Another Collaboration Across Time, Space...And Even Religion
There are connections that only a mighty God can make.
Once again my friend Mujahid Ur Rehman (@mujahids_photography ) and I have collaborated across space and time and even religions. And it’s beautiful.
Mujahid (who The Preacher and I are privileged to simply call “Muji”) stumbled across my blog a couple of years ago. He is a nature photographer and video artist. He is a storyteller at heart, he has an incredible story himself, and he was drawn to some writing I’d done on the arts and creativity.
Muji’s wife Naseema is a physician, whose father, also a physician, was the personal physician to Nelson Mandela…(but it’s whatever. ;) ) Naseema is amazing in her own right both as a doctor, and as a watercolor artist. Muji managed to recruit his wife to be the featured character in our first collaboration. Here is a link to the back story:
And here is the link to that first video:
“The Three Inescapable Laws of Creativity” - a collaboration by Mujahids Rehman and Sheila Atchley
If you watch the above first collaboration, you will see a beautiful painting by Naseema featuring a bit of dandelion fluff with a sweeping vista. I am now the honored owner of that painting. I have a letter from Naseema taped to the wall of my home studio, where it inspires me daily.
Though we’ve never met, and Mujahid and Naseema live on the other side of the world, though he is Muslim and I am Christian, the following video is the second piece of my writing that Muji felt drawn to bring absolutely alive with his video talent:
I feel very honored. I also know that all this is for a reason. This message of the importance of our gifts and the fact that God wants wholeness for us, is already touching the lives of scores of women, as Muji is already getting messages and feedback about this latest video, our second collaboration.
He did all the hard work, he and Naseema and others. Their creativity together as a married couple is what feels priceless to me! (And by the way, I will also be the proud owner of the “cupcake” painting Naseema was working on in this video. It will also be framed, and hung proudly beneath the “dandelion” painting.)
I would love to ask you once again to pray for my friend and his wife. Again, it is my opinion that these are things only God can do, connections only He can make.
Please watch the video, maybe even “follow” Mujahid on YouTube and Instagram, and give these two videos a thumbs up.
An Artist's Prayer Before Showing Her Work
image by Sherwood Media
Holy Spirit,
May you and I break bread and breathe together in this mysterious-yet-material fellowship of making. Keep alive my wonder, oh God of all creation.
As I prepare to show my work, may the real center of attraction be the ineffable sense of your Presence. What else do I have to give that is actually mighty, and able to save, stabilize and nourish shaky starving souls?
As my making comes under scrutiny of men in ways that feel quite embodied, uncomfortably immediate, and of a larger scale to me, give me the courage of my convictions: the conviction that each artist, even this workwoman, is worthy of her wage.
May I do this with other makers in mind. May each one see what else is possible through my experience.
As I quietly make an offering of my hours, my honing, my honoring, my history, and my husband’s sacrifice as well, I come prepared to share my powerful story, of which I am both its steward and sole truth speaker.
May those who have heard something of me one way, come and hear my side, see my scars and my smile, and go away encouraged.
Take my tiny talent and tether it to the greater work that The Son has already done.
It’s all I want.
In Jesus’ Wildly Worthy Name,
Amen
📷: Sherwood Media