preachy writings: May 2004 Archives
May 29, 2004
aimed in the right direction
Bryan and I are enjoying the sunshine on a holiday weekend. We are out doing chores, him vacuuming the pool in his never-ending quest for perfect swimming, and me pulling ivy. He takes a break and shifts gears. Having the need to work some sort of power tool he heads for the shed further up our hill. He calls down to me...
“I have a moral dilemma�.
“What?� I respond not being able to see his face and totally curious because he is the most moral person I have ever known, how can he have a moral dilemma?
He informs me that he has discovered a kitten near the shed, apparently abandoned by it’s mother. My jaw drops in response and in a flash I am entertaining ideas of nursing the little creature to health...but wait... I am bounced back to reality. We are a no pet family for various reasons one of which is I am extremely alergic... especially to cats.
In any case I am compelled to take a look, and the moment I do my compassionate husband says...
“Now it’s your moral dilemma�. Him knowing me well enough that safe to say I will deal with the situation practically. Having been born on a farm, although short-lived, the few years I spent there taught me that mother nature is cruel and kittens abandoned by their mothers tend not to survive for a reason. But I put on my trusty garden gloves and pick it up. It is tiny and grey with blue eyes...
I recognize it because there is a stray wild that comes in our yard with the same features. In fact our neighbor harbors many cats that are very efficient at making little cats which makes the moment less romantic. We have viewed them as pests.
Never the less the little thing is oh-so-cute, but I see that it is indeed ill, like it has a cold, but otherwise fairly strong even spunky. So what is the right thing to do? Tending to it and making it a family pet may work for some but that is not this family. So at my husband’s suggestion I tote it over to the neighbor’s to see if they would like to add it too their brood. They are not home. Walking back still holding this tiny grey ball of fur I know full well that it is probably going to die. As I enter the backyard wondering what to do I spot the cat that I suspect is mom and head toward it. Being wilder than tame it doesn’t want to get too close so I am left holding this kitten. The only option present (other than calling the humane society) is to place the little thing in the vicinity of it’s parents and so I stick him through the hole in the fence(the one in which the cat’s travel freely between our yard and our neighbor’s) and wait to see what happens.
Well, the little thing has imprinted on me so after I put it down in view of it’s own kind, it looks up and makes a run for me instead. Great. So I pick it up with my gloved hands and turn it around, facing the neighbor’s and coax it to move in that direction. Away from me. It starts to go and I know that chances are the mother is going to reject it as she had from the start, but it is really the only chance it has for survival. And so I hope.
I walk away, and as I start to turn back my husband says...�Don’t look back�.
I know it is the right thing to do, even though it seems so cruel. All I could do was aim the kitten in the right direction. It had to do the rest. I prayed it could, but I still felt awful.
Abandoning the rest of our chores Bryan and I went in the house. He made me a margarita.
A little later he had to go to the store in pursuit of summertime burgers to fry for dinner. The moment he left I went outside to look for the kitten. Just to check to see if it was still lost. It was no where to be found. I was proud of it. Although I didn’t really know where it ended up, I knew it wasn’t where I left it.
I went back inside thinking about the kitten and wondered how often God aims me in the right direction with real clarity on what I should do next, only to come back to find me sitting where he left me.
Posted by blairanderson at 09:42 PM | Comments (1)
May 28, 2004
mutant growth
I sit here working. The view from my desk is of our backyard. First there is my herb garden, then a grassy slope down to a pool and a forest. Sometimes I see deer there. But today something obstructs my view. My mutant lettuce. As I wrote before, I am leaving it to grow just to see what happens. But It is starting to look like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes(one of my favorites). Except of course Attack of the Killer Lettuces would be less bloody because there is nothing red in lettuce. Anyway, looking at it I have to wonder if this is one of those things that resulted from the fall. Did eve wake up after that awful day to find giant lettuces taking over her garden?
I need to measure it.
On with my birkenstocks, I grab one of the many tape measures we have laying around the house from all our remodling and tromp outside. I try to avoid stepping on all the polite little herb plants that surround THE LETTUCE. They haven’t complained yet but if THE LETTUCE gets any taller it will threaten their sunlight. Standing in the middle of the garden I measure.
It is 67 inches tall.
Which means it is 7.25 inches taller than I am.
Posted by blairanderson at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2004
ode to aunt gladys
I have been thinking about her alot lately. She is my husband’s aunt. His father’s sister. In her 60’s. Everytime I have encountered her she exuded servanthood. Coming from a conservative church upbringing I always wondered how she managed to forge through life ultimately to be ordained and pastor a church. Not that the family didn’t support her, they just didn’t talk about it. When it came to ministry it seemed easier to discuss my husband’s music ministry in greater depth than what Gladys was doing...
Throughout the years our ministry notes rarely overlapped. In fact they looked totally different. While my husband and I were serving in our church creating cool programming to attract “seekers"?, on the otherside of the continent she was visiting the sick. The year we installed projection screens in our “multipurpose room"? she was serving as an airport chaplain. When we began the fundraiser for our 9 million dollar auditorium she was being ordained. When the building was finished (only 2 million over budget) she had taken a post at a small church in the prairies of Manitoba mostly tending to the needs of the elderly. I find myself in mourning over thise reflections right at this moment, to the point of tears. Not that I think that the ministry that we were doing was not part of god’s design. No. Reflections in the now don’t invalidate the actions of the past. But I can’t ignore the impact that they have on me right now. Maybe they are giving me directions for the future. Hmm.
I always regarded Gladys as unique. Not in a cool way, but the awkward way. Not pretty. Never married. The kind of person that you couldn’t quite fit into any particual social category. Yet one thing I knew without a doubt. She was a servant of Christ. You could smell it on her.
Somehow I think that I will be reflecting on her more in the future. Maybe I should give her a call.
Posted by blairanderson at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2004
apostles creed, herbs and mutant lettuce.
today I need to produce a visual string of the apostles creed. so i will read it and think.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.
after some reflection on these words I feel the need to weed my garden. Maybe I got as far as “earth� and that set me off. I do know when I create like this I need to be true to the whispers of god or ultimately what is created is less than it should be. So instead of just launching into production mode I need to weed...
Armed with my funny foam knee pads...
(from other construction remodling endeavors) and putting on my trusty garden gloves that garauntee protection from garden evils real or imagined, I start to pull. I also have this little rake that i use to stir up the dirt. My garden is tiny, only 12 plants. 10 herbs and two lettuce. Except one of the lettuce is now as tall as me. I never knew that they grew like that. The other one is doing the same thing but it isn’t quite so tall, so I pull it. The tall one I am going to leave just to see what happens. Call it survival of the fittest. My mutant lettuce.
I am grateful that my herbs are doing well. They are for Bryan’s creative cooking sessions. I plant, he cooks, we eat. We team up like this in a lot of things. ...Ok train of thought off of the track. Reflecting on earth, creation, dirt. The dirt smelled fresh as I scraped the weeds out. Displacing worms as I went I tried to recognize the gift of the moment instead of treating it like a task. So often I miss those gifts even when I know they are a little repreive from god. Sanctuary from daily grind. No profound spiritual metaphors emerged but I scraped and pulled and finished feeling more awake, more humble, and more ready to create.
Nothing quite like being on your knees.
Posted by blairanderson at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2004
art as an act of worship
I have a thought (or two) about art, the artist, and the dance between the creation of art for the sake of communicating gods truth and creating art as a response to god as an act of worship. These are two very different approaches to life as an artist. I beleive they can coexist but need to be recognized as different. One, the act of communication through visuals assumes that the viewer (target) will have a response. There is a goal. Simplistically, if you show a group of people an image of something touching or tender you may be hoping that the image will illicit a touching or tender response. This is one way to do art, with an expected or desired reaction of the viewer.
I am presently exploring another way. An act of worship unfettered by my thoughts of what others will think, or more importantly, what I want them to think. This approach sometimes seems selfish to me because it appears to not have a goal, and therefore must be self indulgent. I know that is ridiculus, but it is a part of my personality that I struggle with, and unfortunately a part that is reinforced and rewarded by our present culture. What does a pure artistic act of worship look like? When I am prompted by the creator to create it seems unreasonable at first. If I follow my creative instincts within that moment, feeling, inspiration (whatever) something truly amazing happens. Not only am I rewarded with a sense of fulfillment that takes place at finishing a work of art, but I have a very strong sense of being with god. The act of creating while in worship is like being in the same room with the master, touching, having him guide your hands...
Often times I am in production mode. A skillful artist can pull this off pretty easily and still seem like it is annointed, but the greater connection can be missed. Art as an act of worship is more like a spiritual discipline.
I appreciate some of the churches efforts to recognize that visual art in various forms can bring people closer to their creator. We are in the awkward, babystep trip and fall stages of this. I fear that it can easily become the next “flavoring� in worship. What can be a prophetic voice can be reduced to an “ingredient� to the program/service, whatever. What I find dangerous about this is what happens to artists who are serving their local church body with their art. Because the present church is so attracted to formula it is easy for an artist who has a willingness to serve god with their art, and a trust for those who navigate ministry to become only production oriented instead of creating art as an act of worship. Or at least striking a balance of the two.
As an artist this can have deadly consequences. I have experienced some of this. Our present consumer culture drives it. The artistic ego is more than happy to play along as long as it is fed with approval. The cycle that results is artists who settle for the affirmations of man instead of god, and art that, although it looks really good, may fall short of what god intended. Over time this can leave an artist with an empty well, and a practiced skill of just making things look pretty.
I think in the context of the emerging church their is hope for the artist. It seems that the focus is shifting from a formula, get ‘em in the door with a great program, and then they can experience god’s love, to something a lot simpler. Loving your neighbor. I truly hope so. Because I think the spirit of the artist can thrive here.
Prayerfully considering artistic expression in a corporate worship setting is key. The question is who is praying? The artist? The leader in the church that “wants� art? I think these are important questions. Do we want to fill a slot if time with something “cool� or can we seek something greater? What does God want to say? Are we really listening, or forging ahead with an agenda that is really about production, not community.
I saw something at the emergent conference(san diego) that bothered me in this regard. I have to give credit to the planners for wanting to include a visual art piece (other than just screen media) for the purpose of educating pastors that visual arts are an important expression in the emerging church. But I was disappionted by what was presented. Understand that my perspective doesn’t come from just an artists point of view but also as a planner. My husband has been in the planning seat in a number of denominational settings for almost 20 years. I have been an active participant with him. Together we have seen some of the evolution that has taken place within “programming� in some of these denominations. So I can sort of put myself in those shoes. Sometimes those shoes are hard to fill, and sometimes they have big targets on them for people to lob personal opinion grenades at. I don’t want to lob any granades. But I want to understand, and as an artist, and a leader of artists, I want to be part of the discussion as we birth this baby.
Picture it. In the center of a room filled with conference attendees, an artist was set up infront of a canvas that appeared to be blank. After prayer and a brief explanation of what this artist was intending to express, that the art was an act of prayer for a friend who had cancer, he began to paint. Or so I thought. I was so encouraged by the fact that an artist was allowed to open up to god’s spirit and create art as an act of prayer, and as a body we could collectively pray along with his creative act. So risky. What if it took longer than the slot of time allowed in the context of a conference? What if it was too breif? What if it wasn’t any good? As an artist I had a sense of hope. But as the artist worked I realized that what I was watching wasn’t an act of prayer in the moment. Instead of painting the canvas he was removing paint to reveal an already finished piece of art. Mood music played as he wiped away paint with a brush as if he was applying paint. At first I was confused. I was in prayer along with him waiting to see what god would reveal in his art. I prayed for the artist and his friend. But as I saw the progression of paint being removed, and finally realized that the art had been finished ahead of time, I felt betrayed. I was also curious about what the non-artists in the room experienced. I still look back and wonder if I somehow misinterpreted what I saw.
This is where I feel like I am not brushed up on blog etiquette and how what one can ask from potential readers, but I have to ask a question. And if in my arrogance I can believe that anyone would read this, I would invite answers. What was this exercise intended to teach us? That visual art needs to be present in the church as another “cool� element, but it must be controlled? I am still mulling over the choice that the planners made in including what I can only define as performance art. I think performance art is a valid form, but because it had been framed as an act of prayer I felt somewhat manipulated. If we are to explore the role of visual artists in the context of corporate worship my hope is that we are careful not to settle for what is less for the sake of formula. Do we dare to seek the voice of God?
So I continue to explore what it means to personally worship God with creating art. And I remain an observer, participator, pilgrim, in what art is and will become in the corporate act of worship.
Posted by blairanderson at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2004
the world is still flat and I am dog paddling off the edge
I had a conversation with a good friend recently. This friend has been a friend for years and years. His denominational journey has gone from Episcipal to Charasmatic to Presbetyrian (nine years as one and still don’t know how to spell it) to finally Baptist-ish. The conversation was a casual thing after a sunday lunch in which my husband had volunteered to lead worship at his church(whole nother story). Anyway, somehow we landed on “emergent women leaders�. I realized that this is going to be a fresh and interesting journey for me when his initial reaction was laughing acompanied by a pantomime of the creature in the movie “alien� bursting out of it’s victim’s chest. I am a huge movie buff so I found it mildly funny because the name had conjored up some interesting imagery for me as well. But there was something else. An awkwardness. A need for greater explanation. I wasn’t sure what to say. The fact that it needed explaining beyond the general who what, info made me realize a few things. Some people are uncomfortable with this. Even those closest to me.
This was reinforced when I was on the phone with my mother. Bringing up my involvement in ewl in passing conversation made me pause. I adore my mother. She raised me as a single mom and I never felt like I had missed anything growing up. She is cool and hip for her 75 years and she is also thoroughly conservative. Her and my stepfather (raised Catholic and now evangelical) attend a lovely thriving church community in Arizona. This particular church has a conservative view of women. I have been there. Great people, great church.
So, on the phone, mid sentance with my mom, I hesitated in telling her about a group who’s initiative and goal involves supporting women pastors.
I can’t blame her for the response that she might have given me because I didn’t give her the chance. I skirted the issue and skipped the details. Maybe I was tired and I knew it might involve a chunk of time on the phone that I wasn’t ready to commit to. Maybe it was an act of honoring my mother. I am not sure. I just know that at the verge of telling her the “important stuff� the picture that came to mind was her head exploding ala “Mars Attacks�. I know another movie reference. Get used to it.
The thing is, if I were to run into the me of the past(say four years ago), that version of me might not accept the me of the present. At the very least she would look at me funny. I can tow the party line with the best of them. It was really pretty easy. I was serving in a large PCA church. Regarding women in leadership roles; push never came to shove in that setting until near the nine years that my husband and I served there. I was acting as communications director (stupid title) which among other things involved selecting what would be announced on sunday morning out of the gobs of program options available for the church attenders. The executive pastor did the announcing. Time marches on and things changed as things do and I left that position and it was filled by another woman (Karen) who wrote the necessary verbage that was to be conveyed from the platform as it was everyother sunday forever more. But, there came a time when all the pastors, executive and otherwise were out of town except for the primary speaker(who couldn’t do it of course, don’t be silly). So the logical choice was Karen. She wrote the content after all. Only two, three minutes tops of speaking. My husband holding the position of Programing Director(love those titles) put Karen on point. Logical choice, no problem.
I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the story played out, and really the details are not important, but Karen did not do those annoucements. A woman speaking from the platform. No way.
It may seem absolutely ridiculous to me now, but I am not who I was four years ago. Granted, the lights began to come on for me at that juncture. That moment of confusion was back. The blinking back of a thought that said, “wait a minute...when did Jesus say women couldn’t do announcements when in the oh-so-moden-business-model-church she is allowed to write them? Crazy stuff. Pick and choose. Hmmm.
If I sound critical I can’t be with any gut conviction or any sense of superiority because that place is part of my journey. That place was just one of the many god-placed stepping stones that constructed my path. Just like my friend who laughed at the notion of emergent women leaders, I too have been molded and formed by some of these constructs. And now the me of the present can look back at the me of the past without saying, you fool... but instead be grounded (hopefully) in humility and be able to love my “me� of the past, and also my brother who laughed.
Posted by blairanderson at 08:23 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2004
no closure in laundry
Creative fires may be burning today, but it is too early to really tell. It is only 8 in the morning and what artist in their right mind would be creative so early. So I wait. There are a number of things that need to be done today. Pesky chores, the kind that keep things running. I am so uninspired by the chores that need repeating. Laundry is an example. It never ends. The instant you finish the last load you aren’t really finished due to the outfit you have on. Short of running around naked, I can have no closure in laundry.
Cooking comes in at a close second. Although my husband views cooking as a sport I regard it simply as another chore. Although there is a creative element to it, I am uninspired by the fact that the creation, once eaten, disappears. I guess I have a need for my creative “children� to hang around for awhile. So cooking is no good.
But today the chores are more of the business type. Bookeeping, filing, etc. The boring parts of my business. But since I feel blessed by having a business that alows me to work at home I welcome even the pesky chores. So maybe it is good that the creative fires arent burning at the moment. I can get some of the less than creative work done first.
Posted by blairanderson at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2004
i choose joy
fettered by the chains of sin in my life
I choose joy
bound and gagged by its unrelenting
you gave me joy
crippled and marred
I must have joy
torn
you offer joy
consumed by the unjustified image of myself leaves me tetering on the edge
I partake of your joy
and am healed
Posted by blairanderson at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2004
there is a hair in my drain
You know the moment of confusion that comes right before the acceptance of a new concept. Depending on how pliable you are determines the length of that moment. I am pliable, so my moments tend to be brief. I readily accept a new concept delivered to me by someone who must be smarter than me(everyone). What concepts? Anything big or little.
What I have recently discovered is that moment of confusion is discernment. And he is a friend. He has a big brother called conviction. Conviction is the pesky thing that comes back at you after the initial, and for me too brief moment of confusion disappears to be replaced with the accepted new concept that just happens to be wrong. The accepting of a concept without letting it bounce around your brain a bit, travel down to your heart, and maybe survive the whole grid of your being that determines whether an idea is wise or stupid. Acceptance of a stupid idea invites conviction to return to haunt you like a hair in the drain. Everything seems fine and then one day in the middle of the shower you look down and there it is. A big hairy clog.
It is like being told you are ugly. Everyone has had the experience in one form or another no matter how attractive they are. The moment you hear the words there is the gut response of, No, followed by “they must be right�(acceptance of a bad idea). Eventually conviction swoops in to right the wrong, and you realize that you aren’t ugly. Not even close. Then you wonder how you got confused.
This is where I am at with church. Not God, although I have been keeping him at a safe distance because of the clog. The Church that I have been involved with for so many years. Served with conviction(I thought) and the willing giving of my gifts. My art. My life.
The Church. Not the core of Jesus atoning work on the cross and the redemption of all humanity, but the other stuff. Elder boards and committees. Pot lucks and Christian self-help books. The politics. The culture. All of the little pieces that make up the business of church. Pop-church. Each piece I willingly accepted after my brief moment of confusion. The blinking of wisdom before the snuffing. The brief recognition of something amis right before giving into assumingly wise people and institutions. Confusion ignored, acceptance is followed by the seemingly easier conforming. Conforming to the actions, the language, the rules, the bad ideas.
I am not mad. I am embarrassed. Embarrassed that it is conviction that has had to kick me in the ass, hard, to wake me up to truth. That, so often, I didn’t listen to his little brother, confusion, in the first place. That conviction heaped ontop of conviction has resulted in a hairy mess.
We are confronted by bad ideas all the time. In small incremental units they appear harmless. But left unchecked they are distructive. Passionate faith to poison koolaid. Maybe it is because we don’t have the time to care for our souls and so we allow the spoonfeeding. I don’t know. Everything that is touchable and tangible seems to comes first, and the action of being in ministry can be one of those tangible roadblocks to the healing of our souls. Like listening to that new worship CD while driving past a homeless person. It may feel religious, but isn’t doing any good.
Not to say that our involvement(Bryan, me and Daniel) in the church hasn’t been a true following of God and us acting on our perception of God’s will. It is that we didn’t notice that somewhere along the way we had changed and the church in which we served hadn’t. And the inertia of that change pushed us right off of the ship and into the water. I am looking back at the boat we were bumped from and see that it appears to be sinking. I guess it is better to be in the water and know you are in the water than to be in a sinking ship thinking everything is fine.
So here I am with hair in my drain.
I am presetly armed with vats of draino and rubber gloves. It is icky and disgusting but it needs to be done. It is time to remove the clog.
The task at hand frightens me. Acting on the conviction means that I can’t conform anymore. There is a lot of comfort in conformity. It is easier. You don’t have to think, you just follow. But finding out what is on the other side of the hairy clog is the right thing to do. Health for my soul lies there. Inspiration for my art lies there. Learning how to love my neighbor lies there. Jesus is there. What I find interesting is that the conformity disgusts me, but I am familiar with it. That makes it comfortable. Doesn’t the Holy Spirit work most on the outskirts of comfort?
I know that the Holy Spirit resides somewhere in me. Right now I think he is in my foot. My foot because it is the furthest away from my heart without being apart from me. Any closer and I don’t think I could bear it. He is at bay because of the hair in my drain.
Posted by blairanderson at 07:54 AM | Comments (2)
May 09, 2004
i blog therefore i am
I am reflecting on the act of blog. when I emailed my sister that I was going to start blogging she responded with “I hate to admit it but I have no idea what blogging is.� I had to laugh but only for a moment because I didn’t know what it was until a year ago and it has taken me this long to get around to trying it. It amazes me how something begins in a culture, like a new buzz word, bling-bling, or a new fashion, or the sudden urge to go buy an SUV when you never really wanted one. Or to blog. The phenomenon started in our house with Daniel. At 16 he has already been involved in cyber community for a few years. I have always considered myself a pretty hip mom but I didn’t really get the concept of blogging. At first. Then I started reading. Reading other peoples blogs made me understand a bit more, and as a parent, being able to read your kid’s blog, well that’s just great. You get a different perspective on them as a person. It’s cool.
So here I am. I know enough to realize that in our isolation we crave community, and blog seems to feed some of that craving. But it is funny. I struggle with it a little because at first it seems so arrogant. Who the heck is going to read this? Who do I think I am talking to? I have gotten wrapped up in those questions and it stopped me from doing it. Self publish. Is that the goal? To many questions. The kind that occur when a new form of something hits the scene and not everybody buys in at first. Wasn’t it like that when the first automobiles came out? So here I am left standing in the road.
Well, part of what I didn’t get was how people found the time. And yet I have been dogging myself for a year to do “morning pages�. This is an exercise done to stimulate the artistic brain suggested by Julie Cameron author of The Artist’s Way. So in order to justify the time taken to blog I am making it my “morning pages�. Even though in Julie’s world these pages are meant to be in longhand, and that no one is suposed to read them. Oh well.
So here I jump. Into the rushing stream that once was just a trickle. Hoping that if there are any rapids they aren’t acompanied by jagged rocks of criticism. I will add my tiny drops to the drops of others and as they combine my hope is that the ocean that is created washes us with greater tolerance, patience and love. Did somebody start to play a violin? Or maybe it was Moby.
Posted by blairanderson at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)