When I Couldn't Stop ... and Now

You see it again and again in blog posts and books, face to face, and in interviews. A writer, artist, or engineer looks back and says, "I always drew pictures/wrote stories/built things even as a child. If I don't continue, then I think I'd stop existing."

I don't remember "needing" to draw, though I drew then and now find my relationship with God developing amid the lines of ink on paper.
I don't remember "needing" to write, though I wrote stories then and now find myself writing out life in my mind even when there is no pen or keyboard handy. Though an exception may have been poetry.

Aside from constant reading, the one thing I couldn't stop doing as a child was singing, even in the face of teasing, and it was the song within that brought out the poetry I wrote. I don't trust my voice and musical ability enough to perform for "politely captive" audiences, but the music still rises at the slightest provocation just as it did for my father and grandfather. I think it's hereditary.

It just goes to show that what we automatically do as children isn't always predictive of the paths we take as adults. But I am convinced the songs I write ought to be heard in partnership with melody. So, I've decided to give you the choice and risk using my voice.

After all, nobody makes you listen if you're not interested ... and you can always leave if the sound cuts your nerves. If the sky doesn't fall on this first offering, I'll probably share more songs in the future. It's time to release them from the smothering pages of journals. They hope to be heard as much as poetry wishes to be read.

And here are the words in case you can't hear them well.
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May your heart be calm in the shelter of the King
who reigns over chance and guards us as we cling to him.
May your body rest in the nurture of his hands
and your dreams refresh in the flow of the sands of time.
May you wake with joy and a sense of great delight
knowing Christ keeps you and your loved ones every night and day.
And when life's pressure sinks into your heart
remember where the song of faith must start
and anchor on Christ's promises
remembering he made you his
and nothing is beyond his care
no circumstance ... no weary stare ...
So I pray for you tonight ...
that you will sleep within his Light.

This Way Down to Upward Rise

Depression has been a gift in some ways. Not only the empty and self-directed depression that exposed my neediness, but also the newer God-ward-turned-sorrow under the realization of how grievously wrong I and the world are ... yet again.

It seems strange to think of it this way ... but without a sense of emptiness would I have encountered the immensity of God's ability to fill? Would I have found this joy that remains vivid amid deep sorrow?

Living while knowing I'm empty isn't so depressing. It used to be,... before I accepted emptiness as my innate condition, back when I thought I ought to be full of goodness and love. And those very "righteous" expectations set me up for an outpouring of foolishness of the greatest magnitude. It is true about the great fall that comes through pride, even a pride cloaked in depressive self-hate because my secret expectations always slipped down the slope of failure. (And that failure was also a blessing, for had I thought myself successful, would I ever have seen my need?)

I thought I ought to be good--because Christians should be good, and how could I not live like a Christian? It wasn't until I accepted that Christians are not only not innately good, but just as bad as everyone else that I began to make headway.

I wasn't good.

I might, perhaps, deceive a few people for a while, but in the end heaven and earth know the truth. God exposes things as they are, even as he transforms them, and promises to continue the process through the day he takes his rightful position as tangible ruler of the world. Apart from God, I am destructive to the world and myself. (Even at my best my works are litter  upon the earth.)

And so, in the face of this "strange" new perspective, I let myself be exposed for what I had always been. Gradually, so gradually, a sinner needing moment by moment grace continues to emerge from behind the ragged veil of people-pleasing, self-righteous nonsense, and learns to understand the same exposure in others, also.

It turns out that humility isn't the smug or even mournful feeling of having admitted a wrong. It's the raw and ugly exposure of being wrong ... and then even more wrong than I knew. In any moment, if there isn't something gone wrong within, then that is the miracle of Christ.

Humility has only one point of glory, one place of courage, one certain strength.
Christ is the answer to the question of my lack, a vivid promise:
to fill my emptiness;
to love where I would hate;
to live in place of my death;
to make family of this beggar; 
to give strength where I am weak;
to give wisdom where I am only foolish;
to invest great worth in worse than nothing;
to direct me along paths too difficult to navigate;
to carry burdens of a sin-cursed world that I will never bear;
to endow eternal treasure where before I gathered only eternal debt.

Emptiness is the only place to encounter this filling. Depression is a reminder of emptiness, and I can either focus on my emptiness exclusively and remain depressed; or turn to the One who fills and depend every moment, in the face of every need and pressure, for the responses I could never ... never dredge up under any stretch of the imagination or will.

I have only one intention--to cling to the fullness of Christ.
He promises to transform me from within so long as:
my eyes are filled with his LIGHT, though it exposes and destroys my sinfulness;
my heart is consumed with love for him, so my desires are shaped by his WORD;
my will is set to serve only him, so my actions will demonstrate his character.

If I choose nothing else in my life, this single direction will ensure I do more right and encounter more joy than any other effort might bring. The growing truth of my emptiness is becoming less and less fearsome as I begin to understand the overabundant supply of fullness offered in the promises of Christ.

Discovering the greatness of his goodness brings joy. The more desperate the need, the more true and beautiful this knowledge becomes. God's truths always move from promise believed to reality experienced.

How are you finding joy in everyday life? Join us as we explore this question together at ...

Dear Real-Life

I thought I understood you,
but the older I become,
the less I can predict the path
that I will have to run.

You're a constant source of challenges;
it's clear that you don't care,
but I find my need for God must grow
just because you're there.

(And that's probably the point.)

An Artist's Statement? I wonder...

My every effort at an artist's statement up till now has tasted like chalk on the tongue. I have hopes for this one. What do you think?
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My drawings reflect how I approach life--constant corrections in search of a beautiful end. Every moment is a stretch of untouched paper, and my choices are the ink left behind.

Christ is my muse and the genius behind all that is good and beautiful, wherever it may be found. I learn so much about God while exploring the abilities he gifted to me, pursuing his guidance, and knowing I am merely one of the many lives he uses to his own creative ends.

My art changes according to the tools at hand, but the end result relies only on my ability to discover beauty in what I have. In the same way, no matter how we jostle about and spill too much or too little of life, God knows people far more thoroughly than I know my pens. The final product of his grace will be awe inspiring, and all the more amazing considering the tools he used. It's my greatest joy to be one of them.

Facades and Fear

It is, perhaps, an irony
that we seek to be known for what we would be,
then live in fear that others might see
the shadows and weakness we hide.

How strange to search for righteousness
in performance demanded, more or less,
by others who (fail?... yet) do not confess,...
at least no such need is implied.

The hearts that are broken, needy, and weak--
accepting this status as truth (being meek)
then openly changed by the Savior they seek--
contrast with such fear-centered pride.

Faith Beyond Resentment

Faith isn't what I used to think it must be, back when I masked resentment with pain and gazed deep within for any sign of God moving in the darkness.

As I slowly turn my face away in search of conformity to Christ the idea arises ... that faith has never been about me at all.

Faith grows not by self-awareness, though these thoughts may be of use to our Maker. Faith grows not by alerting to evil, though God's presence awakens such knowledge. Faith grows not by determined service, though he channels even the proudest effort.

Faith grows by relegating self, from heights of excellence to depth of secret imagination, to the compost heap of this world--then trusting Christ to turn over and flow through the rotting mass of our environment and being, plant the seed of his death, water with his life-spring existence, and grow up a sturdy plant (broken seed, roots, stem, leaves, fruit) that will offer the refreshment of his life-giving presence as inspiration and nourishment to all who encounter it.

The only way through is to truly know Christ--not once before, or from time to time, but increasingly moment by moment--as the ideal wholeness of love and the constant source of all strength, goodness, justice and light. His presence can be seen even among those who reject him, when they eat, love, laugh, sacrifice, share, protect, serve, and build ... these are markers of the blessings God pours out to all.

But, oh the beauty of knowing it is him!... of knowing who to thank and where to look when we realize the world has always been a dry and thirsty place.

We were never designed to be solitary, independent, and self-defined. Perfect existence was always meant to contain a constant, unlimited connection to the wisdom and direction of God, without the resistance that enters when we limit our perception of his character and Word. Speaking of which ...

Christ is the Word, the Word that was spoken in the shaping of creation and the Word that overflowed the verbal boundaries of the law we could never hope to fill. And now, he is the Word of love that throbs within us, and the echoes of his life and death and life transform the very fiber of our existence. The longer we are consumed by the Word that is both God and man, the more we become like a reverse echo, growing stronger as we draw nearer to the mouth of God, one day to live in accompaniment with the perfect Word as he intended from the beginning.

When we look around and realize that all things, visible or invisible, are words God spoke, living by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God seems pretty tangible. And again ... faith thrives in that space between what we have experienced as both true and dependable, and all the mystery beyond imagination.

When I am tempted to resent my circumstances as if they were somehow beyond God, I remember how little I know ... then depend on his character.

He never fails.



Follow the link to read the hearts of many others on the topic:
How is God challenging you to keep faith fresh?

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Image:  Resentment - Wind Dancers, originally 4x6 black and white pen drawing now accompanied by an altered photo background, and a poem.
Poem within the image:  Don't block the routes where I would go / Never tell me what I know / I live every breath devoured / Desperate desires surge by the hour

Riddle of a Tool

"It is evil," she whispered, bowing her head
and dropping down tears on her child, lying dead.
"It is blessed!" she cried as he entered the town
bearing meat for the starving who crowded around.

"It is lovely," she sighed, with a gentle caress
on the frame he had built for their very first nest.
"It is vile!" she wept as she bowed to the earth
while her son slowly died, sacrifice of great worth.

"It is wicked," he whispered, and tore up the page
where the traitorous words had stained deep with age.
"It's a treasure!" he cried as the scent of the ink,
carried love from afar for a strong-bonded link.

"It is wondrous," he sighed as he reached to hit send
on a note to encourage a now-distant friend.
"It's corrupted!" he wept as he lifted his hand
to reply to another too-present demand.

The face of a tool, like a mirror, reveals
the heart of the hand where it hurts or it heals.
These riddles exist to work in the mind,
or open the heart to new thought, undefined.

Gratitude - Another Wind Dancer

Exhale a breath of gratitude

for every step along the way

Inhale the wisdom of the past
 
to fuel the song of dawning day

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The edited photo I used as a backdrop is mine, as is the art and poem.

The original drawing is 4x6, black and white, fine-tipped pen on paper. This is the first sketch I made of my wind dancers. -- And, yes ... I changed the name from "wind people" just now ... because I can. :P

Labels

Fascinating, the words we use.
The ones I choose, shimmer or shadow,
still maintain a delicate touch,
define me without confining.
--yet--
Sharp and long they hint and glance
with painful thrust, assuming much,
staked out heart, left to be ... or not?
Fascinating, the words we use.

Waiting

Wait, then, for the growing dream

to rise from roots beyond the night

blossom in the winds of time

give fruit that tastes of flame and light


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This is the first of a collection. I'm calling them Wind Dancers. (at first they were "wind people")  The edited photo I used as a backdrop is mine, as is the drawing and poem.  The original image is 9x12, black and white, Copic multiliner on white paper.

Caught on the Line Between

There is a subtle need to go back
to make straight the disorder
and perhaps learn more
about the place I now stand.
Will I find the journey perilous?
A tangle of musty thoughts lurk,
waiting to bind me away
into the hopeless past
where the future always waits
and never draws nearer ...
Such nonsense!
Yet still I freeze, unable to ascend
above the shaky foundation
cascading down beneath
my unmoving feet.
Some sense must be made of the chaos.
And so I tremble toward the chore
of aligning it all with the cornerstone.

Sing the Day Through

Today's flow carried my voice along.
It's been a while since life came with song.
I'm not sure why.... The events were the same;
the trials are still here, dark and rough as they came.
But God shone much brighter. I think he lifts
the burdens for me. All those songs were his gifts.
I accomplished so much in so little time,
unusual success when I'm weakness defined.
So I count on his strength and look for his light
and remember the tunes with a smile of delight.
I noticed God's hands, so I'm thankful today.
As tomorrow draws near, there's new hope as I pray
that the words I will speak and the things I will do
might unveil the treasure of God's presence to you.

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Image:  Define Joy
- Finished yesterday
- pen and ink scanned and placed against a colored  background
- now available as a print - original available, 8x10, black and white

In Search of Ceaseless Prayer

In everything that occupies my mind
may the channel always  be
to discuss it with my God
while the thought still flows through me.

Neuroscience Takes on Real Life

There is a reason to choose to read studies, books, and articles that don't fit my basic interests and world-view. This practice brings alternative perspectives to bear on ideas that would otherwise seem unusual or exclusive to "my sort of people".

I just finished reading an article on change written by Matthew May, a creative business consultant (?*), about the research and practices of Dr. Schwartz, a neuropsychiatrist he admires, and rediscovered that psychology is changing its mind once again about how we function and whether humans can control themselves or not. *The "problem" with creative people is they generally don't fit in nice little descriptive boxes.

I love sentences that demand to be intoned majestically, like the following quote, "Neuroplasticity radically reverses ages of scientific dogma which held that mental experiences result only from physical goings-on in the brain, and we can’t do much about it. But extensive studies by neuroscientists confirm that our mental machinations do actually alter the physical structure of our brain matter. So, when you change your mind, you change your brain."

This statement combined with the steps to change that followed led to an Aha! moment.--Oh, so THAT is what I've been doing!

It's always rather fun when science explains something that I previously stumbled onto through observation, much advice, and the process of trial and error. It helps clarify the matter.


Years ago when my depression was so dense that I couldn't see straight, I literally couldn't see straight because the things I told myself about the world warped my view to the point where there wasn't much association with truth, even if there was a lot of reality.

There is no single book, event or encounter that marks the beginning of change for me, but I do know that the book, The Lies We Believe, played a large role. And that book could relabel itself "step one as laid out by Dr. Schwartz" if anyone had the inclination. However, I also think the Bible tells us that it will illuminate these deceptive thoughts on its own when we read it in combination with an awareness of the presence of God.

Step two, reattribution, is difficult. I have to take responsibility for thinking the way I always have and identify the perspective as wrong. The process so far has taken years, and I'm still finding holdouts of the blame game tucked in between the layers of my reactions and responses. I wouldn't call these false beliefs glitches, but rather a demonstration of the sin nature at work. "Sin" is a more useful label for those who pursue God than "brain glitch" which seems rather too implicit of "my brain functions independently" when faced with the understanding that controlling the mind is possible. Instead of saying, "This is how I think it should be," the inner label changes to, "This isn't good/true. I am wrong."

Of course, I still become seriously depressed at times, and this is where step three, refocusing, comes into play. No matter how I feel, I can still think truth and act as if truth is true. I hang on to Christ as a demonstration of God's intentions toward me in these moments. Whatever things are true remain true no matter how I feel about it. And the truths that are most unshakeable are those linked to God's character and promises.

My experience is marked by brokenness because sin has entered the world, but God's guarantee to make even the breaking work together for good is just as unshakeable as the fact that he designed the world as good in the first place. If I believe truth and live as if truth is true, my emotional state doesn't matter much. Of course, the hope is that I will eventually not become depressed; but since I can experience peace and even rejoice in the Lord in the midst of it, the depression becomes another means of God using the comfort he has given me to help others. I'm no longer expecting the depression to leave completely. After all, sorrow is inevitable in a world still permeated with sin.

Finally, step four sounds like it came straight out of the Bible. "With a consistent way to replace the old behavior with the new, you begin to [sic] old patterns as simple distractions. You devalue them, really, as being completely worthless." And, I would add, you begin to value the new way of thinking and acting as profitable and more reliable in exchange. The new way isn't seen as "losing" but rather gaining something better.

As an illustration, I often think of Aladdin, "New lamps for old!" though in God's case the offer comes without a hidden agenda. My response to those who claim God is trying to cheat us out of freedom is that it's not as if we have anything God needs. We have no treasure for him to steal since even our greatest point of value is only fit for his trash pile.  Do we really think our worship is such a worthy thing that God would scrabble around on earth and die just to get it from us? He really is pouring value into beings that have no worth of their own and by that act making their existence meaningful.

As Paul says, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men," which is a simple inversion of "Has God not made foolish the wisdom of this world?" This doesn't mean the world doesn't encounter aspects of truth, as seen in the above-mentioned article, but human philosophy misses out on the power and reason behind the truth which gives that knowledge a viability that we, of ourselves, could never infuse into the matter.

In the end, taking God up on the offer of "a new life for the old" means we have to identify the many ways in which even the best we have is "old" in order to hand it over to God. Then, the accepting of "the new" must come with acting "as if" the exchange of value is true or the new possession will remain virtual, never to be experienced or relied upon. It is failure to really believe the reality of God's gifts that results in the sense that we are only "giving up what I want" in our exchange with God. A new lamp that is left in its box will not give much light, and anyone foolish enough to leave it in the box will find themselves missing the old, broken lamp they offered in exchange.

I think there is a continual cycle of progress through the steps of exchange (or change) as we learn to appreciate God's offer, and that process will be at different stages depending on the part of life under examination. It helps to realize that what we are giving up isn't a simple object, but a relationship.

We are giving up a state of separation from God in exchange for the gift of his life-altering presence and a constant state of interaction with him.

Have you noticed this process in your own life? If so, I'd love to learn from your thoughts on the matter here in the comments or in an email.

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Because this post started by following a link Bonnie shared in the writing prompt for this week's Jam, I'm considering it sufficient reason to link up to the topic of "whitespace".



"Whitespace" is a place for clarity of thinking, room for the ingredients of life to mix together in the presence of God, and time set aside from busyness to hear the "still small voice" of correction that changes how we approach the world. That is what this blog and art are to me, and I'm privileged to be in a position where my health requires that I set aside a significant amount of time for rest. It is a beautiful thing to discover that disability actually creates an opportunity to serve in a way that would never have arisen otherwise.

Skipping the Parade - Redesigned T-shirts

I skipped out on the parade this morning in hopes of reserving my energy for later, and pulled together "something" red, white and blue to wear for the cookout at my in-law's place.

I've been planning to play with t-shirts for a while now, after seeing a few cute recycled t's on various sites.

The shirts I used for this project have both been frustrating me for some time, since they're such nice fabric,... but they simply weren't playing well with my wardrobe. The white shirt had a seam down the front for some odd reason, and I found it hard to compensate for its presence. Manufacturer's error?

So ... I wove them together!

I cut the outer (blue) shirt vertically from the bottom seam, leaving an inch to hold it together at the collar then cut the white horizontally a little wider than the width of the blue strands so the weave would be relaxed and open, but only to the waist since I thought weaving the entire front might be a bit too much of a good thing, visually. After a few quick stitches to  hold the ends in place, I cut the excess blue, after adding three narrow slits to slip the strands that ended outside back underneath so the bottom border wouldn't gape open.

Grommets tack the neckline and seams in place, adding a fun touch. I tucked my red belt under the blue layer and wore a red tank under the whole. It turned out better than I thought it would! :P

I'm lightly hand-stitching each band into place before I dare try to wash this shirt, though. It's one thing to wear it for a few hours, and another concept entirely to expect it to survive the laundry and dryer. Heh!

If you're interested in the survival report, comment (include your email) or email me and I'll let you know how it goes.

A Giant Tripped

A giant tripped over my fence.
He stumbled from the sky
and knocked off half the branches
of the neighbor's tree, nearby.
His next step cleared the rooftop,
then he lumbered through the yard
and felled my favorite tree
as if built of playing cards.
He didn't pause to wonder
whether he'd done right or wrong,
but took off down the street
with invisible aplomb.
And though I never saw him
at his rough and tumble play,
I'm sure he wasn't cautious
when he stepped outside today.

---

I'm not sure what sort of wind it was, but my favorite tree is oh-so-dead now. It fills the whole yard, so I had to take three photos and compile them to show it to you in all its fallen immensity.

My house is on the other side of the tree in the top photo. You may just glimpse the roof between the branches,... and it's two-stories and up on a low hill. Did I mention it's a large, old tree?At least it didn't land on the house or car.

This photo is the tree in my neighbor's front yard. 1/2 of it sheared off.