Day 17 of Lent, and Evil Hormones and Five Leaf Clovers and The God Who Goes To Work As We Go To Sleep

On my better days, I know that when I align my actions with my inward consciousness of the fellowship of God, what I do (and especially the art I create) becomes a form of prayer.

Today might not have been one of those days.

It didn’t begin well. That’s usually how an off day starts. I blame The Evil Hormones, and this thing of spending all night throwing the covers off and on and off and on. I exaggerate not: I woke up this morning feeling like my arms had done a mild workout. But it was just the “wax on/wax off” motion of cover-tossing for hours at a time.

But enough about me, what do you think about my hair?

As much as I hate to admit it, today has been one of those days that I just get through. If I were to add up all the times I’ve spent in my life “getting through”, it might be half my life. And you know what? A good life coach would tell me that that is perfectly fine.

She wouldn’t tell me that the “getting through” part is fine - because I should be able to manage my thoughts better than merely “getting through” a day. No, she would tell me that half of my life being slightly unremarkable is okay! In fact, that is normal and to be expected. Life is 50/50, hard/good, boring/riveting - and don’t we all have to learn to manage our mind, will, and emotions in the 50% that is….meh.

Thank God that His day begins as mine ends. In Hebraic tradition, the day begins at sundown. So as I am washing and derma-planing my face (!!), He is setting about the task of restoring my soul as I slip into sleep. The Preacher and I pray each and every night that we would meet with the risen Christ in our dreams, in whatever form He chooses to reveal Himself.

May it be so.

Tomorrow, I wake up to brand new mercies, made fresh for me. All I did was sleep off the previous day.

The real trick of the poets, prophets and artists? The real trick is to learn how not to carry yesterday’s battles and yesterday’s stuff into tomorrow. Tomorrow, we begin fresh. We develop deliberate amnesia as an act of holy worship. Then, we work with eyes wide open, and without malice aforethought towards all the people in our lives who took The Road Less Than Smart the day before.

We get a fresh slate. And because we get one, we get to give one.

Tomorrow, may even your most complex tasks be done with a sense of spaciousness and joy. May you wake up and make your steel cut oatmeal for the sake of the blueberries and the generous glug of cream. May you lift hands and heart to heaven and clap and laugh together with the Living God (because He thinks you are funny!). And may He send you a sign and a wonder, and I hope He gives you a beautiful child to administer it, for the family.

Exhibit A:

Our beautiful grand-girl found a (…are you ready for this…?….)…

FIVE-LEAF-CLOVER.

There is no doubt in my mind that it was given as a kiss from heaven to my daughter Sarah, artist son-in-love Jonathan Howe, and their girls…and then, almost by default, the rest of us here in the cul-de-sac got to soak up the glory just a little bit, too.

Five leaf clovers. In our cul-de-sac!

Tomorrow is gonna be a five-leaf-clover-kind-of-day.

Day 16 of Lent - Rituals and Receptacles

Creative work is unlike any other kind of work. It’s intensity can be disconcerting, until you learn to manage the fluctuations of energy, to expect them, and work with them not against them.

circa 2018, a sold original

I’m tired of the word “rhythm”. "

“Creative rhythms”. The phrase has been overused for several years now. Granted, it is hard to find a suitable better phrase - but we have to try. My contribution to that effort is to call that closed circuit of creativity “disciplines of delight”. And it is a circuit - one thing leads to another, there needs to be a grounding, a conduit, and a source of power.

Disciplines of Delight.

I hope you have many.

Inspiration is this deeply spiritual, highly subjective, beautifully undulating thing to me - like the school of fish in my above painting, or the murmuration of birds.

Problem is, true, gritty, gorgeous artistic inspiration…well, it is about as explainable as a murmuration. To even attempt to teach it might be to pull the magic right out of it, but I always find myself trying to teach it because I always find myself being asked about it.

Two years ago, I taught a class where I went into some depth about what I called creative “rituals and receptacles”. As artists, we need to anchor our practice in rituals: sustainable disciplines of delight - and then we need receptacles: quality, dependable places to put all the ideas that spring out of those disciplines.

Reading is one of my daily rituals. My journal is my receptacle. One of my favorite things to do, is to pull out several books I am currently in the middle of, and then have my journal beside me, and spend a solid hour just “grazing”. Going from book to book, and writing down quotes that stand out. More than the quotes, though, I will write down cross-applications that come to me.

Lord, I feel like I just gave away the farm.

All the good juju is right there, in what I just told you. Ritual and receptacle. For example, “see and sketch”, or “hike and design”, or “clean the studio and paint”.

Here’s my favorite: “read and write”. Be inspired by the very best, put yourself in front of the very best, and find something true about marriage in a book about praying with the liturgical, monastic “hours”.

Oh, trust me, it can be done.