11 posts tagged “god”
"Before we were here", approx 8"x10", watercolor, ink and pastel:
Here is a detail picture:
There is a question I asked as a child and now my children ask it of me...
Here's a small art post for the weekend. I'm working on an idea that involves a character from another original painting I did some months ago. The below is more of a study. I'll be experimenting with palettes and balance and doing more study paintings. Then I'd like to do a larger final painting. It involves the themes of human evolution, spirit and motherhood/childhood.
"The beginning". Approx 16"x10", watercolor, ink and pastel:
Sketches and layers:
I wish you all a wonderful weekend with your family and friends.
Today, my feathers are ruffled and I feel a bit on edge because the same old topic, my old ghosts, continue to wrack me. Making psychological, sociologically and religious shifts in life's paradigm does not come without uprooting the foundation entirely. My mental house creeks. There was rot and mold that had to be ousted. There were roots which had entwined the pipes of this organism and I hacked them away. I speak in metaphor because speaking literally hurts my mouth (pride?), then later, the people who've always known me. But, inveriably, I'll write more and more till it trickles out of me. I've written this a million times, and erased it, clicked delete. So, I say this the best way I can. Now it has been years since I've moved away from a conservative and religiously closed-off life and I continue to find areas of detritus I have to shake loose. I've seen too much and done too much to know, we aren't evil. We're not born bad. We all make our choices. There is no one who has the one simple truth. There are billions and billions of years to have added up to this moment right now, and it can't be summed up with a glib sermon or the pointed finger of a white man who has only known his comfortable, christian bed, the one he was born in. Having heard from pentacostal and baptist pulpits a religion of isolationism and racism (yes, racism), the one that sends entire countries and cultures to a elected and prescribed hell, I reel inside. It's a shame it wasn't sooner that I saw reality. It's hard to see past one's own ethnocentrism. It is the same ethnocentrism within a self-serving system which reduces homosexuals to comic book characters or shapes them into monsters; I can not and will not sit in another conversation and say nothing when I hear such atrocious sentiments. I can not be divided into two camps of thinking. I must say what is right and stand up honestly for what I know is real. We are all equal in the eyes of God. All. Equal. There are billions of people whose hearts beat and blood flows just like my own. There are women round our world holding their own babies in their arms, feeling the love I feel and aching for it never to end. These people are not doomed to any hell, any more than I am. There are problems which pious prayers will never answer... but love will. The eyes of my heart were jaded once. Now I see, always so imperfectly, but I see how the language of love is the substance which is GOD. Any more than that, I can't say for certain. I've stopped claiming that I know the one truth. I'm human like you.
I've heard people call themselves recovering fundies... and I've thought about that a lot. But, you know me and how much I hate labels. Still, I do feel often that I am recovering from something. Today my brain hurts a little. And it should.
These things dwell within and without and make me feel. This is a life.
I'm working slowly on the art of drawing and painting and it is interesting to see what comes out. Some recent work and sampling:
In so many ways, life can be a fumbling around kind of thing. I think it is this way most of the time. More specifically, every facet of life is about learning and here I am in the crux of it - parenting, marriage, personal growth, spirituality, body starting to show signs of age - and in my later thirties, not feeling any closer to the answers. In fact, I think that there really aren't many answers and that in and of itself is a strangely comforting finality. There was a spiritual road I took for most of my life which asserted there were lots of answers and lots of truths and lots of things I should be and wasn't yet. I bailed out of that, realizing there could only be just a few truths, if there were going to be any at all and I certainly would never be even close to attaining its kind of ideals. And I didn't want to anymore. It was hard to realize and admit that the system was a closed one. It was a system which created its own problems that could only be solved by its own answers. One day I realized I quite stood outside of that system. I awoke and didn't feel so bad anymore. God loved me.
Tonight, I stood in my shoebox-sized studio and looked around. I saw many paintings which had failed my ideals. I started to feel very overwhelmed and the thought occurred to me that I might be attempting silly things. Perhaps my ventures might be for another time or maybe not at all. But something clicked, or rather, snapped. I smiled and realized I am attempting to learn a lot of things. I am learning. I am learning to work with three mediums - watercolor, pastel and ink - all at the same time. I am learning to be myself at the same time that I am a wife, mother. This is something that women, that I, don't alway care enough about and I have sometimes told myself to martyr who I am and put my independence away for later. That notion doesn't feel right and deep inside I know how important it is to be a full human, to eek out the bits of time to do this. Tonight, I pushed away some old ghosts of a spiritual past and it felt good to rethink the failures and understand what they really are - precious moments of existence.
what are we inherently? good... evil...
i would like to say good. but science rules me out. we are...
human. entirely and utterly human down to the smallest part. every single cell. but before i am categorized as an atheist (which is tempting at times), i think science and spirit spiral together, forming a curious web which is the stuff of humans. for now, that is where this rabbit trail ends.
here are two latest works in progress.
and here is "Fire", now complete. for now, i think it is my favorite. but, i reserve the right to... oh, never mind.
a fond thank you goes out to those of you who continue to follow my progression of learning and creativity. all of your comments are extremely generous and kind.
what happens if i do this?
it seems my small family has adopted this mind frame lately. exploring new creativity, asking ourselves to delve further. the children are discovering where the edges are and where is the middleground. tweaking life as we go. experiments with thoughts and ideas, creativity... and doing this all simultaneously in our own way. i caught lucas looking at his own hands today, then moving them together and apart, curling his fingers inward. the expression was, well, one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen. utter disbelief/fascination. jaz continues to ask the questions and make statements i would think fitting of a great philosopher: god is everywhere, mama. he is very, very big. and he is inside of me. he is very, very small too.
we are practicing the "spaghetti experiment" as my husband calls it; throw ideas against a wall and see what sticks.
today, i finished a small painting. the outcome was not completely satisfying because the balance was way off-kilter, however there were small elements within the picture i loved. and so it will go that in my next painting i will take those small elements and try them again and see what they do. down another path.
i see many of my friends at a similar place in life. trying new things in life, but moving in a direction that is sometimes almost oppositional to how they were raised. experimenting with new careers. taking big risks and staying true to their hearts. asking larger questions. maybe i've just never noticed it before now.
no one can tell me there is a pat answer for how my life must be lived or why. yet, i've listened for so many years in the past to all of those voices, thinking, though their ideas didn't seem right, maybe they know better than me. but they don't. we each have a voice of our own and we know what it sounds like. it is a very private philosophical and spiritual matter. for me at least. when i stray from this, i get so confused. luckily, i only need to watch my children and then i feel home again within myself.
today on the way home from target and mcD's (American life), i took a round-about way thinking my toddler would have a little more munching time. me - i'd already scarfed my meal, three minutes flat. we were talking about firemen and a birthday party from the previous evening. suddenly, a beautiful mountain bluebird flew out in front of my subaru. one instant i was thinking that the bird had an odd flying pattern, next moment, he zagged downward toward the car. and i hit him/her. that was all there was. my heart jolted. "oh, no! the bluebird - " was all i got out, and then went quiet. didn't want Jazz to understand what had happened. perhaps i should have explained it all. but i thought differently at the time. instead, i babbled back responses to odd toddler questions - "yeah, that was some fireman alright. yep. uh-huh." inside i was thinking that this little bird had mattered in the scope of things. he had a nest somewhere, probably still warm from his little body. a childhood bible verse came to mind. i am so sorry.
this weeked we lollygagged around the house and that's pretty much it. but as the weekend progressed, i realized two things: i am very blessed to have my family, alive and whole and happy. selfishly, i realized that i sometimes grow weary of our small town and want for the closeness of family. but there you are. i can't have everything, now, can i?
we've been electing one bible verse every week or so for our family to fix upon. all of us. not just the children. it goes on the fridge and there it stays. i think this has been centering. there's lots to be said about contemplating on things that make us better humans and remind us of God's love.
parenting draws out the best and worst. it parses through the meat and the milk of who we are. i remember my speculations about parenting and can smile now:
-maybe we'll be bohemians and travel the world, living like gypsies
-our children "will never do that"
-we will be unified parents all the time
-being older parents will make us more prepared
-i'll suddenly leap into my role as mother and be ready for whatever happens
-i'll find time for everything, including being myself
-consistency isn't so hard, just do it
and on and on. parenting has got to be the thickest slice of humble pie i've eaten in my life. thankfully, as much work as it is, it is also the MOST rewarding thing i've ever done.
what i've been thinking about lately is our focus. what is our family focus? we could focus on a million things and then there would be no focus, dividing ourselves into little parts and trying to be everything, feeling fragmented. i've read lots of books and listened to lots of people. and i'm still open to that, but, there is more. i continue to search for the existential meaning in each day, but there is more to that too. i feel there is a greater and inclusive desire to impart the need for our father, God, to our children. why choose this as the focus? in all my experiences, in all the mountains and valleys of life, there God has been, the glue that keeps my life together, my marriage on track and my selfishness at bay. despite my antagonistic relationship with the idea of church, theology and modern christianity, i still recognize God's divine presence in every day moments. enter: parenting. it is the most complex and multi-tasked experience there is. some days are willy-nilly and other days almost organize themselves. just when i feel there is some predictability, a new phase tilts life upside-down. if my attitude is a spiritual one and i am focused, then i feel excited and challenged and thankful. it's then that i see the connections, or at the very least, feel faith take over, and i can trust that there is a larger, beautiful picture that is being constructed by our actions, large and small.
this is what is weighting my thoughts this week.
i get the feeling i get second chances at the same lessons in life. if i were of a time traveling mind or a believer in reincarnation, i'd say, "been here before". life points its finger at who i am through similar experiences and i can either choose entropy or growth in those moments:
my big mouth - luckily, there are repeat opportunities to be better at controlling what i say, when i say it. i have the distinct problem of saying the right thing at the wrong time in the wrong way. i have good motivations, but, you know, timing is everything.
God as father, as parent - wherever i am in life, i return to this knowledge and spirituality. i understand this idea more intensely now as a parent. having a relationship with my children has been an eye-opening experience into understanding how God loves and nurtures me.
artistic chaos - i can say that, wherever i am in life, i find myself back in the eye of an artistic tornado and feel most at home there. when i get away from it, my mind is vacant, i lack inspiration. if my life doesn't have some ongoing artistic chaos, something's not right! it's interesting to me to think back through phases in life where art and music were almost non-existant, where beauty had, in small degrees, become less apparent, less present. those have been eras of functioning just to function. a bad job. moving to a new city and trying to find an identity early in marriage. having a religious meltdown in my early thirties. a family dispute. here i am now, with the two new humans in my life - i now have endless reasons to be inspired. and artistic chaos? well, if you have kids, you know that this is never in short supply!
it seems to me our lives are of some sort of circular rhythm, where we can view once again a familiar landscape and approach it yet again with older eyes and hopefully a better understanding for what we need to survive and enjoy it.
