"God is the author of both love and creativity...it is your creative voice He waits to hear...no one can express the reality of your interior life; you are the only qualified author for this creative work."~Kari Kristina Reeves (from the book, Canyon Road).
I didn't want to write about my feelings of anger. That was the task Julia Cameron asked me to contemplate as I journey my way through her book, Walking In This World, The Practical Art of Creativity. She asked for fifty issues that brought out feelings of anger. Did I have fifty items? This assignment felt counterintuitive. Wouldn't it be more productive to write fifty things that caused joy, brought delight? I hesitated, desiring retreat from the homework. Yet Ms. Cameron coaxed, "When we think of our anger as something that should be excised or denied rather than alchemized, we risk neutering ourselves as artists." I began.
At first I doubted I could name fifty. As I allowed myself to ponder, the list materialized--People who can't say "I don't know."; the insensitive man who told me my eyebrows reminded him of Mr. Spock; suffering children and animals; writers who glamorize depression; selfish people; ungracious, negative, critical people; complainers; worriers; feeling tired of upholding others; not getting paid for writing; judgmental attitudes and over-intellectualizing; porn; magazines that don't even bother to respond to submissions; people who think God is mean; loss of youth and bad TV.
Ms. Cameron said that allowing oneself to be fueled by anger can bring solutions. I didn't hold out much hope that answers could surface from my dissonant list. Yet I began to get an image. Earlier in the week I'd applied a face mask after a long, hot day in the Carolina heat. I took a brief glance in the mirror, my T-zone covered in bright green mud. I thought of war paint. And now I imagined that my anger could act as war paint. I envisioned God the creator artist holding my head with his strong hand, a paint brush hovering over my face, His palette of colors nearby. "Hold still," He'd whisper. "Hold very still so that I can apply the paint. These colors are my brushstrokes upon you--my protection as you gear up for coming against all those things that bring you anger. I feel angry too at injustice, shame that people live under; suffering people and creatures; distorted views of who people believe I am. Go forward, outfitted for war. Uphold the concepts of grace and love and creativity. Be a strong voice. Don't retreat."
I will keep soundng the war cry, my anger rightly fueled, my face reflecting the distinctive colors of the great creator. God is good. God is faithful. God is not against people. God desires to furiously bless. His mercy is staggering.
And now I turn to you kind artist and reader of these blog posts--what angers you? You are the only author that can speak of what your anger fuels. What do you glimpse in the mirror? Name your brilliant colors. Out loud.
I have been known to buy lipstick simply because I'm intrigued by its name--Barely Nude, Just So, Moxie Be Bold, Arm Candy, Persimmon Canyon or Dragon Fruit. Is there such fruit? Yes. And it's as bright as the pink shade of that tube of lipstick I bought at the CVS without knowing what color I was getting. Lipstick is comforting.
Before work the last thing I do is apply lipstick. I select a shade and glide the creamy silkiness across my lips. The vibrancy of color brightens my face and buoys my mood. Sometimes I write a note to my husband and kiss the paper, the lip print an authentic "sealed with a kiss."
Just this week I listened to a Ted Talk. A brave woman spoke of helping other women in war zones. When she asked the women living in those dangerous territories some of the supplies they wanted, she was surprised to hear that one of the requested items was lipstick. "If we're going to get shot, let those who would shoot us or bomb us know they are killing beautiful women."
While I don't live in a war zone, thank God, having simple things to make one feel better, to feel comforted, is a grace in itself. I think of coffee in the morning, the burbling coffee pot, (that sound in itself a consolation), the wafting fragrance of French Vanilla, that first hot sip I feel all the way down. The soothing and melodic sound of the Baroque station on Pandora when I'm typing report after report at work. The nice man at the post office who let me use his pen and didn't make me get out of line. Who was patient and waited for me. The child who waved at me in the grocery store and said "hi." That smile. That sweetness. Pen and paper--a verdant comfort zone suffused with ink and emotion. The morning sky--an acreage of clouds and streaks of pink more splendid than dragon fruit.
God steals in and comforts--just when we need it. When we're tired. When we're about to give up. When we're about ready to lose it with our partner--when they don't comfort--can't comfort. It's the Holy Spirit, the great comforter, that genius comforter, that creative comforter who knows what works to bring life to our faint hearts. Even lipstick in a war zone.
We sat around their little white art table. Baby Jonathan held a miniature rubber basketball and gleefully chanted "ball, ball, ball." Lilly drew a picture on pink paper. I marinated in their midst absorbing the innocent presence, embraced by their peace, the warmth of our fellowship. "What are you creating, Lilly?" I asked. On her sheet of pink paper she'd drawn multiple pairs of eyes in black ink--dotted lines spilling from the eyes down the page. "These are Martians. The Martians are crying."
It struck me then that perhaps a four-year-old had unconsciously tapped into the Zeitgeist of our world. Weeping, weeping, weeping for all the tragedies stacked up so high we can barely breathe. If Martians were looking on at our planet they surely would be crying for us.
Earlier in the week, I'd awakened with a prayer in my mind that poured out of my lips. "Teach me how to rejoice, God. Help me learn the art of rejoicing." Where did this prayer come from? This was the polar opposite of what I should be feeling, what I should be expressing. All this racial unrest, all this killing and pain--the confusion and uncertainty--the trauma and blood. Could there be a place for rejoicing?
As I pondered this question I remembered a time when I'd serendipitously bought a package of glow-in-the-dark stars at the Dollar General. I didn't know what I'd do with them. I tucked them in my purse where they lay forgotten. Then one day, alone in my office suite, the stars fell out of my purse as I was about to go home. But instead of leaving, I climbed up on my desk and affixed the stars to the ceiling. When I turned the lights out, I looked up and the stars glimmered there in the darkness.
The glowing stars became a sort of symbol for me-- a reminder to look up--to turn toward the light. I think those stars are still there, although I no longer occupy that office space.
And God is still there, even in these tragic times, offering us answers inside His mystery, His grace, His love, His creativity, beckoning us to look up and abide in His light. Perhaps we actively practice the art of rejoicing when we run toward that light, believing in and appreciating His presence--like sitting around the little white art table. And when we turn away from His healing light, perhaps He weeps along with the Martians.
It's an old tree. I'll bet if I could see its rings, they'd go round and round--internal circles of patience and wisdom. I love this tree.
The ancient oak is stationed just down the road from my home. It is huge, but not looming. Welcoming. Its limbs are dark arms. Often I climb up into those boughs, an embrace. I rest there, leaning my back against the tree's sturdy trunk.
The tree has heard my buried secrets, my longings, my praise, my prayers, my supplication.
This oak tree reminds me of God. The listener. It's easy to love someone who listens. You know the feeling--the experience of being in their presence. They look at you, and you perceive they're moored to whatever it is you're saying, telling. They're unrushed. They're not waiting to get a word in--head tilted to one side, an ear cocked. They don't want to miss anything you have to say. They lean forward. You relax. You don't have to hurry up and finish what you're saying, because you can tell that they're not dying to say something--to assail you with their piece, their opinion. And your story spills out, like a spool unwinding, a sail unfurling. Their silent attention brings clarity. Truth surfaces.
And good listeners do reply. They let you know they've heard. They ask provocative questions. "You're tired today. You'd like to take a few hours for yourself. What are you thinking about how that will look?" And you think, "Yes, why yes, I could get out my paints. I could plant that rose bush. I could take a nap. I could...
Being heard creates energy, brings hope, affirms, helps rid the toxins, slows a racing heart. Allows breath. And breath is life.
I lift my face to the breeze. I hear the rustling leaves, whispering tree--validating my presence, reflecting my thoughts, no wish to see me go. No hurry.
I would stay. I want more and more of what I find here. Yet I know I can come back. The tree waits for me. I inhale one last time--breathe in that oxygenating peace, knowing I receive something intangibly majestic each time I come. Because He has listened so intently to me.
The complexity of death is like a thousand rooms, difficult to accept--memories of the one gone like narrow lines of light at the bottoms of doors, locked for eternity.
This is how I feel as I stand in front of those locked doors grieving my colleague who died this week. Over the last year he'd been having some medical problems, but he'd been back at work, and we'd been finding a rhythm again--a rhythm that we'd forged for over a decade. I grew to know what he was thinking before he even spoke. He knew when I was likely to forget an item or two and completed the task without criticism. We did not socialize outside of work, but I knew details of his family and he mine. He had a way of listening to everybody, really. But he listened to me too. He'd place his hand on his chin and provide full attention, his gray-blue eyes locked on mine. When I finished speaking, he might sit quietly and nod, or say something so salty or funny that I instantly felt better. He could read the moment and knew what to say. Some days we were so busy, I hardly ever saw him. Other days, we worked side by side. We could be quiet together without saying anything. We trusted each other.
He leaves a young family. I feel for them--to lose him so fast, so suddenly. He was only 48--a man who exhibited tangible goodness. I can't really imagine how much his wife and two children will miss him.
Right after I learned of his death, I had this flash of him in my mind. He looked young, a head full of dark hair (he'd lost most of it over the years). He was laughing, joyful. I want to keep that vision of him in my mind. I think he'd want me to. I know he'd want me to go on doing the work we did to help others. I can just hear him say, "It's damn important, Priscilla." So I will.
At the funeral his precious 19-year-old son spoke. He said he remembered his dad telling him at times, "It's all good son; it's all good." His son ended the memorial speech by saying, Dad's all good now, and so am I." I imagine my colleague saying this to me too. At the end of the service strains of I Saw the Light played as we left the chapel, back to our individual life paths...no more darkness, no more night.
God's peace, kind friend and dearest colleague.