TC Larson

Stories and Mischief

Worship and Adore

19
Dec

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I’m going to say something that’s going to get me in trouble.

Don’t stress out, it’s not total heresy or anything, I don’t think. We can still be friends. Maybe you’ll even decide that you agree with me.

It’s just that sometimes it feels safer to worship Jesus than to adore him.

Whaaa?

See? Not total blasphemy or anything, but still might make you raise your eyebrow at me. It’s okay, I’m getting used to that reaction. Let me tell you what I’m thinking.

Sometimes — many times — it feels tenable to go through the required acts of contrition and penitence, offer the correct sacrifices, do the right acts of goodwill, all to a far-away God, because those are external acts that I perform rather than allowing anything uncontrollable happen to my heart. It’s brain work — performance enhancing brain work.

That’s not all up in my business the same way as the baby Jesus come to earth. Baby Jesus is closer. Baby Jesus is so soft, smells sweet like a baby should, and melts your hard heart when you hold him snuggled in your arms. It’s difficult to keep Baby Jesus at arm’s length.

Then there’s snaggle-toothed Jesus, who still has mostly baby teeth, and who’s front teeth are growing in way too big for his head and at a slightly alarming angle you just hope will straighten out once he looses the other teeth. He’s got such a tenderness to him, even as he’s trying to learn how to do things on his own and sometimes gets frustrated.

And teen-age Jesus — well, don’t even get me started. It tenderizes my heart, the way his body is outgrowing his maturity and he keeps knocking things over because he’s not used to being so big.

Come further up, come further in! ~C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

To adore Jesus is to be invited to know him as you’d know another living person, not only some carved statue of him, to come further up and further in to interacting with him. To adore Jesus is to allow your gaze to land on him and remain there, taking in who he is, what makes him special. It’s to appreciate his acts of kindness, selflessness, gentleness, his wisdom and inclusion, his perfect humanness that makes us aspire to be the best versions of ourselves. It’s gushy love stuff, the stuff like when mom and dad share a smooch, and it sends kids running from the room, then makes them peek back around the corner.

It’s not that worship and adoration have to be mutually exclusive. And I’m using “worship” in a specific sense, which isn’t always the most accurate interpretation of the word. That aside, adoring Jesus brings him closer to us, doesn’t allow us to keep him at some high and lofty distance. And depending on your perspective, that can be either exhilarating or intimidating.

Today’s post is a linkup with Kate Motaung and Five Minute Friday. It’s fun to see what other people come up with in five minutes using the given word prompt. If you’re here for the first time, thank you for coming by! I hope you’ll consider checking in again to see what’s cookin’.

Question for you:  Do you think about “oh come let us adore him” at any other time of the year other than Christmas? What do you think about adoration and worship and their relationship?

Hope alongside loss this Advent

16
Dec

It’s Christmastime, and I’m supposed to be focused on the coming of Baby Jesus. I’m supposed to be engaged in anticipation, preparing my heart for His arrival in a stable long ago.

It’s Christmastime, and I’m supposed to be festive and bright, reliving the wonder of childhood, all twinkle lights and icicles and hot chocolate with marshmallows and wrapping-papered mysteries under the tree.

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It’s Christmastime, and the focus is supposed to be joy, love, peace on earth, goodwill to all. I still hold onto these, but they are several layers underneath right now, harder to retrieve. These are the liturgy I rely on, out of habit, out of the hope that if I continue moving forward I will one day walk to where I genuinely feel these things again.

Left to my own resources, without others depending on me or without commitments to maintain, I’d admit my landscape is more reflected in a windswept tundra than in the cozy abundant glow of a hearth hung with patchwork stockings that bulge with promises.

While the tundra may be the condition of my heart right now, I hope the edges can melt by small degrees. One morning I’ll step out and the air will smell different, a warmer breeze will blow. This must be true. How could someone drag themselves along if this weren’t true?  Things must alleviate with time, morph into a different form that is better addressable in an organizable time frame, rather than intruding into everything. Time will make it less all-encompassing, less raw. That part’s already becoming true for me. I can gingerly touch on the subject of my dad without losing my composure now, whereas I couldn’t a short time ago.

So maybe those flashes of warmth I feel, those moments when I am caught up in something or forgetful of the loss for a moment, maybe those are flashes of hope for another year that’s yet to come. Look too closely at it and it will dart away. But keep your eyes straight ahead, and you might begin to sense its presence alongside the sadness. Catch a glimpse of it in your peripheral vision, this hope that can coexist with loss and mourning.

This is a new thing I’m learning: hope existing alongside loss.

But I’d rather have the hope without the loss.

We probably all know someone for whom holidays are challenging because of a loss or a broken relationship. How can we make space for these friends and family members in the midst of our holiday patterns and traditions? How have you faced your own loss during significant holiday seasons?

There’s something stinky in my Fridge

12
Dec

http://mrg.bz/y096dh

http://mrg.bz/y096dh

Every time I open my refrigerator, a nasty smell wafts out.

No, this isn’t some strange weight-loss psychological trick. There’s something wrong in there.

Problem is, I thought I had thrown out any old leftovers: the bowl of leftover oatmeal I was sure someone would want to eat later, the steak that was so good I was sure I’d find a dish that would only need the one piece we didn’t use for supper, some random individual serving containers of dipping sauces that came inside the Styrofoam takeout container. All gone.

So why does my fridge still pollute the kitchen any time someone uses it?

I have to look further inside.

I forgot to check the deli drawer, where there was some old cheese and some questionable lunchmeat. (Do other people’s kids only want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their lunches? Do they not get sick of that? Why won’t my kids eat this lunchmeat? I’m not talking about sending them a cold hot dog or some bologna. I mean nicer lunchmeat, fewer preservatives, fresh. I can rarely get them to eat the stuff. I wonder what they’d do if I DID send them a cold hot dog. Probably eat it. Gross.)

This smell problem has gone on for about a week. Two nights ago my husband texted me from home: “This fridge smells nasty!!!” It’s gotten to the point where it’s made me wonder about a dead mouse underneath it, or under a nearby floorboard. We’ve discovered a few likely culprits but not the direct source…

…until today.

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The thing about a deep-rooted stink is that it can sneak up on you. It’s possible for a smell to develop in strength and pungency if left unattended. If you’re around it long enough you can acclimate to it until the only time you notice it is when you’ve been away from it (ever notice the scent of someone else’s home as you arrive and wonder if other people think YOUR house has a smell that you can’t smell?).

How similar this is to our spiritual and interpersonal health.

We can have certain habits or ingrained ways of thinking which can be less than aromatic. This ain’t no sweet scent of incense, people, no offering of praise here. Interact with other people long enough and you’ll discover that, in ourselves and in others, there are some messed up ways of dealing with life. These unhealthy strategies are built up over time, and as they come more solidified, it can be harder to recognize them in ourselves without doing the often hard work of introspection.

Along the same lines, many of us have some unhealthy ways of relating to God. Sometimes we put onto God some of our own junk, or we have decided that He demands certain things from us because we demand them from ourselves or others. Sometimes we assume that our own motivations are also God’s motivations, or we take things from our experience base and use these to inform and determine our view of God.

It can end up being as gross and stinky as what I found way at the back of my refrigerator.

Instagram: tclmn

Gross disgusting-ness hidden deep in my fridge

Be glad you can’t smell whatever is featured in the photo above.

All of this makes me wonder if I’ve been coming at many things all wrong.

Maybe I can sit in sadness without having to look for a silver lining or something positive to come out of it.

Maybe I need to take a look at my short attention span and evaluate what areas of my life might benefit from a longer amount of time given for those areas to develop.

Maybe I should think about the things I communicate to my family about my acceptance of their personalities regardless of how similar or dissimilar they are to my own personality and way of relating to the world around me.

Noticing and being mindful of the different way someone else relates can also be useful since it might not occur to me to relate any other way.

Ultimately, in order to know, I have to take a look — take out the deli drawer, the veggie drawer, the fruit drawer, the shelves, the glass out of the shelves — I have to take things apart and inspect them. I might have to take a look at the habits I’ve formed, the opinions I hold, the knee-jerk reactions I have. I might have to evaluate how well those are serving me, if they need tidying up, if they might (in some circumstances) need to be tossed out.

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In the end, it took warm water, soap, a washcloth, lots of scrubbing, and scraping with a butter knife to get rid of the stinky, sticky ooze in my refrigerator. I never did identify exactly what it was. But in the process of getting down to the source of the smell, I cleaned out many other areas of my fridge (no, I did NOT wipe down every single inch of the fridge. Another of my tragic personality flaws, I’m afraid). I learned things about my fridge that I never knew before. And I learned things I should be mindful of in the future.

As I apply these same strategies into the realm of personal and spiritual development, my hope is that it will strengthen my relationships and ability to interact with the world around me. Maybe then I’ll smell of more of a fragrant offering and less of bad habits or unhelpful ways of thinking.

How about you? How do you smell these days — er — in other words, do you have areas of your life that could use some attending to or tidying up? How do you address things in your life that may be less than beneficial to you or the people around you?  

 

Hard Skin and Dragon Scales

14
Oct

This piece originally appeared on the Story Sessions website. That website is being reworked, which lets me share this with my own blog readers. …all five of you. 🙂

“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe. […]

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“The lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you,’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You’d think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they’ve no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian’s, but I was so glad to see them.

“After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me—”

“Dressed you. With his paws?”

“Well, I don’t exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes—the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”

“No. It wasn’t a dream,” said Edmund.

“Why not?”

“Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been—well, un-dragoned, for another.”

“What do you think it was, then?” asked Eustace.

“I think you’ve seen Aslan,” said Edmund.

~Excerpt from Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

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There was a period of my life when I wore an extra skin emotionally as if it was heavy chainmail or a coat of dragon scales.

It was knobby, thick, suspicious, sarcastic, and dismissive.

I grew this layer of protection over time. The barrages of arrows whose poisoned tips bore insults hedged as jokes about my body, necessitated this thick skin – the arrows didn’t hurt as much when they met hard scales. Snide comments about my lack of intelligence or critical thinking skills couldn’t meet their mark when repelled by bony skin. The repeated defense of my family’s expectations or my role as the pastor’s daughter, the constant sense of being different than everyone else, called “weird” for my sense of humor or mocked for my vocabulary, these things built layer upon layer of cartilage armor.

I was quick with a joke or a biting comment, even if it was about me – better to be aware of my weakness than to let others announce it.

I became skilled at assuming the twist of a statement, rather than believing it was said straight. It made me paranoid about what any sentence meant.

I grew weary with the analyzing, stony in the silence I adopted rather than open myself to hurtful responses that were bound to come, should I offer the opportunity.

Any gentleness I once had slowly shrunk and hardened until it was only a pebble.

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Instagram: tclmn

Instagram: tclmn

In the excerpt above, Eustace’s dragon scales are the result of greed and selfishness.

My scales were the result of a perceived need for self-preservation and protection.

The image has returned to me time upon time, the image of scraping away dragon scales, peeling them back as a snake slips its skin. The effort of learning a new way to relate to the world, the hard work of retraining my brain synapses so messages wouldn’t travel the same well-worn canyons, and the strain of finding new thought patterns felt like ripping off layers. I worked to allow myself to believe the compliment that came from the lips of the one I loved, rather than hearing its reverse, and the awareness that the former was still my first response, felt like Eustace when he thought he had scratched away the dragon skin, only to discover he was still wearing it. Try as I might, my best efforts only removed the outside layers with no impact on those that were thicker, those that were deeper.

There comes a point when, if we want real change, we have to admit we can’t do it ourselves.

We have to lie down in the grass and allow Aslan to undress us.

It feels vulnerable and intimate.

It feels defenseless.

It feels like a death.

And it can hurt like a bitch.

While we lie there, letting our defenses be stripped away, we might feel like we’d rather continue wearing the dragon skin, except for the sublime gratification that comes with the removal of it, like peeling a long strip of wallpaper after you’ve been laboring and only getting scraps, or the feeling of finally getting all the snarls out of your daughter’s beautiful long hair so you can drag the comb through it unhindered. We become our truer selves, closer to our clearest essence, unhindered by the bulky armor we accumulated. Only once it is removed are we released to feel earth on flesh, breeze on face, and warmth of embrace.

It is only once our dragon scales are removed that we learn the strength of being vulnerable, the confidence that undergirds gentleness and the freedom that comes when we are our most unfettered selves.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NKJV) “17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Have you built up your own coat of dragon scale defenses? Is that dragon skin still serving you, or has it begun to hinder your freedom? In what ways might you allow some of those scales to fall away?

Seesaws and Pendulum Swings

19
Jun

Things hold very little hope for getting better.

This is a truth that I seem unable to hold in my head for very long. I keep thinking that I understand it, that I’ve accepted it. Soon the “understanding it” subsides. I experience some kind of convenient amnesia and go back to not really getting it, not being able to accept the grim reality my dad faces, and us along with him.

There’s a possibility that I’m in some stage of denial, but that sounds so cliché I have a hard time thinking it could be real. And yet all of a sudden something pops for no particular reason and it all floods the tubes at once. My boat begins to sink in powerlessness and sadness, holding all at once the emotions I’d kept at bay without even trying.

I’m starting to realize I may not be equipped to handle this on my own.

While I’ve never received any counseling past the pre-marital counseling my husband and I did before our wedding (and does that really count? I’m not sure), I’m not at all opposed to it. I have a feeling there are coping strategies that could be helpful when dealing with loss and grief. For a while now, my reaction to things seems to either go from an emotional flat-line to all feelings at once as if I’m trying to drink from a proverbial fire hose. There ought to be some middle ground in this, some balanced space of holding the possibility of permanent separation alongside an appreciation of the time we all still have together.

http://mrg.bz/ptSqzA

http://mrg.bz/ptSqzA

Ought to, schm-ought to. The bare truth is that my dad’s not getting better, and there’s a very real possibility — a very strong probability — that he’s going to leave us. See? Even now I can’t speak the harsh truth because it’s too much to admit.  It’s too big, too scary, too terrible. It’s something I only admit in the dark, when no one else is listening, when I can’t convince my brain to focus on anything else. Is this what it’s like for everyone? Would it make me feel better or worse to know it isn’t like this for other people?

Does it make it worse that I’m here to witness the slow ebbing away of him? Or would it be worse to experience the jarring juxtaposition of him healthy one visit, and then a few months later discover him weak, thin and slow? Who freaking cares which is worse? This is what the situation is. This is the one I’m a part of, and contrasting it with anything else doesn’t make it any less or any more. It just is.

Instagram: tclmn

Instagram: tclmn

But it isn’t just. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.

(I’ll have more on that idea soon, on the shitty deal and non-nepotism of God instead of playing favorites. That’s good news if you’re the one on the outs, but it’s a lot harder to bear if you’ve been the diligent, dedicated son all these years and not the prodigal. A little party on your behalf would be nice, a little cut to the front of the line, so to speak, a little preferential treatment.)

For now, the irritating pendulum swings between being numb and being overcome, with a possibly unhealthy emphasis on numbness, are in my line of sight, and I figure I should try to have some idea of how to handle what may come. Even if I don’t really want to know what’s going to come. Even if I am dreading it even as I approach the subject with robotic matter-of-factness. That right there should be my indicator of a need for facing the thing head on, but I can really only look at it with my peripheral vision as I charge ahead, busily avoiding people and topics that could lead to an uncorking of the anger, fear and sorrow that licks at my heels.

Have I mentioned cancer sucks?

If you’ve got resources that have helped you through grief or loss, don’t keep ’em to yourself. I don’t really know where to start,  and could use some recommendations.

Fear and Hairbrained Ideas

17
May

Some things are bigger than ourselves. There are forces at work we are not able to see.

Conditions begin to align, phone calls come seemingly out of nowhere, chance meetings occur in random locations.

The dots, which have always been present, are finally connected and the complete picture comes into focus, the picture they’ve been making all along.

The timing is right, the tumblers click into place and it is clear that the idea should move forward. It does so almost under its own momentum.

In those times, we have a choice. Will we continue to mention the idea when the conversation opens the opportunity? Or will we ignore the opening, ignore the possibility? Will we make that phone call and allow the person on the other end to make his own decision, or will we make the decision for him without him even knowing?

Mentioning, calling, speaking up — these are scary things. Our hearts race, our body temperatures rise just considering the act.

But I think this is more than just being scared. It’s a deeper fear than that. It isn’t focused so much on the action but on the actor.

It’s about us. It’s about me.

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Instagram: tclmn

Instagram: tclmn

Getting Caught Up in the Fear

We can keep our fear at arm’s length if we stay focused on the action we’re considering, rather than the why behind the feeling of fear. If we stay focused on the foreground of the picture, the action of taking that step or initiating that process can receive our energy and attention. If we re-focus, however, the thing that shows up in the picture is not the action; it’s the identity and the fear of being found lacking. Many times the nerves about a specific action stem from an internal fear about ourselves. We’re in an argument with ourselves.

The argument goes something like this:

1. I’ve got this great idea.

2. I’ve run this idea past some trusted people in my life, and they think it is more than just a passing whim.

3. I know some next steps that could make this idea a reality, or at least take it from just being in my head to being out in the world.

4. When I think about this idea, nothing in my spirit gives me reason for concern. If anything, when I consider what God would think about the idea, I feel like He would give it His endorsement.

5. Doing something with the idea is intimidating. It is a new thing, something that requires me to take action in a new way.

6. The questions of “what if” start to rise. What will happen if the idea is met with resistance?

7. The questions of my own value and qualifications start to rise: who do I think I am to pursue this idea?

8. Those questions continue to gain silent momentum, camouflaging themselves as weak spots in the plan to move forward/ They often appear as hindrances to the success of the idea.

9. If left unattended, these doubts and insecurities will undermine any further steps. The idea will fall away and become one more hairbrained scheme I came up with, one more plan that didn’t work out. This will only serve to fuel the questions of value and qualification the next time an idea presents itself. The cycle will repeat.

We quell the momentum, kick ashes on the embers and let fear keep us from adventure. We don’t allow God to fill in the holes where we can’t do it ourselves. We exclude ourselves before we even get started. It’s one thing to be smart and press a plan to find any weak spots in it, and not all ideas are good ones. However, it is another to let our inner doubts keep us from undertaking anything with an unknown outcome.

Where Do You Need to Step Out?

I’m going to share some specifics but insert your own situations, dreams, goals, etc. in place of mine, okay?

There are two possibilities on the horizon for me, particularly as my husband and I consider what things are going to look like this fall, when all three of our kids will be in school the whole day. One possibility is a longer-shot in my mind, and involves selling certain one-of-a-kind items online. The other possibility, which is closer to my heart, involves helping others discover a different form of prayer that centers on visual expression.

In both of these, there are strong indicators that I’m not just talking myself into the idea. Outside sources have provided good feedback and doing these activities brings me joy.

But I’m scared.

These are new endeavors, and I can’t present myself as an expert in any way. But at the same time, they have been so naturally developed, and come as such an outflowing of my interests and experiences up to this point, I feel like they draw on my eclectic interests and background. That makes me the right person to pursue them.

But I’m scared.

I don’t want to give anyone false impressions about my qualifications, my training or degrees. I don’t want to have the impression about myself that the things I would sell look awesome and are meaningful, only to find they look juvenile or wholly amateur to the skilled professional. I am afraid I’ll invest time and energy and nothing will come of it, thus feeding my reputation (even if its only in my mind…but I’m pretty sure it’s public) of pursuing crazy ideas only to have them fall apart.

See what I mean? Ultimately, it’s not even about the activity, it’s about what the activity says about ME.

Does this sound at all familiar?

Send Up Tiny Flames

Did you ever see that creepy part of the Lord of the Rings movies where they’re crossing that terrible bog? There had been a huge battle long ago, and the bodies of the dead were still intact, just under the surface of the water. Sometimes little flames would appear on the top of the water. If any unfortunate travelers followed these lights, they’d go the wrong direction.

Let’s take that creepiness, flip it into its opposite, and use it for our own purposes.

Let’s see a peaceful day, warm breezes, no mosquitos, the sun shining gently on our backs. Each person gets their own expansive, healthy marsh, teeming with life and energy.

Let’s see all our gifting and interests as beautiful rock formations under the water, gleaming and precious. Any one of these would be a gift in itself, and their minerals enrich the quality of the entire water system.  These rocks slowly change shape over time, much like a stalagmite (or is it stalactite?) would do.

Occasionally a small flame appears on the surface of the water. The flames indicate a healthy environment and a path that will bring the best views. We can follow these flames, and in doing so, discover the development of our gifts and interests, using them in new ways when they are at a proper stage. Along the way, we can bring a gem up out of the water before it’s fully formed, but if we wait, we fill find that gems which have been allowed to fully develop — these are the most beautiful and healthy. The small flames show us which way to go as we enjoy our walk through the picturesque summer wetland.

What passions of yours are sending up little flames for you right now? What direction are the tiny lights guiding you?

Fire spark flame

http://mrg.bz/BBh66i

Fight through the Fear

We can ignore the indicators in our lives, of course, and get along fine. However, I think we are at our most fulfilled when we heed our passions and interests, even when they shift. We are not statues — we change and develop over time, even in adulthood. What worked for us ten years ago may not work for us now. That’s not a sign of weakness or flightiness; that’s growth. Even if we take incremental steps, working smart and being conscientious, we can still be attentive to that internal appetite that desires fulfillment through using our own uniqueness.

So take that risk. Be bold. Be brave. You can do it. And when you do, you’ll have more ammunition against fear the next time around.

I can’t wait to hear about the ways you’re fighting through the fear. What risks are you taking lately? In what areas are you growing and how? Inspire the rest of us with your bravery!

 

 

A New Type of Mischief, Part 3

28
Apr

In this final installment, I’d like to level with you, dear readers.

I want this to be a space where we can talk about difficult things, but at the same time I don’t want people knowing everything about me. I want us to be able to share openly, but I don’t want to share TOO openly.

This blog is not some kind of diary or journal. That kind of blog works for some people, and I say more power to them.

But that’s not me.

You don’t need to hear all my inner thoughts (believe me, you really don’t) and I don’t need to vent all my issues here. You don’t need to know what I look like when I first wake up or the fact that I don’t wash my jeans after wearing them once.

However…

I also want you to know that I’ve been keeping things from you. I’ve shied away from writing as much, not knowing quite how to stretch out our small talk, not wanting to overwhelm you with gloom or all the mixed up feelings I’ve got about the church (amongst other things) right now. If you look at the overall arch of my personality and tendencies, I’m a pretty upbeat person who tries to look for the positive even in rough situations. Getting bogged down in negativity just isn’t my style. Because it isn’t my style, and in the spirit of “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” I’ve found that words are not my easiest medium right now.

Even working on the fiction projects I love — those have been more energy draining than life-giving right now. You might already know I’ve been working on revising a novel I wrote about a year ago. In the fall I started writing a new novel, but when we discovered my dad’s diagnosis, any energy I might have had to put towards that project fizzled out. I’ve tried to pick up these stories, put in some time moving them forward, but mostly they’ve sat quietly on the back burner.

Words escape me.

That’s where art journaling comes in.

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Instagram: tclmn

Instagram: tclmn

In our two previous installments, I fear that I’ve minimized the impact or significance of this art journaling discovery.

Today I hope to clarify that.

First of all, I want to state for the record that I don’t fancy myself a painter. I can’t draw realistic objects very well — they come out flat or with the perspective wrong so they’re either stretched out too long or super stubby…or both at once.

Secondly, I want you to know that it doesn’t matter if I’m not a painter. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a painter. Art journaling is for anybody.

Because I’m a word-nerd who is struggling to find energy to put towards those words, art journaling has become a great way to tap into the creative stream without relying on language to convey meaning.

It has been a great relief to still scratch that creative itch but in a different form, one where colors, textures, shapes, and layers give “voice” to a feeling behind an idea.

Thirdly (aren’t we organized today with our linear points?), art journaling allows me to engage in active prayer conversation.

What the heck is that?

To be honest, I don’t exactly know. I made it up, although I’m sure there are a gazillion others who have articulated it better and practiced it ahead of me (Ignatius might qualify as one school of thought on this). What I know is that I feel that many times as I put paint onto the page, I am communing with God in a way I haven’t been able to in a more formal way.

Because I don’t know what to pray.

Because I know the Spirit prays when I don’t have the words. (Romans 8:28)

Because I’m scared to pray because I want my own way and have no assurances that I will get it.

Because trying to put words to the ever shifting waves of my brain and heart sounds like a monumental task that I’m just not up to right now.

And so, art journaling has become a way for me to move in prayer, contemplation, wrestling, meditation, and spiritual discovery, all while using a different non-verbal part of my brain.

Those are all fancy ways of saying that when I open up my art journal and get to work, God shows up. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. I just know that it has become a form of spiritual connection when words aren’t working for me. Time passes quickly as I experiment with different types of paints and goo to see what will happen. And in the midst of experimenting, there is a joy in creating and discovery, a joy in cultivating the spiritual connection that I deeply desire but for which traditional forms are falling flat right now.

Thanks for listening. I just didn’t feel I had done it justice yet. Art journaling is more than just playing around with watercolors, or dabbling with a new hobby, although there is an element of play and an element of learning something new. My art journal is helping sustain me through a challenging time, and is actually enriching my spiritual walk.

I’m becoming convinced it can do the same for other people as well.

Do you have a non-traditional activity that feeds your soul in times of dryness? Would you share it here, along with how you discovered it? I’d love to hear from you.

A New Type of Mischief, Part 2

21
Apr

"Messy"

“Messy”

Do you remember when you found your “thing”?

Maybe it was swimming, or baseball, or playing the recorder, or making beaded necklaces.

Maybe it was swimming — you figured out the way to coordinate the kick and stroke combination and could hold your breath longer than anyone.

Maybe it was running — other people would be falling along the side of the road and you felt like you could keep going for another hour.

Baking, writing, dancing, hunting, reading, fishing — whatever it was, it grabbed your attention and you wanted to spend time and energy doing that thing.

When you find “that thing” a lot of times it means you stop trying out the other things. A person only has so many time in a day, and when you know that certain activity you enjoy, why waste time doing the other stuff?

Let this dedication to that hobby/sport/activity/game continue for a while and a curious phenomena occurs — you start to think you’re not able to do most of the other things…or you decide (not on purpose decide, but it just sort of happens) that you’re actively bad at those other things. When invited to participate, we decline, saying that we’re no good at _________ (fill in the blank), even if we’ve never even tried it.

For the longest time, it was like that for me with drawing.

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Feeling Small


 Feeling Small

 

This winter, I joined an online group of writers called The Story Sessions. (You can check out Story Sessions here) It’s been a good experience, and I continue to enjoy connecting with them. One of the things Story Sessions offered about a month ago was online workshops. The one I was immediately drawn to (no pun intended) was the Art Journaling as Spiritual Discipline. For the next 40 days — I’m in the final week now — we’d receive daily prompts and have a couple online chats all around Art Journaling.

I didn’t even know what Art Journaling was.

…maybe I still don’t….

but I know what it has become for me.

In the process of mucking about with paints each day, I’ve tapped into a different part of my heart. I realize that sounds corny, but it doesn’t capture it fully enough to just say it uses a different part of my brain, even though that’s true too. There’s a freedom in trying something with no expectations that you’ll be good at it, a freedom in just having fun with trying something new.

Click this to see Pheobe running like a happy madwoman

It’s been more than just trying out a new skill, such as you might develop if you attend a cooking class or computer coding seminar. It is something less based on outcome and more about the process of discovery.

My oldest son, after looking at some of the pictures in my notebook, assumed a tone I can only guess came from one of his teachers, and said to me, “And you said you’re not an artist.” I answered back, “Well, I can’t draw people very well.” To which he responded, “That’s only half of art. There’s abstract art too. You’re good at that.” He’s ten years old, y’all. We could all take some advice from him, and not count ourselves out before we’ve begun.

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I’ll have more to share about it but I don’t want to overwhelm y’all. I’d like to put up a few examples of things I’ve made so you can see what I’m talking about. Remember, I’m not here to say these are particularly lovely or that there’s intrinsically artistic quality to them. But they are examples of the process, and expressions of things I discovered when I let myself try.

Some of these are from prompts given to me through the workshop. Others are just things that came out of a thought or feeling.

Here’s one that is in process but I thought it was funny that I was dressed in the same colors I chose to paint with, but didn’t realize it until AFTER I was done:

Peaceful Blue Swirls

Peaceful Blue Swirls

This one came out yesterday.

Out of the Tomb

Out of the Tomb

I tried using a scraper to drag some leftover paint onto this next page. It sat like that for a few days, a prompt came along that seemed to fit the feeling of the page. Weird artsy-babble, huh? Yeah, I agree.

 

Mystery

Mystery

These are just a few of the notebooks I’ve been working in. I’d love to continue this, and it really has become a form of spiritual discipline for me, a kind of shared activity with God that doesn’t have the traditional “sit with your hands folded” feeling to it. Even if it is just doodling on a scratch piece of paper (or taking a walk or just being outside), if you come to it with an open heart and your spiritual ears on, it can be an encounter with the Creator.

Do you have a spiritual discipline that works for you? Please feel free to share it here! And if you have any experience with art journaling, I’d love to hear about that too. Have a wonderful week!

A New Type of Mischief, Part 1

17
Apr

Sometimes I dabble. I’ve been known to dabble. I’m dabble-y, a dabbler. Even though some people find their one thing and stick with it for years on end, I have a smattering of interests that come and go. Sometimes they don’t come back, or they return with a renewed intensity. Maybe it has to do with the barometric pressure??? Here are some examples of things that ebb and flow in my year.

Scrapbooking

Don’t stop reading. I know scrapbooking is a deal breaker for some people, but stay with me, okay?

Scrapbooking is interesting to me, and I want to record the lives of my children and family. It’s just that in order for me to really make pages I like, I have to drag out a bunch of stuff which I then have to put away. That’s no fun. In addition, I don’t really work in an organized fashion, so I have to play around with stuff and discover what I want to put together. That makes me a slooooow scrapper. That means I pull out all that stuff, only produce two pages, and have to put it away. Or, as is more often the case, I have hopes of finishing a couple more pages tomorrow, so I leave out the gear…and it sits on the table, getting in the way of everything, for the next two weeks.

I am finding solutions in a couple different approaches to scrapbooking so it doesn’t require quite so much effort/work. More on those another time.

Gardening

I love to work in the garden. I love flowers and dirt under my fingernails. I do not love nettles, Creeping Charlie or allergies. I also do not love sweat in my eyeballs.  And did I mention the weeds? Most times I start out strong, but fizzle out as the summer progresses and the humidity makes me drip just by throwing back my sheet in the morning. But the payoff of those flowers keeps me coming back.

Knitting

Maybe it was only implied above but I should mention my short attention span. I’m challenged by anything that requires more than a couple days of work or slow progress of any kind. There have to be a lot of built-in rewards and successes. You’ll never see me knit an entire sweater. You might see me finish one enormous mitten, but only one, since it would require too much work to fix the first one and plus, it is pointy like a stick and who wants to wear a pointy mitten anyway? (Can you tell I speak from experience?) It is also not nearly as much fun to knit in the summertime, so it is reserved for a winter activity.

Where’s Your Follow-through, Man — er, Woman?

Contrary to what you may think, I’m actually quite comfortable with my dabbling.

The few listed above are only a sampling of the things I’ve tried along the way (friendship bracelets, beaded safety-pins come to mind), and that’s okay.

These are all experiments with different types of creative expression.

Some of them are steps to build upon, some of them are ways to find out what things don’t work. It is easy to decide something is lame or outdated if you don’t have the context in which it was discovered or used. Each of these expressions have been tied to relationship in my life, often times a shared activity or an outgrowth from a friendship. Some of those friendships were tied to place, season of life, mutual interests or proximity. Those things changed over time, and that’s just part of the natural cycle of things.

Just because you try something, it doesn’t mean you have to go all-in, and it doesn’t mean you have to commit to that one thing with all your spare time for the rest of your life. I think pressure like that keeps people from trying new things.

Let’s talk about tennis. What if you wanted to try your hand at it? (I pick tennis but you could insert almost anything for this illustration.) Fun sport, you can play it with more than just one other person, good exercise, nice to be outside OR inside. What if you could only pick up a tennis racket if you were committed to the grueling training and match schedule that would make you become a competitive tennis champion. It’s champion or nothing. You’d probably resign yourself to watching it on TV — who has the time, talent and finances to commit what it takes to become a champion?

It’s a silly idea, of course, but it’s almost as if we place that level of expectation on ourselves when it comes to trying new things. We rule ourselves out because we think in order for it to be “worth it” we have to be as “good at it” as a professional or make that level of commitment. We limit ourselves before we even try.

Come Back on Monday

I’ve discovered a new kind of mischief that taps into a couple of my interests, and I think it has staying power. It combines my spiritual walk (or wrestling match, as the case may be), my love of words, and a chance to use images/color to convey ideas or emotions. It’s called art journaling — have you heard of it? I hadn’t, but I’ve stumbled into this whole other world of expression. I don’t claim to be any kind of expert, but I’m having fun and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. Here’s why I think you’ll like it:

  • You can’t do it wrong
  • If you try something and you don’t like it, you can keep going and transform it
  • Because you can’t do it wrong, you can release your perfectionist expectations
  • It taps into creative parts you didn’t know you had
  • You can discover an unconventional way of “doing devotions” or spending time investing in your spiritual side (if you choose to focus on that while working on your art journal)
  • It’s stinkin’ fun
 Did I Mention Come Back on Monday?

I wish I knew how to do fancy giveaways, because this blog could probably use some. Since I don’t know how, I think I’ll make my own rules about it. If you come back on Monday, you’ll get a chance to see a few samples of this new mischief, art journaling, and I’ll give away some “equipment” (which may be just a bottle of acrylic paint…but maybe something more!). I’ll hope to see you early next week!

In the meantime, I’d love to hear about fun activities you enjoy. Do you play a sport or make time to work on certain projects? Have you heard of art journaling or have any experience with it? Tell me everything! When you have some free time (“free” meaning you don’t have to be responsible and use it picking up groceries or running errands), how do you spend it?

The guy on the Mat

10
Apr

Today I’m over at my friend Bethany’s site for her new series Sacred – the Dark and the Light. I’d love it if you’d come check it out. If you click this link, it should take you over to her site: http://bit.ly/1jwcsRx

Here’s a little sample to get you going…

There’s something about a cliché that makes my eye twitch.

…Maybe not literally, but you get the idea.

It’s the same with Christianese and those answers all neatly packaged that serve nothing except to shut down conversation. If I can shut you up with a tidy answer, then I don’t have to entertain your idea as valid. If I lift the drawbridge, then your issue with a certain doctrine or theology shall not pass.

Dontcha wanna come read more? Hope to see you there!