Yearning and Listening

We all seem to be yearning for something. We long for love, understanding, justice, peace, answers … The list is long. Our current culture reinforces the idea that by the sheer force of our own willpower we will attain satisfaction. To this end we babble on up a road of unending struggle. We got this under control—we think. This is when prophets show up to remind us to pause and consider our Source, the ultimate determinate of all. Artists, in their own ways, do this too.

Recently, the pastor at my church shared a story from her childhood. Her mother was a child of the 60s and would take her younger self to protests in Kansas City. When the cacophony of the events became too much for her, she would turn away and head to the nearby galleries. There she found the quietness she longed for. Though she didn’t always understand the art, it was those spaces that soothed her need for quiet contemplation. She believes that exposure to art were her first steps down a long, twisty path to her future life as an Episcopalian priest.

I sometimes cringe when I hear someone say museums and galleries are “temples of art.” Yet, for some, these are the only venues they’ll enter where quiet contemplation is encouraged. It is a wondrous thing to stand before a masterpiece and truly take in all it has to offer. Like scripture, a studied art piece reveals nuances that open the heart and mind of the viewer. A group of friends and I will often escape from demanding jobs and family conflicts to wander the galleries of SF MOMA. As we ramble along our conversations will veer from analyzing design and technique to proposed theories of meaning, connections to events current and past, and recollections of personal experiences.  It’s like we’re talking our way through a sermon as we consider the painted “text” for the day and our place in God’s creation. Our longing for connection, understanding, and community are soothed in those moments together.

I know that non-artists wonder how we artists pull this off. We are all aware of the 10,000+ hours of training and experimentation artists commit to. These, though, don’t fully explain that leap from media to spiritual connections. I don’t think any artist can fully explain it. We just have a creative itch that needs soothing. Left unattended our lives feel hollow, lacking something that only the creative process fills. I know I don’t step into my studio with a sermon to preach, and no promises of future happiness or good fortune. There might be a warning, but I don’t tout hellfire and doom. I do know artists have to say YES when the Spirit comes their way. There’s a story that a poet tells of having to run from her garden into her home for pencil and paper before the poem passed her by. Writers often keep notebooks handy to jot down fleeting words, phrases, or plot twists before they vanish. There are lyricists that tell of songs being “delivered” to them complete, all within a brief moment; the Spirit working its mysterious ways. 

I had the Spirit drop by for years delivering the same image again and again, but saying not yet. Every once in a while I received a clear image of a pencil drawing. It was of an upturned hand of a gardener with dirt-encrusted fingernails clasping a root and worm-laden clump of sod. On top the clump held lush turf infused with an abundance of flowers. Then the image would drift away. It just wasn’t the time to draw it. Not until I heard that the principal of the high school where I worked was going to retire. This was a man committed to making sure all our 4,000 students thrived. Sadly, one day during his tenure he was called to perform CPR on a student having a severe asthma attack. The boy died in his arms. On the night I finished the piece some words came to me. I drew them as a frame around the outer edge. I don’t remember the message. I don’t have a photo of the piece to share with you. It wasn’t meant for us. I do know from the look on the principal’s face and the questions he asked that a message had been received. His efforts were seen – another yearning soothed by art.

If there is anything that explains this mystery, it is that we are made in the image of the Creator. Everyone who creates, whether it be a novel, a family, a pleasant work environment or a church community, is emanating the Source. We’re created to create. 

During the darkest part of the pandemic, a group of young people at my church took on the roles of actors, puppeteers, and musicians. They created a Sesame Street like series of shows to replace our annual vacation bible school. The shows were videotaped and broadcast via Vimeo. Packages of craft supplies were dropped off on local doorsteps to keep the kids safe and engaged. News of this offering spread through the Episcopal network. The show ended up being viewed in seven foreign countries. For a brief time each day, parents and kids could look away from their fears. The longing of normalcy was soothed by these creative emanations.

For me the lockdown wasn’t so bad. Being alone in my studio is normalcy. Church online was much more difficult. It was all the things that couldn’t be shared online. No choir. No eye contact during the sharing of the peace. No rhythmic, group recitation of the Psalms … So many nos. I had such difficulty focusing on the sermons. I got distracted by the faces staring back at me and the environs in the backgrounds of those little Zoom boxes. Yet, as the weeks passed, I realized I was getting to know each individual in a deeper way. That change of perspective allowed me to see their reactions to the sermons and how profoundly they prayed. I was experiencing their most sacred spaces, their homes. The Source must have been OK with my distraction because He sent me on a four-month journey of creating my largest paper cut.  It’s a piece I call Zooming Church. It includes 75 hand drawn and cut paper portraits. They were cut from index cards (the same shape as a Zoom box) and then spray-painted black. Some church members zoomed with their dogs and cats. So they’re included too. One woman zoomed in from her very special pew – her bed. From a shared Zoom meal, I captured Cindy with her nightly glass of wine. In each individual cut you’ll find walls filled with family photos, bookcases, a collection of hats, windows looking out onto gardens, palm trees from a vacation in  Hawaii, and doors ajar giving us a further peek into their lives. To pull it all together I glued the portraits onto a 4 x 7 foot sheet of Tyvek cut to look like a garden trellis constructed of computer wires and mice and covered with flowers.  

Since its construction, Zooming Church is hung in our community hall on the anniversary of our church’s dedication.  I watch as church members pause quietly before it.  Are they looking for their own portraits?  Does it call to mind those we’ve lost through the pandemic? Does it recall events that have left marks on their memory, reliving a dark moment or a blessing of survival? Does it spur them into action to better prepare our public health system for the next pandemic? I don’t ask. I let them hear the message the Source has delivered for them.   As an artist, I can only present what was sent to me.  The viewer must decide what to do next.