Artists Are the Ones Who Show Up

*Cory was looking through my sketch/everything else book last night and ran across this image, after which I had written a couple of pages about the process of sketching the as-yet-unfinished pencil drawing. I off-handedly assured her it was fine to read those private thoughts because I had blogged them before. Which I apparently hadn't. So I'll post it now to avoid having given her empty words. This is from almost exactly one year ago - November 15, 2008:

I'm sketching a picture of a boy with an apple. It's from a magazine photograph. And self-inflicted perfectionist that I am, it's becoming a learning experience in patience, frustration, and critical moderation (the moderation of criticism). An outside eye would call it a good picture (for an amateur) if they were not looking at the original photograph. But the problem is, I am looking at the original photograph, and my self-critical eye wants to follow the lines from discrepancy to discrepancy, unrealistic shadows, various incidences of improper proportion.

Amidst all this wearing away of pencil eraser and the blackening of my fingertips from smudge, I think I may be missing some lessons in beauty - lessons of epic proportion in relation to the way I view my life, my productivity.

One immediate issue of note is my inappropriate attitude toward my re-creation as it relates to the attitude of the original photograph. It's a full-page spread stuck in the middle of some article about apple-picking - a kind of "fun for the whole family" thing. In fact, the section of the magazine is called Everyday Celebrations - and the mood is incredibly light and celebratory. This kid is flashing a toothy grin; he's just taken a huge bite of this glorious granny-smith, and in one second he is capturing all that is good and right about childhood - innocence, leisure, dirt under the fingernails. And here I'm hating this effort more and more. No wonder I can't reconstruct that sense of levity.

I've written in the margins - which will later be filled with a background of apple barrels - these words that I've heard a lot lately - artists are the ones who show up. In essence, we're all aspiring toward something, and if we were honest with each other we'd realize that we've all felt, at some point, like we're imposters. It's easy to say I'm not an artist because my drawing of a photograph doesn't entirely resemble the photograph itself, but that would be unfortunate and untrue. I am an artist, simply for the fact that I was inspired to observe the world around me and try to put pencil to paper to express that - and that I actually did it. I didn't think about it and talk myself out of it because I haven't sketched a photograph in eight years, because I haven't ever taken a formal art class. I'm an artist because I showed up. And for that I applaud myself.

I'm also learning some things through the actual drawing process itself. I began the picture with a central element - the face, which I've always found particularly challenging to draw. I've realized that so much of what we perceive is related to light and dark, highlights and shadows. These elements give us meaning through shape, depth, texture. I've kind of taken to telling myself, "focus on this one shadow, this one highlight - take one small bite at a time. Follow this line to the next shadow or curve, blend it, thin it out. Focus on these elements each in isolation with great attention to detail and the picture will miraculously come together." To some degree this works, especially in relation to detail drawing, but at some point I'm going to have to look at the whole picture (as any viewer would ultimately do). It will only make sense when I see these details in relation to one another. This apple doesn't make sense with rounded lines drawn through it until I understand that these lines make up the fingers holding the apple. That the fingers are connected to a hand, tucked into a shirt sleeve of the shirt on the boy who is sitting in a barn eating an apple. Criss-crossed lines are senseless until, together, they create the waffle-knit texture of the shirt. Nothing in this world exists outside of a context. Nothing ever makes sense in isolation. Ever.

Keep pushing through and eventually you will break down the wall you're hitting your brain against.

Just So We're Clear On One Thing

Just so we're clear on one thing, my time is valuable. If I have made time to spend with you, it's because it's important to me. If you're not going to follow through don't even bother.

I'm flexible, not dispensable. Big difference.

What Settles

It's been my great pleasure in the past week and a half to experience a higher-than-normal number of fortuitous run-ins with my wonderful housemate Cory, whether at home or at Urban Standard (my other home). It seems to me this is reflective of the change in our rhythms as of late for various reasons. Anyhow, I am always thankful for these precious well-springs throughout my day. For a humble and gracious wisdom which I always feel has been poured on me as I interact with such a beautiful person.

Earlier this week, we discussed the way it often seems that we all just can't help but wound and crush each other. Humans are so incredibly fragile. I think we don't realize what we do to one another in our inevitable struggle for self-preservation. And this wounding has the unfortunate tendency toward becoming cyclical. Similar to redemptive violence, and likely related to our God-given need to relate to one another, sometimes we just want to make someone else hurt as much as we do. On the other side of the same coin, we hurt one another with the uncareful wielding of our good intentions. A simple lack of forethought or self-control can prove a potent poison. What we mistake for love can quickly become a weapon.

The redemptive part of this cycle is that people are, generally, resilient and have such a great capacity for love. With practice, we learn that we cannot avoid seeing the glory and beauty instilled in each one of us. We bear fruit we previously would scarce have recognized. And, if we let it, healing comes with time. That's not to say we finish suffering or struggling before we die; it seems where one scar fades there are always one or two more to take its place. The point is that we learn to see the mending in the midst of the tearing. We begin to be able to trace the path over which a strong and silent hand has carried us. On a good day, this gives me hope for what lies ahead. Somehow I find myself at rest through the tumultuous forward motion. I wish I had that clarity every day. But today I am holding on to a hand that has made undeniable provision.

What seems to be a crisis, what previously would have made me come completely unglued, now looks like a proving ground for sovereignty. A conduit for hope and courage and a gracious sense of humor. Now, more than ever before, I understand the peace of knowing that everything settles in the end. Through all the process and exchange and reaction, we learn the things that really matter. The products of our labor are those things with the greatest gravity. Strive, fall apart, regroup, repeat, rejoice, remain.

"I am here with open arms to help you along the way.

Just know in this maddening crowd, I am on your side."

-Neil Couvillion

Peace.

Note To Self:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

-C.S. Lewis

Looks like I'm on a roll!

I frequently go back and read old journal entries, partially as an indicator of forward motion, a mile-marker of sorts for the emotional journey. It's helpful in seeing where I've grown and stayed the same, accomplished or not, come back around to where I was before, made it through one more crisis, had a good moment of insight, et al.

Here's a portion of one from April (I wish I was still thinking this way consistently):

I've been thinking a lot lately about redemption, how it really is the end goal, how it permeates all things - the reconciliation of all things. And I don't just mean spiritual redemption. We are all saving each other every day. But I do appreciate the perspective I have wherein this goodness exists in relation to a gracious God I don't understand. I love that we move in great mystery. Lately, I wonder a lot if I don't confess enough - although I'm regularly throwing out token apologies. And my deep confession is usually brief and centers around the same faults; I have not loved well and I have expected too much. And every once in a while I can't stand up under the weight of a grace that is so dense, so saturated, almost oppressively present. I feel close to my frailty - just as I should. Not guilty, per se, but broken down and so far from goodness. I love what Greg said about the way (he speculates and I agree) God relates to humanity. He said God's will is not like a vase that we can knock off a table and it's shattered and irreparable. God is always looking at the messes we've made and saying, "we can work with this."

I love that God is dynamic like this, that His will is never static, that it's not unaffected by the choices we make, that when He says "here is the way, walk in it," He knows we'll take the scenic route, has made provision for all the time we will spend hiding in caves and sleeping with the enemy and wandering into the valley of the shadow of death.

And not only does God make provision, but He sorrows with us over our brokenness - not like a distant and wrathful despot. He is here in the midst of us, dwelling among and within us. So inasmuch as we can't be separated from ourselves, we can't be separated from the One who dwells in us. I don't talk about these things much with people, except in general discussion at church. It's sticky and vague. People are sensitive. They don't want to be affected. Or they don't think they do. I know I don't. I make it too much of a priority to seem unaffected. But I see here how I'm softening - a necessary dissolution of a sometimes harsh exterior.

And one from early June:

Leaving my house this afternoon, I turned back toward the door to lock the deadbolt, happening to look up and notice the reflection of a most unexpected gift in the back yard. Nestled gloriously and furtively in an understated flower pot next to the hopelessly algae-ridding pond was a gardenia bush. The sight of it actually caught my breath for a second for surprise, and I had to wade carefully through kudzu in order to reach the blossoms with my nose - to ensure that this was, in fact, my favorite flower, right in my own back yard.

Instances like these are, to me, a statement of God's lovingkindness and good will toward me. I remember, again, that I have not been forgotten.

Welcome to the end of Summer, where everything moves in slow motion in the hot rain and fading light.

Fin.

Peace and Be Still

Found this last night and it brought me peace.

II

Another Sunday morning comes

And I resume the standard Sabbath

Of the woods, where the finest blooms

Of time return and where no path

Is worn but wears its maker out

At last and disappears in leaves

Of fallen seasons. The tracked rut

Fills and levels; here nothing grieves

In the risen season. Past life

Lives in the living. Resurrection

Is in the way each maple leaf

Commemorates its kind, by connection

Outreaching understanding. What rises

Rises into comprehension

And beyond. Even falling raises

In praise of light. What is begun

Is unfinished. And so the mind

That comes to rest among the bluebells

Comes to rest in motion, refined

By alteration. The bud swells,

Opens, makes seed, falls, is well,

Being becoming what it is:

Miracle and parable

Exceeding thought, because it is

Immeasurable; the understander

Encloses understanding, thus

Darkens the light. We can stand under

No ray that is not dimmed by us.

The mind that comes to rest is tended

In ways that it cannot intend:

Is borne, preserved, and comprehended

By what it cannot comprehend.

Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us by

Your will, not ours. And it is fit

Our only choice should be to die

Into that rest or out of it.

-Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

Paradox. One of Many.

I don't really understand how or why, but these days it seems like I spend most of my time experiencing, simultaneously, the sense that I am shutting down completely and the sense that I am coming alive like never before.

Then again, I've always seemed to make myself quite at home in the house of paradox.