Holy Week {...and I've been sitting on a big secret...}
I have been sitting on a big secret. I have a story to tell you that you might not believe.
It is a story of perseverance, and connection, and the arts. It is a story that can't be explained by natural terms.
Some years ago, I wrote a piece and titled it, "The Inescapable Laws of Creativity". I worked so hard - persevering through much resistance - to get these thoughts down about it. I published them to my blog…
…to very little response. This didn’t bother me, because I write for the same reasons I make art: to scatter seed.
My personal symbol of creativity (you can ask The Preacher, because I want to get it tattooed on me, but he won't let me) is the dandelion. (Arrows, too, but that’s another metaphor.).
Maybe it is because the mature dandelion and I have the same hair. But more than that, they speak to me of influence. Dandelion seeds float out into the world, and you have no control over where and how they land, take root, and FLOURISH. Like the mustard seed spoken of by Jesus, the dandelion seed is invasive.
Come to find out, that small seed “The Inescapable Laws of Creativity”, floated unbeknownst to me, while this middle aged woman slept and cried and laughed and “grandmother’d” and cooked and ate and made art and prayed and lived my life - that seed floated far and wide and landed in the heart of the unlikeliest person I could have imagined.
A few months ago Mujahid Ur Rehman, a young Muslim man, living in South Africa, a nature photographer, was out walking alone. As he walked, he was pondering his own creative practice. Suddenly, the words "inescapable laws of creativity" kept coming to his mind, over and over.
Those words would not leave him. So he went home and googled them...
...and MY words came up, first in his search!
So he clicked on the link and the link took him to my blog. My piece on "The Inescapable Laws of Creativity" moved him so much, that he contacted me via Instagram to ask if he could use my words for a creative project of his own.
I know, right? Who does that anymore? Well, Muji does. (I can’t tell you how many times I have had my words {word-for-word} ripped off, or concepts that I have worked hard to develop are co-opted by someone else and passed off as their own “special idea” or their new “project”. I have also had my art closely copied. Usually by Christian women.) The level of respect that Muji communicated to me has given me so much hope and even courage.
So, as I said, Muji contacted me via IG’s “messaging” feature. Now. You need to know something about me: I never (as in n e v e r) open a DM from a man I do not know. ha. But for some reason, on this particular early morning, I did. I tapped the notification - and cringed, not knowing what would come up.
Instead of something awful, I read the most respectful, polite request to use my words in a creative project.
I visited Muji's Instagram feed, and right away I saw his gift. He is a very gifted photographer and video story teller. So I anxiously gave him permission, not knowing what would happen.
What has happened has been the beginning of a sweet creative friendship.
And a gorgeous, dramatic creative collaboration.
The result of seeking to walk out our art practice in an ethos of respect and permission and trust has been a greater, deeper, better understanding between a young Muslim man and an old(er) Christian grandmother.
That, all by itself, is an unbelievably good story. But. It gets better!
Muji enlisted his wife Naseema as the actress in this video. Dear, dear reader…watch the video.
I don't know about you, but I feel like can see into her spirit in this video, and it makes me cry every time. What a precious woman. She just so happens to be an ARTIST....and a physician. (Naseema, I am in awe. You are amazing!) And she graciously took time off to help her husband with his project. The two of them (plus someone they paid to work for them) traveled quite a distance to a remote location...
...just to tell this story. Using my words. Using his dramatic ideation. Using Naseema’s delicate, detailed watercolor art.
Please watch, and if you can, tap the "thumbs up" on this video. (Please sign in on YouTube and even start a YouTube account, if you haven't already, JUST to be able to click the "thumbs up" on this one video!)
It is a labor of love - no one has been paid one dime or dollar to create it, except the helper that Muji and his wife Naseema paid, out of their own pocket.
Friends, here is my point: THE LIVING GOD is using the arts to bring people together in ways we cannot imagine.
Hey, you. What have you been sitting on, too afraid of small beginnings, or too afraid to surf the learning curve it takes to start blogging? What have you left unsaid, because you are playing a deadly comparison game, or because you think you can’t stomach the anonymity of pouring your heart out, only to have no one read?
Allow me to show you my early blogging analytics. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and no one read for years. I can give you fifty solid reasons to blog, even if no one reads - but this post is already too long.
If I may challenge you one more time: Put your words out there.
Blow the dandelion. Watch what happens. Your words might just land on the heart of someone on the other side of the world, and gently lift them out of a creative rut.
Sharing your words will for sure get you out of a creative dry place.
Thanks for reading. Thanks for watching. Thanks for SHARING THIS POST. Please share it widely and with great love.
By doing this, you and I and Muji and Naseema can collaborate together - each of us a part of what God is doing in these days!
PS. the art Naseema painted will MOVE you...but it's mine. I am purchasing it from her - so step off. ;)
Day 39 of Lent - Peace, and Peace Again
The expression on my face must have made my gratitude obvious. Shew! It had been a long week, leading into a long day, all spent preparing to host this large gathering. I used to be the type to go by those random punch-lists from Martha Stewart magazine. You know the ones…they had sub-headings like “One Month From Your Event”, then “One Week Out”, and “Three Days”, “Day Of”, and even “One Hour Before Your Event”.
Those lists were my hospitality canon and I followed them religiously.
I am sure I had just finished adjusting the volume on the smooth jazz CD and lighting the hand-dipped beeswax candles, when the doorbell rang. Nervously, I opened the door, to lay eyes on the face of a friend.
She came right in, smiling back at me, juggling her purse and two packages. She knowingly whispered, “I brought you some homemade baguettes - they’re still warm! There’s two, though - one for tonight, and one for later. This other loaf is just for you. Don’t put them both out! You guys can have the other one tomorrow with your dinner, or freeze it.”
My. Dream. Guest. She was amazing. This friend never missed a chance to be a blessing. She could always see past the big picture, down to the kinds of details that always made me feel so seen and cared for. Come to think of it, she’s still that way to this day.
Can I tell you? The bread that was meant for eating that evening was even already sliced. I marveled at her forethought as I grabbed a large wooden board (I used ‘em before they were cool) and handed it off to her. She went straight to work, beautifully arranging her own bread on it. She then searched my cutlery drawers for a certain kind of knife, and with a big grin, pulled two small wheels of wrapped Brie from her purse.
“I got home from work just in time to form the loaves and bake them, then I came straight here. Sorry I couldn’t make this pretty for you before bringing it - here’s some cheese for now...”
I interrupted her with a thankful hug, “Let me guess”, I said “the other cheese is for later.”
Check. One brie went on the board, the other went in the fridge. For later.
The gathering that night was an enormous success. The next day, I felt that familiar, somewhat tired hospitality hang-over, as I walked through my home putting away the extra folding chairs, and getting all the linens into the washing machine. My house always seems to linger with a special presence after events like that. Savoring it is part of the joy of hosting.
As I did the physical work of cleaning up, I mentally planned for that evening’s supper. Whatever it would be, it needed to be simple. Suddenly, I remembered that extra baguette and felt the same little flood of gratitude I had felt the night before. That bread, with the other Brie and a simple salad would be a perfect dinner. A small but discernible peace settled my soul.
The little things really are the big things.
All these years later, fast-forward to today. I thought about that night my friend both gave me bread, and left me bread. Both breads blessed me in completely different ways. Both of them were necessary for different reasons.
She gave some, she left some.
A familiar scripture came to mind, and right here in 2021, my eyes stung with happy tears of fresh bread-like revelation.
Jesus once said, all in the same sentence, “My own peace I leave with you. My very own peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Jesus gives twice, too. But He reverses the order. He doesn’t give and then leave.
He leaves and gives.
He deeply understands both the big picture, and the details. See, He knew His death, resurrection and ascension was forthcoming, and so He was assuring His friends that He would both leave His very own peace with them....and then also give it to them.
He accomplished this by sending His “very own” Spirit - the Comforter. The plan all along was to leave a deposit of His presence with His friends. He said, very explicitly, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” He said, “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.”
As His gift, He would leave a durable peace that would see them through the immediate trauma and difficulty of the very next days. And then, He would also enable them to fulfill future mission, by giving His Spirit - pouring it out on all flesh, beginning with the Upper Room, and available all the way into today.
YOU are just as seen and cared for by a faithful God, as I was that night so long ago by a faithful girlfriend. My friend gave bread and left bread, and both loaves blessed me in different but necessary ways. Your God both leaves His peace and gives His peace.
So let not your heart be troubled - there is peace for today’s trouble. Neither let it be afraid - there is yet more peace for future fear.
Freshly baked, fragrant, first-hand peace is yours, in the form of a daily infilling of a mighty Holy Ghost.
He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.
His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.