The Artist Way Again and Again and Again

Yes, it's that time again. The time to settle into reengaging with my inner-child, artist self. The brilliance this time as in the past is that another person suggested it and now we are forming a mini-group to work on the discipline together. Though I am not doing consistent morning pages, I do feel like I am already doing some of the work. I take occasional artist dates, signed up for a painting class, play my guitar, and sit with my therapist to contemplate listening deeper.

I skimmed the first chapter and was struck by the two things that still trip me up every day.
1. The need for a relationship with an inner child. The kid who plays and plays and is swept away in the joy of an activity. My kids really love to run, love to imagine, to read, to dance. Both express themselves often by having one arm spin in huge fast circles like a jet engine, or by jumping up and down. They can't contain their emotions. I wonder what that would look like for me? My therapist's early challenge was about drawing a picture of this child. I never did it, so maybe that is the work of this week? An image, a body to listen to that is me and also a new character to be explored.

2. The critic. The censor. The hollow disapproving mask that is always just behind me, telling me my grammar is atrocious, my words choppy, my autistic character cliche. So maybe he is going to be another really ugly face, or maybe a beautiful one that cracks in half, who knows.

So on to morning pages and trying to order and place the voices on their shelves, to be picked up when needed and let to collect dust, when they move to being records or histories of another time.

Thanks Julia Cameron for being relevant and faithful to God's creative calling over so many years and encouraging others to do the same!

Christianity and Being Gay

As I listened to a sermon that began with a declaration that two pastors had changed their minds and now support homosexual's in some way, I held my breath, not because I was disappointed in the two pastors changing (I was curious and hopeful for loving people of same sex sexual orientation), but because I didn't want this pastor to condemn them for their understanding, and thus label himself as a hater of those who believe or hope as they do. Is he saying the pastors are no longer credible in anything they preach, no longer of the faith, rejected by God? I didn't hear him share the reasons they changed their minds, nor did I hear that they may still be loved and known and inspired by God. Even as I write anything on homosexuals, I wonder if I am leaving God's knowing to grasp my own, saying it is of God. 

[Asside: I don't want to be the judge of this man, either, by saying his comments towards the pastors, means I will stop listening to him. I have been relieved and appreciative that he has considered lifestyle choices apart from someone sitting in being attracted to others of the same sex. Nor has he hasn't used the topic as an agenda item during the 5 years I have followed his sermons. All that said, I was relieved he quickly moved on to considering the pulls that we think will make us feel more alive. It is a great sermon and pointed inward to places where I struggle in my own desires for immediate jolts of aliveness, hope in things, longing to follow any advertisement that depicts "true happiness," touting it will change my life.]  

In talking with a friend after the sermon, who shared some atrocities towards gays in the name of Christ, I too wondered why we didn't hear Christians question those Christians who support the Uganda Anti-homosexuality Act, which sentences gays to life in prison (reduced from the original plan to give them the death penalty). Jesus addresses some law abiders who want to kill an adulterous woman by saying, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." They all drop their rocks and walk away leaving her to alone to receive Christ's love and forgiveness. 

I know people who struggle with real love and desire for intimacy with others of their gender. I can't comprehend God creating us in him image, which I believe includes our desires for intimacy, and then for human to point fingers at "those people" and call them outside of God's design or plan. We are created for relationship, for drawing near, for an ultimate intimacy with Christ. I sit pondering what Christ would say to anyone on any side about this topic, because my guess is it would blow our minds, like each answer he provides in the New Testament, whether to a disciple, a Pharisee, a family member or a stranger encountering him, as each interaction is unpredictable and full of both a knowing and a profound loving. I also wonder why to my knowledge the bible does tell a story of Jesus meeting a gay person. I look forward to hearing him share his vision one day when I sit down with him in person.

As I considered comments and sides, I want to see more grappling with how we can enter into the conversation and love our each other, wherever we are. How we can listen and show up for one another in this discussion, praying that we all might be in like-mind with Christ. How we open our hands to Christ and one another soas to share our own understanding as our own, while holding ourselves and our opinions up to Christ's creating us, loving us and dying out of a profound hope that we would know him. 

Just after I typed this up, I learned that World Vision decided is choosing to support monogamous gay couples or single gays observing abstinence outside of marriage in missions work, as they continue to work on feeding the hungry in the name of Christ. The president, Richard Stearn said, "I want to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue. We have chosen not to exclude someone from employment at World Vision U.S. on this issue alone." 

As a child I will always remember a friend, Margie Hamilton who wanted to be a female pastor insist her fiancé at the time decide what he felt about the issue before they marry. His response to her at the time was, "this is not my issue." He was not female, he did not know what the answer was, but he supported Margie in pursuing God's calling for her, whether pastor or otherwise without feeling the need to take a side himself. As I ponder World Visions attempt to say the same, I will continue in my own spaces to sit in empty chapels around Ann Arbor and listen for God to further reveal himself to me where I am. 

[Post script: I want this to be a real moment in time, so that though I know World Vision only held this stance for one day and reversed it due to John Pipers and others saying things like, "Farewell," which they clearly don't mean, and we will all pull our money, I am choosing to hold the other moment. I do wonder how we encourage sinners like me, or even unbelievers or in this context believing people of same gender sexual orientation, into the work of Christ, hoping and trusting God to work in us towards one another towards hearing his voice directed uniquely to each one of us. Can't there be missions within missions? Big Sigh and a child size stomping of my foot at my own limitations.]

Pain or Pleasure?

Today's pondering are all over the place. Like laundry jumbled in my hampers with clothes spilling over to hide the actual containers. In spite of having no clean undies, I prefer the piles to the neat stacks of clean cotton. Transformation of fabric doesn't feel important today.

I have a working space, one that has nothing in it and yet, I haven't sat down to paint there. One rule I have been given regarding it is that in the space, I am unconditionally loved by God. In a friend, Laura's sharing of her husbands near death (due to H1N1), she kept saying God meets each of us uniquely. One passage she shared was in 2nd Kings 6:16+ when God has sent chariots, horses and a great army, but a servant can't see it. Elisha prays and says, "O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened the servants eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of houses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." There is no generic face or hand or rote heavenly responses, but God's fingers wrapped around my own.

I work one floor above the space I emptied of distraction, at our large eating table. One of my tasks is to lean into pain. Not to break each time I am faced with a difficulty. I often feel like a 12 year old who is learning how to swim, and terrified of water. I test my toe, but break just before lunging forward. What does jumping into the water look like, trusting that a unique teacher is waiting to catch me and then hold me steady as I kick and flail through uncharted spaces.

Copying

I’m wondering about my desire to please. In college I copied other artists forms, Picasso’s Ironing Woman, a senior’s sculptural form. Now I sit at the kitchen table and paint things I can see, apples, bowls, jars of water. I wonder about authors I stalk, yesterday was Katherine Davis reading from her novel Duplex. In a few weeks I’ll meet Carlene Bauer, so am reading her novel in letters, Frances and Bernard. I wonder at the relationships depicted within their pages and the right ways of creating reality, likable people others can know, connect with on a page, while in person I feel like an outsider. I am a foreigner unto myself.

Am I an artist who is an original creator or one who observes other’s lives? In Roos Roast Coffee and in my own neighborhood I am constantly listening to the voices of others. The emails calling for help, and in this moment, a group of Jewish women saying things like, “My first marriage didn’t work out,” talking with a Rabbi about the decline of churches in New York. “Chabat Shalom, Hacks Samae,” they all say as they bow their heads like they are a choir. One lady wants to know what the Rabbi is going to wear tomorrow night, reminiscing on when he wore a big diaper. It’s an exclusive group, though none of them have met before and they begin to share their Hebrew names, which I can’t make replicate. One says, Jenny, had no Jewish name so we found the Polish name Genendal, then for Miriam, Mirala, which is Yiddish.  They all need to know the dress code for each event of the next two days

My words live in pauses between their chatter, as considering where I fit. Am I to be like the first martyr, Stephen who spoke to the Jews about how they were living under the old law and missing Christ’s death as a way to relationship with God? Do I get up and tell them all that their events are temporary or do I care about the traditions and language and ritual as details for understanding a new character. Is writing in silence behind them a way to respond to a call from above?

I still cling to the walls, to the periphery, looking for an escape route, panicking at what I should notice at this moment. What I do believe is that I need to embrace rejection. I need to be ok with disappointed squinting eyes, because then I will be able to take in Stephen’s last words while having large stones hurled at him, I want you to know and live in the freedom of Christ’s forgiving you. Stephen has his eyes on Jesus and says he sees The Son of Man in heaven standing next to God. I love to think that their might be moments where Jesus stands up from his seat in heaven wanting for me.

Fiercely Independent

On Friday afternoon I walked the gas line path down to the river with my boys and two nieces. The 7 year old ran ahead, squatted at the edge of the next drop till I was in view before proceeding, moving effortlessly to our destination. At the river, that flowed more heavily this day then the previous 2 she scales rocks moving away, up or down. She talked of brining her dad there to swim in the summer and when I offered her a hand, said, she didn't need it.

At the start of our reaching fingers in to the cold water, I considered and tried to save my phone from the threat of the place, and in process let it slip soundlessly to the bottom. I swore and turned mean in an instant. After a few knocks of it, a quick text to say it was going to die, i set it in the sun and tried to move into the glorious space. It was sunny and 50's and I had art supplies and time. Then the 7 year old slipped and plunged chest deep into the water. "Too cold to be wet today," as yesterday when she fell in we stayed. "We have to go home." I think I lectured her on how she needed to trust me and I offered my hand to avoid this. I also think my face read anger, because inside I felt like a raging storm. She headed up the stubbled hill and disappeared, reached home and I did not see her for a few hours.

When I was eight at summer camp, I did the same thing. I wanted to play on the rocks and fell in during a breakfast far from our cabin and was warned not to get wet, just before soaking myself in the lake. I had to leave my group and find my own way back and I may have had to rake rocks on the beach during our free hour.

Today I prepared to fill in the most simple application for David's school, to try to get him into the best public school in the district, only to find that I am 11 days too late. I had the wrong date. I messed the whole thing up and they don't make exceptions. I am out. David is out. This is the second year I missed the deadline, so my track record is not looking promising. I am realizing that the fantasy of booking a campground within the deadline, a phone recovering from submersion, a missed deadline to a good school are not things that are going to magically work out. People don't make exceptions. On top of it all my best friend has tried to call twice and text from Thailand and I did not have a phone. I am sitting on vacation in Florida, in a house with wifi, my smartphone always in my pocket and I can't hear it.

My sister's bible study looked at the Exodus passage where the Israelites are looking at the Red Sea ahead and the Egyptian army behind and they say this, Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." (Ex 14:12). It is sort of how I feel and how I can relate to my niece wanting to do it alone, because going forward into the water is too difficult, into failure, into my own strength. I just can't. That is why I love what Moses says, "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent."

I'm not sure how to be silent today. It makes me feel weepy. I don't want to grab Gods hand or anyone else's for that matter, but today I am glad I have no other choice, because looking back and ahead both feel too hard, so I will try for only being silent and watching the LORD.