Grasping life at it's depth

"Artists need to pay attention to what is around them and inside of them."

- Don Postema, Space For God

Paying attention isn't wasted time for anyone, but it almost always feels like it is.  I am coming from my perspective as an artist when I say that I feel as though I have something to hide, or at the least try very hard to justify, when people ask me what I did all day.  But if I don't keep an inner dialogue, reading, sketching, and listening, my art becomes the most mediocre version of itself.  It is labored and forced; people detect counterfeit and do not connect with it.  In business terms, my "product" becomes faulty.  Although the output of a contemplative life is valued to an extent in our culture, contemplation isn't.

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word...

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

- T.S. Eliot   

food for thought...

The cure for homesickness

I've been missing Georgia a lot lately.  A lot.

Everywhere I look in Western Pennsylvania reminds me of it.  My body is here, my mind tells me to be thankful for my lovely home and life, but my heart and my spirit are somewhere else.  The longing aches and is always in the background of whatever I do. 

I really am starting to get concerned.  Something in this scenario isn't right.  While on my bike ride today I finally realized what it is...

I've been looking at everything through a peach-tinted lens.  If I were to make a comparison list, everything beautiful would go on the Georgia side, while all the uglies would be listed under Pennsylvania.  But that isn't true or right.  I couldn't seem to shut it off until I began to understand something...

Everything beautiful, no matter where it is, belongs to God and is meant to be enjoyed in that moment.  The moment, not a state, is the owner of that particular piece of loveliness.  I think if I can just keep in this groove, I will find peace to enjoy what is in front of me, and not let the thief whose name is homesickness steal it away.

In that way, I am free to love both places, but maybe Georgia just a little bit more.

un-peace

I am missing the peacebird.  It seems like it has been too long since it perched on my head.  This has nothing to do with happiness and/or contentment.  They are enhanced by peace, but they don't hinge upon it.  No...what I'm talking about is that quiet, smooth, steady, tranquil solidness that no pampering, pill, or self-indulgence can create.  Is this what Paul meant when he talked about the "peace that passes all understanding"?  If so, how do I get it back?

Here's what I've been doing lately to cultivate peace...nothing.  I've gone to bed too late after watching waaay too much TV, snacked until I feel sick, left off riding my bike and have not spent near enough time just looking out the window to my backyard.  The birdfeeder is unfilled.  So is my heart.  Garbage in, garbage out.

I can't afford this.  I cannot spend another dime of my life on un-peace.  I am cultivating the perfect habitat in my head for discord and disharmony, the nasty opposites of the peacebird. 

So here's the thing:

First and foremost, I will read Philippians chapter 4.  That's where the "peace that passes understanding" came floating up through the memory of my consciousness.  I will go to bed.  I will let my body heal from too much snacking.  I will look out the window.  And I will do all the birds a favor and fill the feeder.

None of these things are mind-blowingly profound.  It's just that after awhile, not practicing them becomes profane.  The antithesis of what Anne Morrow Lindbergh talks about in her classic, Gifts From the Sea:

"I want...to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible.  I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense.  By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony....I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God."

     

Walk

I rode my bike this morning.  I try to do this most mornings, because I find that no matter where I am in my head by the time I get home something in me is quiet and centered.  It doesn't start out that way.  Today there was more than the usual cacophony.  Just when I started to feel guilty for not being able to control my mind better, four yellow birds flew in my path.  They were tiny and inconsequential in the grand scheme of my own importance, but they caught my eye because of their eye-popping color against a grey sky.  Then I slowed my bike down to figure out where that background roar was coming from.  To my left, I saw that Wolf Creek had been transformed by recent thunderstorms from a slow flow to a rushing wild thing that threatened to overflow it's banks.  The verdant new little leaves glowed.  I came home and read,

"The body is a great focuser, whether the means is pain or pleasure.  The body is a great reminder of where we came from and where we are going, on the one sacred journey that we all make whether we mean to or not.
Jesus walked a lot, and not only during the last week of his life.  The four gospels are peppered with accounts of him walking into the countryside, walking by the Sea of Galilee, walking in the Temple, and even walking on water.  If Jesus had driven a car instead, it is difficult to imagine how that might have changed his impact.  Surely someone could have loaned him a fast horse.  Instead, he walked everywhere he went, except for a short stint on a donkey at the end.  This gave hime time to see things, like the milky eyes of the beggar sitting by the side of the road, or the round black eyes of sparrows sitting in their cages at the market.  
If he had been moving more quickly- even to to reach more people- these things might have become a blur to him.  Because he was moving slowly, they came into focus for him, just as he came into focus for them.  Sometimes he had a destination and sometimes he did not.  For many who followed him around, he was the destination.  Where he was going somewhere or nowhere at all, going with him was the point.  Food tasted better at the pace he set.  Stories lasted longer.  Talk went deeper.  While many of his present-day admirers pay close attention to what he said and did, they pay less attention to the pace at which he did it.  Jesus was a walker, not a rider.  He took his sweet time."

 (from An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor.  One of my all-time favorite books.)

In a time of my life characterized by yearning and hoping, this was what I needed today.  Now I can go down to my studio and be in His presence.  My time feels consecrated instead of frustrated.  His peace goes with me as I pay attention to the feel of paper under my hands and paint on the canvas.  I am aware of even the rough wood under my bare feet as I descend the stairs.  The peacebird lands, and it is yellow against a grey sky.

The view from Tuesday

 

Today was a crazy-rainy day.  My Georgia self was inwardly having a temper tantrum as I pulled on a sweater, jeans, and wool socks to go to school for my son's spring field trip.  My ego and super-ego had to wrestle my id to the ground and talk her out of booking a nonstop flight to Atlanta.  

Gray was the day.  But around five the sun made a tentative peek out and suddenly my world exploded into what my husband and I call the "dangerous time of day to house hunt."  You know what I mean...long shadows across lawns and a golden mellow light that transforms even the most trash-strewn empty lot into a potential paradise.   

I glanced out the window and saw this snapshot.  I'll walk you through it...on the lower left, the African violet recently bloomed after months of sulking.  The Ball mason jars were treasures I found in an antique shop while on a ramble with my parents (I won't tell you how much I got them for because you will be jealous!).  The adorable baby shoes came from a fundraiser in which children with special needs filled cast-off shoes with soil and tiny garden plants.  The two miniature peat pots were gifts from my son.  He planted a basil seed in each one because he knows that I like insalata Caprese in the summer.  On the far right is the basil plant I bought to sneak into the peat pots because I can't bear to tell him that the seeds he planted have long since washed away from the lavish waterings they have received.

In other words, bliss.  

Yes, I am still wearing a sweater, jeans, and wool socks.  But the view from Tuesday has revived me.  I take a deep breath and picture the joy resting on my head.  I don't think it is going to far to describe this moment as sacred.  A tiny snapshot of shalom to pull out when I am about to give in to self-pity.   

"For through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see--such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him."   -Colossians 1:16
        

 

Charm Bracelet: Part 1

I have a hope that is currently being deferred.  It involves a six-state move.  I am so homesick for the South.  Don't get me wrong...my heart's home is really with my husband and son.  Wherever they are, I am home.  But.....

Every spring it hits, and by early summer the full-blown yearning is well underway.  There is a certain smell, feel, sound, and look to my South during these months.  My sweet mother has started sending me her Southern Livings, and that is special in itself.  But they are treasures to me because as she reads them she has a post-it pad and pen beside her.  When she comes to a part she knows we will both like or laugh at or be inspired by or roll our eyes over, she makes a little comment and sticks it to the page.  I get this "conversation" in the mail a few days later.  I've recently begun responding with my own post-its and sending them back.

I love this newfound tradition, and yet it has inspired tears on more than one occasion.  The latest
started because an article about azaleas.  The photos were beautiful, and in seeing them I could really and truly smell the hot dustiness of my grandmother's front porch in Tuscaloosa one summer.  My grown-up skin could feel the memory of sweat running down my back and the peeling grey paint under my hand.  In another memory I am in the "ladybug room" at my grandparents house, also in Tuscaloosa, lying on the bed trying to read Little Women while scratching the 27 mosquito bites that dotted my legs.  That room was so cool compared to the blistering cicada heat outside.  I had just come in from listening for bobwhites and watching the butterflies who were attracted to the rotting persimmons at the base of the tree.

Each memory becomes one charm on the most loaded bracelet in the world.  That's why I had to revise my title to Part One.  Next I think I will cover Bellingrath Gardens, the trip to Mobile, driving to Destin with my parents and son only a few summers ago, the infamous Summer of Poison Ivy, barbeque, Atlanta's Phipps Plaza, the Seafood Platter, junkyards, my grandmother's heartbreakingly beautiful bearded irises, and the neighbors' neurotic chihuahua who had the ridiculous name of Peanut.  Which brings me to how my uncle always poured a pack of peanuts into his Coca-Cola bottle so as to taste the salty-and-sweet, the time my cousin dropped a wagon tongue onto my toe, and later sitting on the step with her to eat rich vanilla ice cream after my toenail cracked off.  The band-aid was impressive.  That ice cream was so sweet and creamy and good.   

At least that's how I remember it. 

 

           

Peacebirds

I realized something the other day.  I was standing in the kitchen, frosting cupcakes for the birthday party my son wanted to have for his...rabbit.  Apparently, Hunny Bunny's birthday is April 1.  No joke.  Anyway, as I was frosting, this lovely solid feeling came into my soul and I had to pause for a second.  Just like Jerry Seinfeld's "salty discharge," I couldn't immediately identify it.  What is this? 

It felt like the perfection of pound cake, sweet but not saccharine, dense but not heavy.  After a minute, I realized...this is what peace feels like.  Deep peace, frosted with contentment. 

I caught my breath, because I didn't want to scare it away.  This feeling was like a tiny bird, sitting on my head.  If I tried to grab it and hold on, the peace would be gone.

So now I am creating a safe place for the peacebird to land.  I confess, it really is hard for me, because I love five-step plans and to-do lists.  I want to tame it and make it my pet.  But peacebirds don't operate that way.  Instead, I learn to go about my day, frosting cupcakes for a rabbit, and suddenly it is there, sitting on my head again. 

I pause to drink it in with a deep breath.  Peacebirds come and go, and I have no way of creating one or forcing it to land in my heart.  I am absolved.  Free to be blessed.  

 

    

Jesus Loves the Little Children

"Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them.  But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.  Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."  (Matthew 19:13-14)

There once was a lady from Lucca

Settle in, because this is a long one.

For a couple of years, I went through a season where  all I could make was angsty art.  I couldn't seem to let go of topics like broken women in the Bible, sex trafficking, world hunger, and deep depression.  It felt like the only way my art was worthy was if it was if I was making a statement that would lead to healing the wounds of our fallen existence.  No kidding.  I was a load of fun at parties.  (Disclaimer:  I do not regret those years.  Hard stories must be told if we are going to move forward as members of the human race.  It's just that I felt like a failure if I wasn't shedding light on the world's ills.) 

And then I entered graduate school, for an MA in illustration.  Oh boy, I struggled.  One example...our assignment was to design a gift bag suitable for a particular market.  One classmate created one for a bridal salon and another, a toy store.  Still another, a reusable tote for a funky organic farmer's market.  In other words, fun, well-executed, and eye catching.  What did I design?  A gift bag that would illustrate the social justice issue of child brides in South Asia.  Cringe.  Not surprisingly, I graduated with absolutely no idea who my "target market" was.

Enter the concept of joy.  Joy? I thought.  I looked at some artists whose work I admired.  Marc Chagall seemed to have the corner on joy as well as pain.  The artist Lisbeth Zwerger creates solemn, yet heartwarming illustrations.  I thought and thought and thought some more.  Then came the glorious day when I was able to let up on myself.  What if, I thought, what if it is okay to create something just because I like it?

I decided to give it a try.  I took some paint and scissors and a blank canvas.  I had a general idea that I wanted to create some illustrations of nursery rhymes, which seemed to be the furthest removed topic I could think of.  I looked up some obscure ones.  How about this?

There once was a lady from Lucca, 

Whose lovers completely forsook her,

She climbed up a tree and said, "Fiddle-de-dee"

And embarrassed the people of Lucca.

I discovered that I like the phrase 'fiddle-de-dee' and that I should work it into as many conversations as possible.  I smiled.  Then came another one:

Fiddle-de-dee, fiddle-de-dee

The fly fell in love with the bumblebee.

They went to the church and married was she.
The fly fell in love with the bumblebee.

Love. It.  I even laughed a little.  The next few months flew by as I began to look up old, lesser-known nursery rhymes and let my imagination play around with them.  Was I concerned with making a statement?  Were my illustrations technically perfect?  No, and no.  But because I had no target market, those things were irrelevant.  Rather:  

My feet, with their need 

for solid ground,

couldn't 

convince 

my heart

not to set sail.

--Jodi Hills

Lady From Lucca, 2014.

 

La bete noir

La bete noir.  It sounds like a cool indie band, or possibly an obscure but lovely French documentary.

Mais non.  La bete noir translated from French, means THE BLACK BEAST.  And why did I put it in all caps?

Because la bete noir is quite simply the best dessert you will ever put in your mouth.  I recently discovered it when a girl from my Friday Bible study group brought it as the shared refreshment.  After making it three times in one week, I discovered that this flourless torte is super easy, and that twenty-six ounces of dark chocolate is indeed not too much for one dessert.  And that it is a hit for church potlucks, dinner party desserts, and especially that surreptitious eating directly from the fridge just before getting your glass of water to take to bed moment (don't ask.  If you've never done this you will not understand).

I must give credit where credit is due.  After Bible study I asked where I might find the recipe and my friend directed me to a lovely blog called Simply So Good.  If you, like I, only recently discovered what a springform pan was, you will especially appreciate this website because it includes detailed pictures of each step.  And I can't stress enough...you must use the required three layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil.      

And by the way, I am lactose intolerant.  It was worth every bite.

I know, I know...this is Spanish, not French, and as such is not in keeping with the theme.  But, and you know it must be said:

Olé.

Namaste

I recently had an experience that was super hard to swallow, but ended up being sweet.

We all have "difficult people" in our lives.  People who aren't malignant, per se, but ones who bring us into that worst versions of ourselves.  I have one such as that.  At my ugliest, I would use words like sanctimonious and self-serving to describe this person.  Gross.  The best I can seem to manage, on my most graceful day, would be to say to myself, I'll be the bigger person here because I understand grace better than you.  Ew.  Who is the sanctimonious one now?

But today my mind strayed to the Bible, specifically Romans 12:  "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." 

But I don't want to do that.

It makes me uncomfortable.

I shouldn't have to be the one to change my attitude, I thought.  My attitude is just fine.  In fact, I am the grace-full one.  Being the "bigger person" and all that.

But here's the thing, the hard part. To get to true grace, I must pronounce a blessing on this person who is so undeserving in my estimation.  I must say namaste when what I really want to say is you aren't worth it.  There is no room for sanctimony here.  Nor is there a place for being "the bigger person."  It is divine healing so far outside of myself that it can only come from God, the Really Real.

So how can I live at peace, both within and without?  By letting this person off the hook, just as I have been let off the hook.  By shutting up and letting the Really Real do his work.

Delicious.

The embarrassment of being pulled over in front of my child's school...a cautionary tale

Two days later, and I am still battling my feelings of humiliation as I remember how hot my face got when I was pulled over for a traffic violation in front of my son's school.  I am not kidding.  I thought such things only happened in sitcoms and romantic comedies. 

I won't go into detail, but to paint the picture, the carpool line starts at the corner of the street.  I was arriving early, had a fresh cup of coffee, and was planning to relax a few minutes with the Kindle app on my phone.  As I reached the corner I saw the dreaded flashing lights.  I had no idea they were for me.  But they were for me, and since I was the first one in line, I had the pleasure of being on view as every carpool parent had to drive around me.  I am still cringing.

Now this starts out as a cautionary tale, but ends in a lesson on grace.  Do you know that not one of the carpool parents ridiculed, gossiped about me, or gave me smug looks?  Oh, I got some looks, but they were ones of sympathy.

So thank you, Grove City Christian Academy parents, for your graciousness.  It has helped my face cool down considerably.           

After graduate school...

I

Here is what I learned...
One question an artist is often asked is, 'When did you become an artist?'
Was it when I sold my first painting?  When I started or completed school?  My first show?  I believe I became an artist when my mother made sure I never lacked art supplies, and when my father set up still lifes for us to draw together.  I knew with child-like certainty that I was an artist. 

After graduate school, I wasn't so sure anymore. That is truly a terrible mental place.  I felt pruned to the ground and maybe like even my taproot was destroyed. (No drama.  That is really what it felt like.) 

Here is what happened next...
I cried a lot.  I took a break, and learned to let myself off the hook a little.  I made some bad art.  But over time, tiny roots of real confidence began to take hold.  It turns out the taproot that was nurtured along by my parents was stronger than I thought.  I am making art that I am proud of.  It is more complete and more true than it was before.  I am finally able to say shalom, go in peace.  

  

The inimitable Mr. Rogers

inimitable - (adj) incapable of being imitated or copied; surpassing imitation; matchless.

  

Go west, young man

It wasn't until I posted this picture on Instagram that I remembered "objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

Whoa...heavy.  And like many heavy things, this is as true as it is weighty.  And surprising.  And not as apparent at first as it becomes later.

Some thoughts on Bob Dylan

I woke up this morning with Bob Dylan in my head.  Specifically, he was singing Like a Rolling Stone, which seems a little odd, I know.

Even though I am a few generations behind, I grew up with Bob in my head.  My father had the vinyl records.  He probably still does.  The ones I remember specifically were Blonde on Blonde and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.  I felt very cool to know all the lyrics to Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine.  Maybe a little out of touch for the early 90s, but definitely a better break-up song than November Rain.

Bob and I are headed down to the studio now.  And my inspiration?  Forever Young.  The lyrics were recently used in a children's book.  Take a peek.  The illustrations are beautiful, and the book itself is priceless if you have a seven-year-old (which I do).

Enjoy.     

Everything will be copacetic.

Copacetic is a word my grandmother used, and recently my dad rediscovered it when it came out of his mouth unexpectedly.  My mom and I, regrettably, laughed at what we assumed was a made up colloquialism.*  However...

Dictionary.com enlightened us.  Copacetic is an "Americanism of obscure origin; possibly attributed to Louisiana French, Italian, or Hebrew."  Love dictionary.com.  It makes me feel very smart.  In this case, it made me feel nostalgic for the grandmother I didn't know very well.  

Copacetic actually means fine; completely satisfactory.  Wonderful!  In this perfectionist and slick world in which we live, I sometimes feel sub-par.**  So thank you, paternal grandmother, for giving me permission to let myself off the hook from time to time.  Dishes in the sink from last night?  My son having waffles for lunch at 2 pm in his pjamas?  No problem.  Let's all say it together:  Everything will be copacetic.  

Beautiful.  As Louis Armstrong said, 'What a Wonderful World.'   


*col·lo·qui·al   characteristic of or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing; informal.
**sub par  inferior or shoddy. 
 

Shut up

This has become one of my favorite phrases lately.  Not because I want to hurl it at anyone, but rather because, when gently applied to myself, it frees me.  Those two little words liberate me from the self-imposed responsibility of sharing every thought that has ever popped into my head.  Now that I have that freedom, I can come into the Really Real and just be.  Ahhh.

So it begs the question...why, in light of this revelation, did I choose this moment to start a blog?  Ironic.  It just seemed right.