Sunday, December 30, 2018

Reading Deprivation, November 23 2018

I'm supposed to be in reading deprivation now. As I looked into the benefits, I realized it might be really helpful. Reading might be part of the problem, numbing and overcrowding, overstimulating my brain. I tend to think it helps, but it can get legalistic or addictive. Even Bible reading - less may be more.

Help me, Lord, to meditate on Your Word, to love and desire and live and think it more now, if I choose to read it or not. I am afraid of losing touch, but You Yourself are in and with me, and I have hidden Your Word in my heart. I don't need to be afraid, just humble and obedient. Willing.

Thank You for helping me cry in the shower, bent double, my face stretched like a pegged tent. Quiet retching sobs, hot water pummeling my back.


Creative, Sane, and Out of My Mind, November 23 2018

It feels so ironic that I'm supposed to be teaching on staying creative and sane next weekend, when I feel so paralyzed and out of my mind. But I know that's not truth. It's not You talking. You have me doing this for a reason, and I can do it like none other. I'm particularly fitted for this. My weakness is Your raw material. My anxiety Your platform to bring honesty and authentic power.

I am worried about spending lots of time with three intense and sensitive and honest and intimate friends. Afraid something will go wrong, especially if it's my fault. I don't want to disappoint them. I also want to make sure I have space, boundaries (esp. emotional), and it seems impossible to guarantee. Would You pave the way for me? Would You help me cry if I need to? 

Thanksgiving Still, November 22 2018

It was a day of various feelings. Parts of today were really hard. Feeling ill in mind, feeling trapped, disconnected from truth or reality or who I am - the good things, anyway. Feeling anxious and despairing, angry, numb, stuck, useless, compulsive, edgy. Like a little thing might send me into tears, or out the door. If someone had handed me a telephone. If I had suddenly been required to go somewhere.

Reading defined my day. It gave me a focus, a goal, a reason to be alone today, which I desperately needed. I did help some in the kitchen. I'm glad it was just us. For a sour period I wished away holidays, "Always like this": passive-aggressive comments, too much unnecessary work, too many dirty dishes, overeating, insecurity about weight or disapproval of gluttony, knives scraping plates, and unpleasant noises and odors for days. I was bothered that the Cowboys played the Redskins today. And that the episodes of Little Rascals we watched were not PC - some laughs at the expense of black or overweight people. Do we boycott these things? Censor them? Watch them, but with vocal criticism? If I wouldn't want my friends to watch it, should I?

Don't let me get comfortable, Lord. Please. And don't stop telling me You love me. Thanks for helping me reach out tonight, find a safe way to describe what I'm going through, have Mom and Dad pray for me. I craved that. I miss that. We all need Your life. Please keep giving Your life. Help me take it slow, focus, and hold on to truth. Help me to trust You. Help me to pray for others.

Miserere mei, Deus.

Thanksgiving, November 22 2018

Yesterday I didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to talk, and I still feel a little bit like that this morning, but it's not awful. I want to write cards today. I want to paint. I want to read. I want to enjoy my life. I can walk, I can breathe, I can sing.
Please comfort and protect those who are vulnerable today. Those on the street. Those missing family, or without family. Those whose health is fragile. People will die today. Please open our hearts and homes and wallets to be generous and to pass on the lavish grace You've given us. Lavish. It almost sounds like a bad word.

Please remind me again how adept You are at caring for me and using me even when - especially when - I'm weak. Please speak truth over lies. Please do that for every person struggling today with food or people they'll see. Please provide ways of escape for those who will be tempted. Please unify Your children. Make this a glorious, affirming, beautiful day for my friends and my siblings.

Please, Lord, show us our responsibility to love and humble ourselves toward others, including those we've wronged. Please strengthen the many First Peoples of this continent. Please fight for them. Please renew their hope and spiritual hunger and vision for life. Please raise up leaders that will do Your will and live with integrity, dignity, vision, and wisdom. Please don't let America be a place of blindness, entitlement, abuse, or exploitation. Please make it a place of genuine repentance, compassion, generosity, gratitude, and restraint. Make us prudent, temperate, just, full of fortitude. Make us loving, hopeful, and faithful. 

Many Thanks, November 21 2018

Thank You for the moon over the purple hill as I was driving home yesterday. Thank You for my dusk walk today, into darkness. And to the catalpa, damp breath making the bark fragrant. I sat in the elbow of the apple tree. I listened.
I think sitting in trees will always give me a sense of wellbeing. I need to remember this.

Thanks for talking and prayer with A. Thank You that I felt really really awful in the late afternoon, but asked for prayer and went on. Went out. And still went to the service, and sang loud between Q and T, and even talked about Your provision. Thanks for all the things You're doing.

B and I hooked arms and skipped to our cars, and J ran back to hook arms and skip with Q. And I didn't hit any animals or people or other cars on the road. And Dad picked an enormous beet today. And You gave me music, by surprise. 

Feel a Lot, Feel Little, November 21 2018

Tuesday was hard. Not awful, and not bad as a whole, but it had a big sopping hole in the middle. I was pretty worn out at the end of errands and shopping, and then Mom reminded me we should call and visit folks. I was so upset. I felt like I had to say yes, but I was topped off. Spilling over, and the water wasn't sweet. Dear Amy Carmichael had that illustration right.

We went over, but I felt like someone going insane and trying to hold it together. I've realized they make me feel little. Coddled and annoyed, and guilty because I'm supposed to be grateful. So I feel bestial. I wanted to scream, roar, destroy something, tear something up, run away, die in the quiet dirt. Sometimes I think about how E would bang on the table if his food was too hot or he bit his tongue. I've felt like doing that so many times. I'm afraid of what would happen if I started.
Dad recently told me there are no longer any "rules" for me in this house, I'm just aware of preferences. It still feels like rules to me. It's almost worse. If I don't hear otherwise, preferences demand filial obedience from the Almighty. I'd like to keep the conversation open, so that deviation from preferences isn't voluntary sin. It doesn't matter, though. I will always be rebellious. I will always have a choice. I need to learn boundaries, and let things fall where they may sometimes.

"Giddy with godhead or with nonexistence". That happy Richard Wilbur phrase just cropped up in my head. I want to write more music. Good music, that I actually like. I think it will mean including friends, and taking time with it. And practice. This morning's Proverb reminds me that the king's heart is in the hands of the Lord. Every man's heart. My man's. Every man who isn't mine and never shall be. T___p's. Not my man. Father God, please direct me. Thank You for making me feel alright, not squished, when I feel little with You. 

Saturday, December 22, 2018

On Nurturing Creativity, November 18 2018

What nurtures creativity?

Start with prayer. I want to talk about morning pages and artist dates. And about paying attention. About how guilt and bullying are horrible motivators. Love and curiosity and play, those are good. WONDER. Listen to your natural rhythms. Be disciplined, show up to the work when you don't feel like it, but don't bludgeon yourself.

Art feeds art. Watch, read, listen to good things.

Being outside, reading good things (Bible included) are endless sources for material. Just living life, interacting with people. Let yourself feel things, notice things. Let yourself get angry, or be delighted, or inquisitive.
Pay attention to your anger, your jealousy, and what it's telling you.

Be careful who you allow to be a critic in your life. Write out all the things people may have said, or the attitudes you may have encountered, that paralyzed or disempowered or invalidated you. The things that made you feel guilt or confusion or fear. Then think about truth you can use to counter them. Maybe other, positive things people have said. Or the truth you have trouble believing about God and the nature of things, like how God is a Creator and made you to create. Creativity delights His heart. Artists can be sane and solvent. Artists can have healthy relationships. What so-and-so said about your poem or painting, etc., doesn't define you and may not be true at all. Just because your work wasn't the best in the class doesn't mean it's junk or that it doesn't matter. Even if your work always gets praised, it may not be great art, and you still need to practice. You don't live for praise.

Consider your job like that of an electrician (thanks, Mark Potter!). You're not Prometheus or a prostitute. People aren't here to worship your brilliance. Nor are you here to be their slave and pander to their whims. You're here to see what they need, and do something about it as only you can. Be a prophet. Speak the truth. The beautiful truth, and the difficult truth. Notice. Pay attention. Imagine what's possible.


We Change Each Other, November 14 2018

We change each other. And that's intoxicating and terrifying. And part of what puts me off from dating in general. Every little foray changes you. Would I be able to date, anyone, at this point in time? Would I feel like I had set out to do what God gave me to do, and done it? I'm referring to art, family, friends, etc.
I still see them too much as training ground for marriage, not for eternity. Marriage is also training ground, for all of those things. It's a good thing. It's not the best thing. It doesn't need to happen for my life to be complete, hard as that is to swallow. I don't need sex. I don't need a home. I don't need kids. I don't need health, or my hair, or my paints to know God. Help me to see my life stripped away, the essentials, and know what matters.

Maybe that's why I want to get rid of things, and none of my clothes feel right. Nothing is perfect. Anything could be got rid of. Even my favorites are flawed. How can I live to please You? A life of noticing, a life of poetry? The Kindergarten Teacher was wrenching and real, in that way. "I have a poem". So much to interact with in that film. So complex. But I'm glad, for now, that I watched it alone, and can't over-talk it. Who knows if I'll ever get to see it again, with the same flexibility on censorship I had on my Mac. But You know. Please, God. You hear me wanting You? You Yourself have been calling me, haven't You? Keep calling. "The heart rears wings bold and bolder / and hurls for him, Oh half hurls earth for him off under his feet". "You're gonna need / all the help you can get / so lift up your arms now / and reach for it". "It is almost like a sign from God". "O Christ / do you wake my ghost? / Sometimes it seems impossible / Did you give your body up to forge my trust? / Did you give your body up just to suffer for my savage love?" "Everywhere I go I see You". "All the stars we steal from the night sky will never be enough".  "There's no denying beauty makes a sound". "We're so helpless / we're slaves to our impulses / we're afraid of our emotions / and no one knows where the shore is / we're divided by the ocean / and the only thing I know is / that the answer isn't for us / no the answer isn't for us". "I'm secretly on your side". "Don't sit there stupid / get up and take it with both your hands". "I convinced myself that I would never find you / when suddenly I saw you." "A burden may change your mind".



Gerard Manley Hopkins: "Hurrahing in Harvest"
Glen Hansard, "Song of Good Hope"
The Kindergarten Teacher, "Anna"
John Mark McMillan, "Enemy, Love"
Rich Mullins, "I See You"
The Greatest Showman, "Never Enough"
NEEDTOBREATHE, "TESTIFY"
Feist, "So Sorry"
Imogen Heap, "Just for Now"
Katie Joy Nellis, "Succour"
Sleeping at Last, "Venus"
Horse Feathers, "A Burden"

Saturday, December 15, 2018

Whistling + Humming, November 12 2018

Yesterday morning, before we left for church, I practiced synchronized whistling and humming. I'm already getting slightly better. I sang a song:

"I can see my future / it's hazy and hopeful / a future where I whistle and hum in haaahmony!"

Something like that.
The Blue Ridge Mountains are so beautiful. I don't know if I'll ever live in the mountains, but a large chunk of me wants to. I might sing differently. I think your landscape informs your songs.


Free Spirit, November 11 2018

I've been trying to acknowledge my negative self-talk instead of just stuffing or replaying it, so I can answer it. Of course, I'm being too sensitive. But what I can I learn from my responses?

That I want my family to be proud of me. That I want to be perceived as professional and mature, or at least mature. That I want respect. And yet - that I don't want to have shallow, polished manners. That I don't want to be a slave to fashion or expense. That I do, in fact, WANT to challenge people's perceptions. To widen their experience. To give them other options for how to live, what to prioritize, how to love. To bring an air of freedom. To be authentic and refreshing. To be surprising. And to be comfortable enough with myself that I can admit all the appropriate facts, and even accept outright criticism, not balk at imagined scrutiny. You've got to help me, Free Spirit. 

Prove Me Wrong, November 11 2018

J met us there to give us a tour, and we ended up talking for a while, learning about his background in the Army (E9) and his current "boring" retired life as a substitute teacher. He was in active combat situations 5 times. It sounded pretty intense. He has PTSD, has to take meds to sleep.

I admit I was judging him before this conversation, because he talked slow and made shifty eye contact. I thought he might have some kind of addiction or deviance, but I wasn't empathetic enough to imagine PTSD. Or to imagine that he could be a highly intelligent, well-traveled, authoritative, visionary man. I'm glad when You prove me wrong, Lord. 

Art Critics, November 10 2018, Blue Ridge VA

There is a painting in this room, on the wall beside me, and I sang a little song about it yesterday:

"It's really weird / I don't like this painting / Oh well."

Sorry, "R. Young".
It doesn't look loved. The technique is colloquial and inconsistent. A cheap escheat. A Paris street "because that sells", I can almost hear the jaded artist say. There is a tiny passage I can stomach: two women walking into the obscuring mist. There might be a part of the sky I can like as well.

If you're going to paint with a palette knife, show us what it can do. Shortening can be cut into biscuits with more artistry. I am being very critical. Is this what critics do? Make a game, build or topple a career? I feel like someone tasting wine or coffee and imagining what is sophisticated or interesting to say, "Those fruity notes" "satiny finish" "chocolate undertones".

Something Dead, November 8 2018

The wasp's nest is in my room. Excuse me, the hornet's nest. I really like it in here, for now. But it's a bit stinky. Like dry saliva or something dead.

I hit a raccoon tonight. I hope I killed it quickly. It was horrible.
I didn't react fast enough to swerve out of the way; it galloped across the road in front of me, and I didn't stop. The car behind me might have avoided the body, I'm not sure, but I definitely crunched it. Back at home I gave a cursory inspection, and found a few wiry white hairs stuck under the nose, near the tire.

The accident interrupted a happy song. Afterward I tried to sing laments. Lacrimosa. I felt I should have done something to pay for that life. What instinct is that?