, I’m sure.) I brought some young people into the trade of carpenter’s apprentice for a short term. I imagine it was different from their school books and computers. I so appreciated their energy and willingness to serve. 

I met the face of God in each of my helpers, for they were each one an answer to prayer. We don’t have to speak this prayer out loud, for God can hear the silent cries from our hearts. God can answer the unspoken prayers, the deep sighs of our spirits. For our companion’s sakes, the sooner we’re in touch with our deep emotional needs so that we can voice our pain and needs, the better our intimacy and personal lives will be. Try this simple prayer: 

 “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!” ~~ Psalms 30:10

THOUGHTS ON ACEDIA

Creativity, Family, Food, generosity, Healing, Health, home, Mental Illness, Ministry, ministry, New Year, poverty, Prayer, purpose, purpose, renewal, Retirement, Spirituality, stewardship, Strength, Stress, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

  
I’m in this mode or mood today. I have a form of malaise, the kind that comes after pouring out all you have until you are drained. Now my listless is my form of recovery. I have hit the wall and I’m not going on. Did I mention that my community has received 25 inches of rain since the first of the year? Our annual average is a whopping 56 inches! We can get rain in any month, so I have a giant umbrella in case I decide to get off the couch. Other cities thirst for our gift, I know, as the good Lord only spits some 37 annual inches their way. Y’all do get more than our paltry 3 inches of snow, however. Please don’t offer to share it. 

 I’ve been chunking away at my various projects, some of which are pure tedium (bookkeeping) and others which are fulfilling (the creative writing & painting). Then I thought about possibly listing my 1 bedroom condo and moving up to a 2 bedroom unit.  The sympathetic illness of moving day is pretty well Ingrained after all these years of itinerant ministry. This disease was quickly cured when I remembered my vow of voluntary simplicity. 
Living under one’s means frees us to give to the poor as well as lessening our need to worry about how our needs are going to be met. Living under our means gives us the opportunity to explore the world, rather than be house bound. We can eat better food and share our time with others rather than being on call for someone’s else’s time and having to eat some fast meal on the fly. 

If we are fortunate, our lives in “retirement” will be more like those of the Benedictine sisters and brothers. We will have an ordered life of work, worship, prayer, quiet, community, and study. We can enjoy a foretaste of that life to come in brief doses, either in 5 day or 2 year commitments at the Upper Room’s Academy for Spiritual Formation.

This mood, like all feelings, will no doubt pass in a day or two. Rest is good for the body. Taking the time to care for our precious selves is a gift we can give to God and to those who need us most. We will be better able to fulfill God’s call on our lives if we serve from a full heart, rather than an empty spirit. 

http://academy.upperroom.org/

Meaning of the Crucifixion

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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.”