A particularly poignant topic was given us for June: the Kingdom of God. Since it is such a trite and tiny topic ; ^ ) I thought I’d include my June post here, despite the fact that anything I could write on such a thing makes me quake in my shoes!
Category: Christian spirituality
Conversing Through Conversations, pt. 4
Slowly getting you caught up on these posts I share on Conversations Journal. Here is April’s post. Blessings and peace…R
Conversing Through Conversations, part 3
Here is my Conversations Journal post for March of this year. In it I touch on a favorite discussion: the spirituality of home. I’d love to hear some of your own thoughts and yearnings on this most powerful of topics.
Conversing Through Conversations, part 2
I continue the process of sharing with you delightful friends some of the work I’ve been doing at Conversations Journal. What follows, albeit a little chronologically disjointed, is my February Conversations Journal post. You can read it here.
Conversing Through Conversations
As any writer will tell you, “write, eat, sleep, write, rinse, repeat.” I am as much scripturiant* as I am anything else. Writing has become for me, prayer. Through it I expose my thoughts, first to myself, then to a watching (and sometimes unsuspecting) world. I like to think of myself as a diamond in the rough. Who wouldn’t given the many not so glamorous alternatives? Hence, my writing has a kind of…edge to it. Informative? Yes, I suppose. Transformative? Certainly for me. Honest? As much as possible. What that means is that one will find me easily enough hiding among my words,. But it’s what I don’t say and how I don’t say it that will, more often than not, give me up to those wiser than I who see through my cynical facade.
One of the ways I’ve been invited to live with a life-with-my-pants-down honesty is through a blog for which I’ve been contributing the past few months: Conversations. It has been refreshing to participate with some very fine people in plumbing the depths of the Christian spiritual enterprise together. This has been an honor and privilege for a guy like me – frequently disarming, leaning a little Southpark in my philosophical pathos and MLK in my political one, but polite when I need to be. Senior editor, writer, spiritual director and friend (well, so far at least!), Tara Owens, has taken a real chance on me. For this I could not be more humbled and happy.
For you followers of my blog(s), I am so deeply grateful and want to share with you the pieces I’ve proudly contributed to this fine blog and invite you to join me there even as you’ve done so faithfully here. Thus begins a journey of Conversing Through Conversations…part 1.
Hopefully, you’ll like my pieces enough to check out others and perhaps…subscribe?
*Scripturiant: (those possessing a compulsion to write)
Crazy Writer pic: www.bookpregnant.blogspot.com
A Longing Still Being Fulfilled
It has been two and a half years since starting this blog. In that time, life has fashioned me just like it has you. I’m in the throes of developing a brand new website. I’ll keep you posted on that. Until then, I give you my very first blog post from this site that still rings true for me today. Please feel free to share with me your own thoughts, longings either fulfilled or not, hopes, dreams, frustrations…the works. Let’s do this life thing together.
Still in one peace…R
A journal entry: Friday, July 19th, 2013
These words flow from a pen both weak and hungry. They dump onto paper in an effort to unload excess flotsam from my soul. My pen is also hungry for words other than those that seem only to spill out in self-expression, self-deprecation, self-indictment, self-actualization, self, self, self…blah! There’s so much me that there is precious little room left for anyone else. At times like these I’m left to ponder whether I’d even recognize the harmonious, lilting song of God above the shrill, cacophonous din of my own voice trumpeting its need of something or other.
Instead, let me bring the pen of a ready writer, a writer, ready and poised to praise the One whose words I seek. The Logos – the Ultimate Word – forms the inspiration for my little words. Maybe as I write my words in praise of the Word, my story will begin to take on the shape of the Great Narrator. Let your wise and beautiful words, O Logos, letter my life with beauty, honesty and truth.
The Beginning.
Undone – a prayer, part 2
Great One, retire my insistence upon
remembrances of ways and times and talk
that match not God-viewed reality.
Darken my bright skies if only
to ensconce my darkness,
shattering all illusions of self-projected greatness.
Pry open the coffins of dreams long forgotten,
commitments never kept, promises never made,
if only to unleash the surprise of grace.
Scatter my nice collections of mantelpiece spiritual kitsch
and replace them with broken glass, bits of string, yesterday’s ashes
if only to remind me of my own frailty.
Tear the gilded pages from my life’s journal
and use them like fish-wrap to enfold
someone else’s yet to be written story.
Plant new gardens of life
from places of my own death.
Spur on to greatness the little ones
from my own obscure forgottenness.
Prop up their ailing mistresses of peace and hope
with the severed arms of my own distress.
Renew in light the victimized, en-shadowed and de-spoiled
with my own pursuits fit only for stolen kingships.
Undone – a prayer
I’ve been taking a break from my series, “Reflections on Faith and Art” to bring some other stuff important to me right now. Prayer is close to the top of that list. Granted, writing, specifically poetry, is a contemplative prayer practice, I’ve always found the writing of prayers themselves to be, well, prayer. Here is one I posted to Facebook that seemed to bless. Hence, I thought I’d bring it here in the hope that it blesses a few more. Shalom, dear friends.
Lord, show me a place to tie the ends
that beg to be braided into multiple strands
joined in singular purpose.
Lift the fog enough to see the edges of solidity,
and fray the ends of cords I only think I need
to tie my world together.
Unleash into my presumptive skies
the birds of purgation carrying with them
twigs and branches for the task.
Let me author the story of my own demise
if through my disappearance you fill
someone else’s stifling horizon.
Swell in the hopeless heart
a future of light through my abiding darkness.
Write someone else’s story
complete with satin ending on gilded pages
torn from the tattered book of my tired, half-written tale.
Finish others by my incompletion.
Airbrush another life
with the melted crayons of my own.
Sing another’s song
with notes plucked from my own
unfinished symphony.
Make yourself heard in the silence of my song.
Art As A Work Of Life: A Guest Post by Janet C. Hanson
It’s not that I’m a snob, although some might disagree. Nor is it that I’m lazy, although others might disagree. I simply haven’t had guest posts as often as I should. With this offering by blogger, Janet C. Hanson, I’d like to change that. When she posted this and it found its way into the internet aether, it was pounced upon quickly like hungry birds to a free meal, tossed around, shared and shared again. She’s insightful and warm and wise and witty. You know, kinda like me (as I am in my bios).
Originally posted on April 30, 2013 by Janet Hanson
A l’oevre on reconnâit l’artisan. You can tell an artist by his handiwork. ~French proverb
“You can make art or make a product. The two are very different.”
My art teacher, Randy Blasquez, shared the quote on her blog. The context was art and love. “Why doesn’t love come across when you look at a painting? Because it wasn’t put into the painting! The artist was pleasing the gallery or trying to sell.”
How much of your life is spent trying to please the gallery?
The books on writing, the books on art, the books on living life to the full, all agree: Skill matters, but love is essential in any work of art.
I think you would like my writer’s group. Around the word-slinging circle you’ll find a Whitman’s Sampler of styles. We take turns being the discouraged, remind me why I am doing this member, or, less often, the poster child for astounded success. I’ve learned by watching these women wrestle with their art. Things like,
- A good writer is generous. They bleed their fears, doubts and delights all over the page, with nothing held back for later.
- A good writer refreshes. They peer into the fog and refuse to blink until they notice a reason for hope.
- A good writer lights the way. With words gripped by ink-stained fingers they draw us from the dark.
Bad writing may sell books, but readers are left in shadow. A bad life may look successful, but the world is left just as dim.
Art As A Work Of Life
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10
Together, we are God’s handiwork.
Does your story prove that it’s true?
Generous, refreshing, bearer of light, are we changed by the reading of you?
Every day, we’re given a choice–to be just another product, shaped by the world, or let God shape his image in us.
Where have you noticed God’s artistry at work in your life?
Find out more about Janet and her wonderful material here.
innerwoven 