You are
expected and yet
unexpected
the Deliverer of
spontaneous delight
and sacred ordinary things
Yours is the light
that wreathes my life
in flowers and
shows me how
to See
Talitha Fraser
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Over a series of weeks we will dip into a breadth of creative activities, drawing from a variety of resources, that invite us into a space where we encounter God and reflect on our Christian life and praxis. To give a loose sense of connection across the series we’ll frame them with an Opening, close with a Benediction and include a time of prayer each week. We recognise everyone as spiritual beings and welcome people of all faiths and none. We encourage you to bring a journal or blank notebook if you have one.
WEEK ONE
The activity this week is taken from:
The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom
This book by Christine Valters Paintner draws on The Rule of St. Benedict summarised in the phrase “pray and work,” it explores the mutually nourishing relationship between contemplative practices and creative expression.
We did the Wisdom cards activity together.
For those playing at home you will need:
- 3 x sheets A5 watercolour paper (for each person)
- Invisible tape
- Watercolours
- Paintbrushes
- Pens to write
- Magazines to cut up words and images
- Glue sticks
The first thing we do is prayerfully consider a question we might ask our inner child (what do you visualise when you hear the words “inner child”?) – write this question on the back of one of your A5 sheets of paper. You can decide for yourself if you want your canvass landscape or potrait!
[Tip: This is not a magic 8 ball. You will get a lot more out of this exercise if you ask BIG open-ended, existential type questions like “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of all of this?” over small questions like “Should I buy tickets for the Mumford and Sons concert?”]
Next, our inner Wise One (what do you visualise when your hear the words “inner Wise One” or monk?) – write this question on the back of another of your sheets of A5 paper.
And thirdly, a question we might ask them both together.
Turn these so they are blank side up and shuffle them around so you aren’t sure which question is on which card. Now tape them down to the table, blank side up, with the invisible tape. This stops the paper moving around while you’re painting and gives your work a clean border when you peel it off later.
If you’re resource sharing, at this point some might paint while others cut up magazines. It doesn’t matter what order you do this in. Flick through some magazines and cut out anything that jumps out at you. Words, phrases, images… anything that captures your attention or seems to speak to you. Once you have a decent pile in front of you switch to painting and colour as you feel. Some will instinctively feel bright and light, or dark; be highly detailed or minimal splashes of colour – there is no right or wrong way to do this. Go with your gut.
Now collage. Drawing from your pile – try this image with that phrase – does it fit with this one of your cards or that one? You might need to go back to the magazines, you might find you only use 10 of the 40 things you cut out. It doesn’t matter. Your cards will kind of speak to you, when the right words and images are assembled you will hear them and know that the card is “finished” and you can glue everything down in place.
Now you can gently peel away the invisible tape and see which question is written on the back of which card. Consider what synergy there is between our questions and these creative answers, the premise being we can often know answers to our own questions but we have to sneak up on ourselves to figure it out. Write these reflections in your journal.
Find somewhere to prop your cards for a week where they can be a visual cue. In a week, sit with your notebook again and see if there is any further learning/awareness to be drawn from your wisdom cards.
the sun shines
and I fear the grace
given to me has gone away
somewhere like a bird freed
to a better and happier place
people are fleeing, drowning, dying
fear is a relative thing
you must look at me and think
I don’t know what fear is
I fear I don’t
and that desensitises me
to you somehow
lost, cold, hungry
should I call the cops on you?
that’s only called for if you’re
taking what I don’t want to give you
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry we cannot be more generous.
Talitha Fraser
I wake early on the second morning in my new house. I’m still learning the new sounds and lie half asleep trying to associate each noise to an action: that is a drawer opening, that is someone coming downstairs, that is someone going out the front door, that is someone being really careful to be quiet in the kitchen… How considerate. I roll up thinking: if I let them know I’m up, they can stop worrying about waking me.
The lights aren’t even on! How is anyone meant to get ready for work in the dark. I flip them on to tease my housemate, “Thanks for being considerate but you don’t have to tiptoe around in the dark!” and realise very quickly that this roughly-dressed man coming out of our pantry is not she.
I think we both froze and then I followed up with something stellar like, “Hey”
I follow that up with just what’s on the surface.
“Are you looking for something to eat?,” and continue babbling as I move into the kitchen, “Do you want toast? I could make toast. And coffee. I can’t really function before I’ve had coffee.”
He says, “No thanks” and we move into a conversation about the purpose of the Footscray Community Outreach house. He’s on the street and looking for housing but we’re really set up for families with children so he can’t stay here … “How did you get in?” I ask. “Knocked”. He replies casually.
I talk about our open community dinner. I don’t have housing referral information but if he comes back tonight I’ll print stuff out. Eventually we run out of small talk and I indicate I need to start getting ready for work. “No problem,” he says, “I’ll show myself out.” But I follow him to the door anyway, see him out, check it latches, then check all the other latches. Just in case.
Later in the day I fire an email around: “Hey guys, think we need to be making sure the doors are secure at night. Found a community member in the kitchen at 6.30am!”
Aah, but, as it turns out, my new friend is not a known community member and I’ve been having a chat with someone whom I guess may have been casing the place looking for something to take.
There’s lots of different ways to respond to finding someone you don’t know in your kitchen at 6.30am. Apparently, “What the hell are you doing in here? Get out!” {with optional further swearing for colour}, is a more common response… and quite a confrontational one.
At the first point of contact, I am standing in the doorway that, as far as this guy might imagine, is the only way out of the room. He will have to go through me to get out.
I’m in my pyjamas, I’m not wearing my glasses and (sorry to let the side down) I’m a girl.
I genuinely didn’t feel unsafe at the time. My confusion was probably an advantage to him – had my housemate just let him in? was he known in the community? has he lived here before?
What is your need? I have just unpacked in the kitchen, bought some food… is there anything I would really miss? Anything I couldn’t give you?
It starts to sink in more as the community responds to my blithe email. Housing referral information, sleeping bag, dinner, someone to be with me when he comes back to the house (it will be a bloke), clear boundaries to be communicated, all residents are informed and offered support – “How can we continue to make this feel like a safe space?”… it may have been out of the box, but as the story spreads beyond community to friends and work colleagues I am asked again and again “Why didn’t you tell him to get out!?”, I can only respond helplessly, “Well, if I’m choosing out of hostility and hospitality… I can back hospitality up yeah?”
In responding out of my pre-coffee and ignorant state I have possibly dialed back a scenario that might have been unpleasant. I’ll give you that. But I am interested in what the factors were that made my response different from what it might have been because it seems how spaces are set up and what our expectations are of those spaces purpose can impact the range of responses available to us when welcoming strangers:
- I expected my home space to be a common one and for stranger to be welcome there
- As a lead tenant of the house – hosting folks who rock up is part of the position description
- I expect people looking for something at 6.30am need it. I don’t do anything at 6.30am without a really good reason.
How can we make: “What is the need that brings you to this place?” our first consideration in responding to others? (whether that’s kids, partners, work colleagues, or randoms in off the street…)
Not a bad thing to pick up the first week on the job.
We did a mindfulness activity at Sunday group last night led by Bron.
For three minutes, take a segment of mandarin and explore it with all of your senses – touch, taste, sight, smell – as if you have never tried mandarin before. What do you notice?
For ten minutes, focus on your breathing, in and out, sensations in your lungs… chest… nose… Focus on your breath and nothing else. When thoughts, feelings, plans, tasks come… recognise them and let them pass like clouds in the sky above you – a degree removed from them – without judging yourself for wandering.
I have just collected my sister at the airport and Melbourne is flourishing with flowers to mark the occasion.
We’re walking home through the city following dumplings in Little China town on our way to the station, we go to cross Swanston Street near the State Library and we hear a voice exhorting in a microphone.
“What’s going on there?” asks my spiritual-not-Christian sister.
We have wandered along Southbank earlier tonight and watched the Crown flames shooting high against the dark night sky, seen a jugglers routine, listened to a buskers rendition of an Elton John classic… the city is in fine form but I sigh to see Cross Cultures church steps covered in handpainted signs saying:
“Repent!” and “Jesus gave his life for you!”
“Sorry,” I say, “someone soap-boxing repentance.” (I can’t even ad-lib here for you because I don’t remember what the words were they seemed so empty to me, I couldn’t hold them)
“Why are you sorry?” she asks.
“It offends me he can stand there and assume we don’t know God. Everyone here (sweeping arm canvasses Melbourne nightlife) was made by God, in the image of God and is in a relationship with God whether they acknowledge it or not – his God is small, static, fixed and I imagine he puts more people off than he draws in… it puts me off!”
“Doesn’t any of it connect with you, speak to you,
remind you of old times?”
“No.” I respond flatly. But words of old times prompts the tune of Be Thou My Vision to mind and I lose track of the conversation for several metres… naught be all else to me save that Thou art, Thou and Thou only, Thou first in my heart, O be Thou my vision…
That was a close-ended answer. Answered for myself, out of my own filter and judgmental in its own way. You have to think about what prompts a question and, defensive of potential association with street-side evangelisation, I did not inquire “Did any of it connect with you?”
ooOoo
I don’t suppose that an old man on the steps with his carefully handpainted signs and fervent faith is any threat to me so I don’t know why I need to set myself in opposition per se… are we ‘fighting for the same side’ or am I taking him down with ‘friendly-fire’? That has sometimes been the difference between good and evil winning in some significant cultural narratives. Ambitious in-fighting on the dark side vs. a coalition of goodies working together – Star Wars; The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; Lord of the Rings… do you believe in fairytales? Do I? Is that where I would look for answers? for truth? Jesus set himself against the Pharisees, hanging out with Samaritans offended the Jews… he set himself against things as an outsider, ignored class rules and hung with homeless people and lepers. Some of these stories have someone on the darkside who turns at an epiphany moment – Anakin Skywalker, Edmund, Boromir… and heroes that will die to achieve a greater good in Aslan and Frodo (although he doubts himself there at the end of all things)… at different points each lead has a mission they have to fulfill on their own, their own battle to fight in the bigger picture. Does it seem silly to try and use stories and ideas we already have to try and understand another Story?
We all choose stories to live by – from our families of origin, from our friends, gang, from TV/movies, books… but how many of us consciously choose what story we want to live by?
We have the power and the freedom to elect that as if our life were our very own pick-a-path adventure.
I went to see The Desolation of Smaug with friends and one commented upon coming out their frustration that “there’s no one in that film to look up to!” Thorin refuses to keep his promise to the people of Laketown, the people of Laketown get angry about that and side with the Elves who bring them food and supplies, the King of the Elves wants some of the treasure under the mountain for himself… the hero is the Hobbit yeah? Bilbo may be keeping the heart of the mountain to himself (albeit not for himself) so he’s not looking that good either… what a responsibility to have rest on individual people to see and work for a greater good that isn’t apparent to others and will cost you friendships and family along the way.
But what can you do to be in a position to see or know what the greater good is?
How do you know if your version of the truth or what you believe in will come to pass? There must be a moment of risking everything, not knowing what will come of it, but knowing you have to make the next choice because it is necessary right in that moment and whatever comes next is beyond that.
What stories will you live by?
What stories will you choose by?
ooOoo
I followed up with my sister the next day:
“That guy, from the steps last night, did any of that connect with you?”
“Nah, I think I counted the word hell seven times
and didn’t see the word love once”
ssh… ssh… ssh…
the sea soothes
ssh… ssh… ssh…
the sea moves
ssh… ssh… ssh…
the moving sea soothes
ssh… ssh… ssh…
the soothing sea moves
ssh…
ssh…
ssh…
Today feels like a day for bright colours. Uncharacteristically I am wearing one of the skirts I have made – full and colourful, no one around today to comment on it and I love that – what would we wear any given day if we thought no one would ever say anything?
I feel nervous carrying my homemade 
signs to the marriage equality march – do I carry them facing inwards until I get there? Am I going to draw negative attention from people that are anti-gay or anti-Christian? You are making a choice, to set yourself out, apart, from ‘normal’ people going about their ‘normal’ day, doing ‘normal’things.
To be contrary, I line them up beside me on the seat at the bus stop while I wait – people idling in the weekend traffic read them but no one says 
anything and I am almost disappointed… let’s do it, let’s talk about how we’re treating one another. People see the signs – rainbow broadcasting
makes the topic clear – no one says anything… aah, I have found a new way to be invisible.
Now at the train station, I put in my headphones as I step into the train carriage, block out an uncaring world and I am tapped on the shoulder…
“Hey, you want to join us here in the marriage equality corner?”
…I am welcomed in, a place, a space made for me and my signs. they look me over assessingly, am I like them?
“I haven’t ever been to a rally before, But I have been to the Sydney Mardi Gras – I hope it’s like that – there’s a power in people coming together from all over, no matter what their age, race, religion, gender orientation is… there’s something really powerful about that, ay?”
Yes. Yes there is.
How much riskier must it be if your clothes or mannerisms or something “give you away” and make you feel like you’re carrying a rainbow coloured banner with you everywhere you go… I’m embarrassed of the fear I felt of some kind of retaliation for sticking my neck out… is this a fear people live with going out their door every day?
The act of solidarity isn’t just showing up at the parade but being willing to put yourself in a position to share the experience of the person being marginalised – so what if someone did yell something out of a car on the way past or defaced the sign or comes into my personal space with aggression. Is this something gay people ask of themselves every day? “Do I wave the banner today or mute something of who I am so I don’t attract attention?” As with all movements perhaps it requires some to be be ‘extreme’ with it to broaden the range of what’s ‘normal’… maybe that’s literally carrying a rainbow banner – drawing some of the attention away from you over there to me right here.
It’s not the same, hating me when it’s not my lifestyle choice. You have to have a conversation with me to find out why I’m doing it – and I’ll have a conversation with you about why you aren’t.
itellyouarise 