Unapologetic Visibility

I have been sitting on an article I read for months now. I've shared it with a few friends at seminary. Another friend had the magazine for several weeks. I've been anticipating sharing it here. Waiting for a time that seemed right. Wondering what I would write.

It's about 11:14 pm right now and the magazine is on my bed stand upstairs next to my sleeping wife. I'm not going to go get it. But I want to share the feeling it gave me.

Months ago I was lying in bed reading this article and felt a strange sensation. A tingle of recognition and anticipation. A sort of tension in the chest, coupled with the hint of smile and a glisten in the eye. A sense that something profound was just said, that some truth was just lit by a subtle but unmistakable flash of brilliance. It's a feeling I love and it is all to rare, nearly unique to this article, save one book. It happens all the time when I read the Word.

I make no claims of inspiration for this article. I think that sensation was more about the Holy Spirit within me than anything. God can speak to you anywhere if you listen. And that night Artur Grabowski spoke deeply into my heart of hearts. His insight resonated with my own, though his life experience was entirely different. It made me want to know him. To find him. To talk to him more about this truth he could so eloquently expound! To find out how these insights have shaped his walk of faith. To ask him to tell me more!

I've read the article at least three times through, and I underlined at least 20% of it. Here is one line (Do I risk it from memory?) that stood out, shared here completely out of context.

We only have room in our faith based intellectual salons for clean shaven mystics in designer suits. I fear this kind of apophatic faith is like a government job - secure and undemanding.

The article was published in Image Journal, issue 59. It was titled Unapologetic Visibility. It was regarding our loss of individual ability and even the communal spiritual value of imagining God. His picture of practicing faith was full of risk and mess and sublime encounter as the church together shared vividly their insights experiences and speculations into the person of God. In the face of the risk he offered that God imagined poorly in the community of God and context of faith is better than a God not thought of at all, left to the experts.

I think He's right. We can't let fear of getting it wrong, of hitting the wrong notes, stop of from hearing, playing, and enjoying the music of grace.

So I challenge you. Imagine Him. Show me Christ in a photograph. Imagine him with a brush. Let the words flow from your pen. Capture the exuberance of regeneration with a pirouette. Bake sacrificial love into a pie. Give voice to that place inside that is transformed by His very presence, and share it with those around you.

Maybe they will get a strange sensation and ask you to tell them more.

Up Down All Around

This last Sunday was our last at our church home for the last six years. Amanda and I have been processing the departure together, and it has a strange mix of relief, sadness, excitement, and anxiousness. This is going to be a season of activity requiring some discipline. For the first time in a... well... maybe for the first time ever, I feel the entirety of the "head of household" responsibility for the spiritual well being of our family. God is good, and faithful, and present. But the local church as a conduit of His grace and care for our souls is now less present, less constant - removed to the outlying status of distant relatives rather than the tight knit nuclear family it has been.

There is a more pressing urgency to be acting on past discernment, and to be bringing all attentiveness to His still small voice. Seminary starts again on Monday. I am grateful to be rekindling time spent before the Lord with attentive Mentors and Spiritual Directors!

I have to decide whether my Character Formation Learning Contract this semester will be specifically related to artistic growth and expression, or a more traditionally central discipline. To do artistry would be to have the T/M process at seminary end in a clean arc with a common thread. To do the other is to hold the discovery and growth I have had integrating my creativity with my faith in its proper position. My identity is still in Christ. My focus is still submitted humble obedience to his will and call. Artistry is simply a gift and evidence of His imparted image. It is who I am in Him, but it is not all that I am in Him. I am leaning toward a focus on body prayer. Integrating my physical awareness and activity into the surrendered life of faith hangs out there as untested, unattained.

Finding Galilee

Memories dance vaguely out of reach
of laughter, acceptance, peace, and inspiration...
But now a heaviness weights her chest
and it seems connected somehow to her eyes,
Because it is drawing long heavy drops down her face.

Searching frantic and confused
trembling and bewildered
in this dead and empty place
made for dry bones and linen
Dark all around
An unvoiceable cry burns in her throat
as her eyes dart back and forth
hands clutching her face for fear it might escape
and end her

Where was that place in memory sweet?
I can't seem to remember anymore.
How did I ever walk out the door?

You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified. He is not here. He is risen! He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him. Just as he told you.

So she is finding Galilee
A forgotten land, lost somehow, taken away
She is finding Galilee
The home of promise and beginnings
She is finding Galilee
Where He held her close and called her His own
She is finding Galilee
Where she prays He waits for her still

---

I show the way home through tears of my own
Offer wide embrace wipe tears from her face
I do not wait in a distant lands
No hell or torment keeps me from your hand.

Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?

Rabboni!

I am with you always to the end of the age.