Co-Heir

I attended the International mentoring Conference, and participated in the creativity as mentor workshops. I was overwhelmed. Interacting with the people from around the country and world who were there and seeing the images I created impact their spirits blew me away.
Here are some comments I received about the co-heir image:

"It is so alive, the movement."

"I feel invited in."

"The spiral of people and the way it extends off the canvas makes me feel like it is a larger picture. There are more people involved in this connected chain. I am in that picture somewhere."

"The wounded hand in the center... It is all about that isn’t it."

"There is something of the resurrected body here."

"If I saw this when I died, I would be happy."

"The bowing/worshiping figure captures me."

"They are all connected!"

"This is the great cloud of witnesses, I am urged to run the race."

As I reflected on the conference, I realized that the co-heir image is where I AM. Where I want to be. I sketched a joyous picture “out of the mouth the heart speaks.” I could clearly say that Christ is what has overflowed from my heart. “No longer sin reigns in me.”

I had a hard time drawing light, joyous, happy images before. For the next several days that was all I could draw. I had connected with an inner place of great peace and joy. It felt sustaining. I made the co-heir image my desktop. Every time I look at it I feel reminded that Christ stands inviting me into that place of active joyful engagement.

Transitional

This is a yearning. A transition between sin and co-heir. A picture of repentance. A picture of found peace.

The dust of the earth

Settling dust gathered in heaps

erected lumped and crumbling

Pushed so by the makers hand

particular, present, stumbling

Yearning for a greater sense

enveloped, set ablaze

Blown up in a swirling dance

toward universal raised

Glinting rainbow sparkle

the Son shines radiant through

Each particular speck reflects

His radiance anew

Sin

I had presented my sin image to my small group and saw that it did not just portray my sin. It sparked a discussion about sin that was real, honest, open. It allowed people to comment on what they saw about sin in that image. Many times what they saw was different from what I saw or felt as I made it. They were putting their own understanding and processing of sin into the image. It was an effective tool for delving into the heart of a difficult to discuss topic.

Here are a collection of comments I have had about the sin image in several contexts.

“That eye says, ‘ Don’t you look at me.’”

“That eye says, ‘I can’t believe I did that again.’”

“I am at one time repulsed by this image, and unable to look away.”

“This is sin in a person who knows it is bad. Sin could have looked seductive, but this is a view of sin as incredibly damaging.”

“That’s not what I thought it would look like at all. It looks pathetic. I thought sin would look more proud, angry and strong.”

“It looks sick, diseased, heavy…”

“Erik, that image has been in my head all week. It is something about that eye. I want to focus on the co-heir image, but I can’t get past the sin image.”

“Erik, I told my kids about the image. They want to see it. Can I have a copy?”

“I am comforted to know others feel the way I do.”

My eyes are welling with tears as I remember the insights that people shared as they processed the image. It really does have facility. God used and spoke through my art. I am moved. Humbled.

Word vs Image

It strikes me that language and the written word are just as suspect as imagery - just as incapable of clarity or purity of thought. Yes, Christ did make the Word known and we recorded it in a book. Yes the Scriptures are sacred, inerrant, inspired, etc. Yet our interpretation of that word leads to vastly different conclusions. I’m not talking about gross heresy here necessarily. Even within the pale of orthodoxy, there are differences of interpretation which show words to be imprecise, and wanting. I realize I loathe this imprecision. We were made for understanding. These broken vessels (language, human bodies) are poor for holding truth, and they are poor for dispensing truth.

Poor.
Poor.
Poor.

Come Lord Jesus, quickly!

Confession

Art has become an exercise in confession. It is making the most personal public. (James 5) If art is worth anything (for me) it is fueled by the emotional reality and depth of a moment, and an attentive presence to that depth, and a yearning to express it. Words are good. Conversation is good. Visual art (in the act of creation) is better yet, another means of communication. I am giving birth to a tangible reference of a real moment in time. Not intellectual discourse, but a direct presence of the heart and a direct expression of the heart. This is artistry. Sharing it is communal confession.

Expectations

I expected to see the fruit of artistic expression as an appropriate outlet for stress. I found that I did indeed feel relieved and refreshed through practice of art. I used to fear that being artistic meant I had to live in strong emotion. Instead I find that through art I can experience, express, and move on with emotion. Emotion leaves the tormented place inside my head, and finding expression, it takes residence on a piece of paper where I can reflect on it more objectively.

I expected the practice of artistry would provide time of silence, solitude, meditation, and reflection before God. I encountered this in spades. I have fallen in love with my sketch journal. Not only as a place to record ideas, but a tool for remembering and marking what God has shown.

I expected to gain a new model and praxis for artistry as part of a wholly surrendered Christian walk. This was a struggle. I had many doubts about the holiness and usefulness of art in life and ministry. I had relegated it to icing, instead of the core cake of my life. Indeed, as I surrendered my pen back to the Lord, I have found new joy and life in being a Christian artist. This has not replaced the call or yearning for pastoral ministry; it has colored it. It is now rendered lifelike, real, vibrant, and personal to me. I am very excited about this.

Callous Attention

I have been spending time focusing on discernment related to God’s leading in my art as a means of communication with the world – Speaking His Word! In general terms I have discovered a very tangible peace and contentment in this abiding exercise of attentiveness. That is how I would describe discernment. It is simply attentiveness and presence. It is a sort of positional listening and looking. This is so because God is always present, always revealing, always proclaiming. We simply forget to see.

Maybe it is an over-stimulation of sorts. I can “not hear” my four year old with great acumen. He can be standing right in front of me, asking his question repeatedly, and I will not hear him at all. I have developed a sort of callous attention when it comes to the frequency (used both ways) of his voice. This is not a good thing, but it is true.

Callous attention. This is the condition of sin when it comes to our senses. We have callous attention when all around us God is screaming our names! Urging, beckoning, cajoling, exercising every method to make himself known. Touch me! Hear me! Taste me! See me! Know me!

Yet His everyday revelation is subtle. This is the oxymoronic strangeness of God. He speaks with a screaming subtlety. A subtlety like radio waves for a person without a radio, or a WI-FI connection for a person without a device to connect. I am a sign saying "HEY! FREE WIFI!"

Discernment isn't a skill we can develop. It isn't an exercise, or a practice. It is a gift. One we simply have to be open to receive.

Are you open?

Step Two

So I am in the center of His will, right...

Rebounded, repented,
surrendered, accepted.

And now all is exuberantly peaceful. Quiet. Eyes closed or just unfocused. I can literally feel a bristling ascension of sensation that seems to come from my center, curve around my chest, under my arms and across my back at the base of my scapula where it meets my spine. The sensation nestles there briefly between my shoulder blades and I have to roll my head back and tighten my shoulders. My eyes focusing now, upwards to Heaven.

Hello Abba. It is an embrace.

Sometimes I lift up the day in a practice of examen. Sometimes I offer praise. Sometimes I intercede for someone. Always I wait. And whatever comes to me I accept and engage before Him with a calm assurance of His trustworthy love and unchanging proximity.

If this were the whole of communion it would be enough. But he does not leave us here, at least not for long...

(to be continued)

Raised

Baptism is a profound mystery. I love how God has left us physical cues (clues?) to his inner workings. We are burried in death and raised to new life in Christ. It is symbol. It is a statement of faith. It is an ordinance, a sacrament, a thing of beauty.

Leave it in the dust

Did you know that it is hard for me to receive?

I like being self sufficient. I don't stand up in church in need to prayer; but I probably should more often. I love the support of friends and God. I love knowing that in a crisis they will be there for me. Yet, I strive to stay out of crisis. At times I want to burn out just so I can feel that love, just so I can leave my self sufficiency in the dust.

Leave it in the dust.

Similar Things from Dissimilar Sources

Similar things from dissimilar sources
Soul in constant search of purchase
Hold on to something...
Wrong!!! Let Go.
It is the clasping grasping fear
that blocks the ear to hear
Cling to rock and twig and branch
Rely on muscles strained and cramped

He lets go of his purchse and relies on the wind
arms outstretched he feels it invelop him
and he looks back at his rock
as it grows smaller and less significant with distance...
With a chuckle he thinks,
"What a funny thing to cling to."

Like dust it dissolves and carried away
The wind has his faith.
Weightless, backward and the sting of loss.
As he begins, his purchase within himself is turned to dust
it dissolves and carried away
The wind has his faith.

Weightless forward now he sees his destiny
looming in a fog of atmosphere
The Flames!
Like a meteor to earth he burns:
the dust is carried away.
The face of the wind and his outstretched soul
reaching through the flame
unchanged in Spirit
purified in mix

I believe in you
to pull me through

Take my hand and find your purchase
This rock is unchanging
and these muscles do not tire!

Fascination Frankenstein

The man on the road listens to your impression
and sees himself within.
He sees where you were blind,
He holds the corner piece.

Light not taste or smell
simply touch, see and hear
no sounding grape our
tasting yellow hybrid brings
dissimilar distraction
and miscued interaction

unintentional
quite exceptional?
no... but somehow yes
Fascination Frankenstein!
What is it we combine?

The smell of moonlight
The glow of gravy
Perversion of proper position
Connection from intuition
Veiled in wind...
A language long forgotten
and a lesson still to be learned
Veiled in wind...

Comes the Rosetta stone, The answer!
Laplace! Get the answer!
The Reason! Long hand...
see where you went wrong
The resolution and absolution...
My God It's the Man!

Step One

"How do you reconnect with God?" she asked.

It was a good question. He can seem so distant. He can seem unapproachable.

"I don't know." I said, "It's different."

"Sometimes it's a special word from a verse or passage, or a feeling that whelms in me when I see a great sunset. Sometimes it's more formal prayer. Once it was a pine cone that made His presence known. He's spoken to me in visions and through my illustrations. But when it comes right down to it, I feel like I have a switch in my brain. I can flip the switch, turn my focus inward, and just know He is right there with me. That capacity is always there if I will remember to use it."

Now C.S. Lewis gave great metaphors and illustrations of spiritual principles with a disclaimer essentially saying, if it doesn't help - forget it. It's not like it is inspired. Here I give the same disclaimer:

God isn't "out there" in any sense that precludes Him being "in here." The Holy Spirit is a vital part of prayer because God is jealous. God is jealous. I think He is jealous for Himself. We have been given the Holy Spirit. In giving Him to us God has created a tension and a longing within Himself. The three persons of the God Head live in constant communion. When I choose to be in sin, separate from God, I take the Spirit with me. That causes tension. When I become aware of that separation, I can turn inward to the Spirit, and relinquish control to Him. Then like a magnet, the Spirit carries me directly back into the full presence of God.

Sometimes I feel like the Spirit is bottled up in me. Chained to a wall. Rapping his finger on the plain oak table in the barren room of my selfishness, sitting there, resigned to being toted around like a discontent toddler at the mall. But in those moments when I become aware of what I am doing, and turn that switch, it is like I have handed the key to the cell block over to my prisoner, and He immediately unlocks the door, clears the debris in a single leap and runs for me - with me - back into the presence of the Father where He is received with widespread waiting arms, and me along with Him. Every time.

Every time.

Nothing about the process seems foreign to me. Though it is remarkable. In giving the Spirit to us God has stretched himself (so to speak). And the jealous elastic rebound of that stretching carries me right into His center.

Then things really get good! (to be continued)

Thoughtless

Late at night, and I want to collect my thoughts.


But I have no thoughts.


There is a dull pain below and behind my ears. My eyes strain at the blinding blue light of my laptop screen as it burns away my peripheral vision contrasting so sharply with the dark room beyond. You can faintly hear the nuk-nuk of a pacifier soothing a restless infant.


No thoughts.


Maybe I should draw, but that would mean I'd have to get up. Not likely. Besides, I've been sketching some wiry dragon like faces lately. I feel like it is an image of sin again. Maybe evil, because it is outside of me this time. corrupting. I don't want to draw that now.

And what about the doubter and the wall builder. No! No. Stop.

I should pray. Rest. Turn the inward sight to the Holy One. Be still and present. yes.


There's a thought.