On, In, and Around Mondays: The Keeping Phrase

"I want to be thinking about dancing again, and paper art, and how we will never have enough wall space for all the beautiful art we love," I told my friend.

We'd been talking about something that saddened us both. And it was good to talk. It is always good to talk.

But when we were done talking about the sad thing, we moved on to other things: dance, paper art, and the fact that we both own more art than our wall spaces can accommodate.

For my part, the art comes in a constant stream from my daughters. I was reminded of this as I tidied for a visit from Bradley Moore and his wife. (Yes, we had to have tea, and I had to show them my copy of the beautiful Neruda's Memoirs: Poems.)




Anyway, as I tidied for Brad's visit, I kept thinking...

we will never have enough wall space for all the beautiful art we love.

And suddenly it became this statement I wanted to say again and again. Because, it's so easy to stay with the sad things in life, to focus on the negative, to forget...

we will never have enough wall space for all the beautiful art we love.




we will never have enough wall space for all the beautiful art we love.




we will never have enough wall space for all the beautiful art we love.




---

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...



All art pieces in this post are by Sara, 13. Used with permission.

Loving Monday: You a Philanthropist?

What if you gave your art away?

This is the question Beckett essentially asks in the chapter "Giving Something Back", though he doesn't necessarily frame it from an art perspective. The subtle implication at the beginning of the chapter is that we need to wait before we can "give back." But by the end, when we see Moses holding a simple stick, we get the sense that the time to give is now. The thing to give is whatever we hold in our hands.



I think back to David Sacks. He has given (or sold very cheaply) much of his art to non-governmental organizations... before landing on the cover of an Oprah book-club pick.

At the IAM Encounter Conference, he shared his photography, and his history of giving art away. For Sacks, this opened up opportunities to travel, be creative with fewer restrictions, and ultimately to make money from his art (though that wasn't necessarily his initial goal in giving).



Do we hold our dreams, our small personal wealths, too tightly? What if we gave some of our work, our creative essence away? Would we have enough left over to make a living? What are the risks?

I find a few answers in Sacks, and in Sarah Haliwell's poem too...


don't be worried
there are dreams all over the place
for the hauling up and stacking out
just let it go
the wind will do the hardest work
for you

Photos of NYC and IAM Conference, by L.L. Barkat. Excerpt of Sarah Haliwell's "with faith", used with permission.

RELATED:
Lyla's Loving Monday: Risky Business
Glynn's Loving Monday: The Compassionate Enterprise
HighCallingBlogs What I Hold in My Hands

No Need to Be Real About Jesus

Sun pours through the car window as I wait. Girls are in piano lessons, playing holiday duets. Christmas is coming and I'm bundled, oblivious to the stress of the season for just this snippet of time, here in the car, in the sun before tomorrow's predicted storm.

Oblivious because I'm immersed in, of all things, the gift I bought myself for Christmas. The Jewish Study Bible. Not light reading for the hectic holidays. But I'm intoxicated.

The person who wrote the introduction is talking about the preeminence of story in Genesis and other parts of Torah. Genesis is not, he reminds me, philosophical proof or confession of faith or theological tract but story. (Hey, Scot, this reminds me of Parakeet too!)

Story is messy. It gets told from different points of view, it seems inconsistent at times, it is not rigid but fluid. It has, as the writer notes a high tolerance for different versions of the same event. I chuckle to myself and think about calling this post Torah 'n Me, because I realize I drive my husband crazy by a similar ancient-Near-Eastern approach to reality (it looks like I'm thinking inconsistently, Dear, but I'm just the Torah type!)

I close my eyes and think about a quote I read in A Profound Weakness...

... images of the birth of Jesus tend to focus on symbolic, formulaic aspects of the event because realism isn't essential in promoting story. Realism puts an event in time and place but doesn't necessarily point to the 'subplot', to the invisible. p.52

On the night before Christmas, we too will put realism aside. We'll think on the sweetness of God not with treatises but by biting into challah bread dipped in honey. We'll raise our makeshift tent (sukkah) and participate in the story of God's people seeking respite (the way the Israelites found respite in God in the desert). Each person will have a chance to sit in the shadows of the tent, smell and taste that bread, which a child will hand them, saying...

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life, and you shall dwell in the house of the LORD your whole life long. Ps 23

And the one who receives the bread will say, Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. (Ps 31:5)

Each of us will bring our secret and not-so-secret stories to the tent. Knowing me, I'll close my eyes, feel the moment like it is the warmth of the sun shining, regardless of storms. And I'll feel bundled, like a child listening to a story before good night. Before good night and, in this season, before Merry Christmas.

POETRY FRIDAY:
RAP: Ache of Advent by L.L. at High Calling Blogs
Poetry Friday: Oasis at Erica Hale's
Six Christmas Poems at GoodWordEditing


Christ Child watercolor by Salvador Dali. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

Trade 'Ya: Links for Art

I know I can get those little book icons from Amazon, to use when reviewing a book on my blog. Sometimes I have. But more often I like to take my own pictures. Personalize things a little. After all, if I'm telling you about a book I'm reading, I feel like I want to add some aspect of my surroundings. Like I said, personalize things a little.

Sometimes other people do this too. I still remember Ann Voskamp's lovely worn, wooden table humbly holding tea for two and a copy of Stone Crossings.

And I have clicked The Jesus Creed on my floor with a cornhusk Mary, Two Men Fighting with a Knife on my piano, and Celtic Devotions on my side porch, looking out towards my secret place.

The other day I was delighted to discover a colorful picture of Stone Crossings at Nancy's (see above). When I asked her if I could borrow the picture, she graciously commented...

l.l., i took this photo when i was sitting on my porch. i had been reading your book and put it down and placed the stone on it to keep the wind from blowing the pages. when i saw it sitting there i just had to get a photo of all the stones that were in one place. my 11 year old daughter and i like rocks and stones and have them sitting in different places in the house and now these have made their way out onto the porch this summer...

I was touched by Nancy's sweet words and her artistic photograph. Then a small idea began to grow in my mind. Links for art. Or in other words, I would love to link to you if you share a personalized photo of Stone Crossings with me. A little story to go with it, like in Nancy's comment, would be nice if you're comfortable sharing.

Just a thought. Trade 'ya: links for art.


Stones and Stone Crossings photo, by Nancy. (Photo and permanent link provided at bottom of blog sidebar.)

OTHER 'LINKS FOR ART' POSTS:

Ann Voskamp's photo in Of Grace and the Barn

Conversations in Art 2,TWO, II

[I went on a trip last week... here's part of the lowdown, from then and beyond]

Call it serendipity.

I'm driving to Washington D.C. There's popcorn on the floor of the rental van. Crumbs on my black pants. Cups with our names on them. And Chasing Vermeer playing through the back speakers; I can't hear it very well.

We pull in to a rest stop and the hum of traffic dissipates. Now I can hear Chasing Vermeer. The characters are having a philosophical discussion about Art. What makes some things worthy of being in a museum? What makes other things trash we'll throw away? I am reminded of Long Island Express Girl's challenging comments on the last post.

Anyway. One character says that art is a puzzle. It makes him think in new ways. Though I don't know it yet, I will agree with him over the next few days as I view many pieces at the National Gallery of Art, including The Way Things Go (an art-in-motion piece I'll write about in an upcoming talk) . I will also agree with the character when I get home and my eldest daughter secretly begins reading a book I used for last month's book club.

The book? Missing Mountains, about the issue of Mountain Top Removal. Eldest is moved by it. Essays, photos, poetry, short stories, songs. Art that makes her think in new ways. One thing leads to another, and I tell my girls about a beautiful woman who lives in Appalachia, who is using her musical art to try to help people think differently. Maybe even help them to have compassion. To love. To long for what they didn't know.

We sit for a long time. Littlest on my lap. Eldest leaning into my shoulder. We listen to this haunting music. I am overcome. Tears rise. I can feel my heart beating, swelling even. Littlest Child decides she loves Appalachian folk music. And the Appalachian dulcimer. She wants to find someone who can teach her to play. A twelve string one, she decides. Because she is convinced that the beauty she hears from Blue Mountain Mama is from a 12-string dulcimer.

What makes art Art? A little child shall tell me. Has told.


Water on Paper Sculpture, by Sara. Used with permission.


MORE ON ART:

Gabriel Scheller's Art and Inspiration at Christine Scheller's blog

Gabe Scheller's profound thoughts on the sacredness of art.

STONE CROSSINGS:

Ted's poetic discussion of Chapter 3: Tossed Treasure.

Go Ahead, Artist, Prophesy

The book of 1 Chronicles, starting around chapter 22, is a beautiful picture of the body of Christ, the church. One would be tempted to think at first glance that it's simply lists of who does what in the temple of the Lord. But on second and third glance, oh!

There are bakers-of-bread and gatekeepers, washers-of-utensils, oil mixers, treasurers, judges. And musicians. Musicians who are told to prophesy with the lyre, the harp and the cymbal.

Looking at this, I was struck by the necessity of each job for making the temple a holy place that would proclaim the beauty of God. I was also amazed that the musicians were a form of prophet. The verb used in telling them to prophesy does mean to sing or praise, but naba' also means more deeply...

to bubble up, to be under the influence of the divine spirit, to speak with ardour, to show and declare the words of God.

Imagine, that music could do this. And imagine that music does this in a place where all those other workers are keeping the place fragrant and abundant, beautiful and just. To me, this is a picture of the body of Christ. We all work together to prophesy, to show and declare God's word.

So go ahead, Artist, prophesy, and know that you are bubbling up with Glory.


Speaking of artistic fervor, check out the new and amusing group of Crossings pictures that Dave Zimmerman added to the Stone Crossings book club wiki.


Piano photo by Sara B. Used with permission.

NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

Sarah Grace's An Answer, Of Sorts

Mark Goodyear's Finding God in Heifetz and Porcelain Life Jackets

the High Calling's Labors of the Artist

Souvenir

Betty Spackman compares 'souveniring', taking home a kitschy porcelain reproduction of Niagra Falls after a trip to Canada, for instance, to the process of naming. Souvenirs, artless as they may be, help us to "own a place or an experience which is otherwise too big to carry away and too expensive to possess in any other way." (p.78, A Profound Weakness)

The souvenir's value is not in its artfulness, but rather in its ability to spark our memories of a place — just as a name brings to mind our memories and experiences of a person.

I remember that the God of Israel refused to let his people make an image of him, an idol, a souvenir. For while such images could be a memory catalyst, they could also be reductive. Niagra Falls is not a blue painting on porcelain. Holland is not a wooden shoe with a red tulip on the toe. God, likewise, cannot be pressed, minted, captured, pocketed.

And yet God chose the incarnation — the Great "I Am" (no name could capture God) stepped into a fleshy pocket of time and space…became a souvenir we could carry off, to burn a hole through our shelves, to set a tidy existence on fire.


Paris and Holland Souvenirs photo by L.L. Barkat.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

RELATED:

Sandy's Concord and Providence, a poem on naming.

An Artful Look

My eldest daughter came running into the room, clutching a coil of rope. "Mommy, mommy! Michaela and I can’t agree on what to build. I want to do a suspension bridge. She just wants to make something pretty!"

"Why can’t you do both?" I said. "Useful things can also be artful." She tilted her head, kind of flicked her eyes heavenward and ran out, presumably to present this novel idea.

It is the age-old question of form versus function. Must the two be incompatible? Can we even separate them? Should we?

Betty Spackman, in her book A Profound Weakness, discusses the bias against form and form education (art, if you will). She says…

Today, in North America alone millions of people…are illiterate and depend on the spoken word and on images for communication. The need for pictures to explain text has helped to perpetuate the belief that it is the uneducated, poor and weak…who need images. Perhaps this is one of the main reasons why art is still considered an extracurricular activity, rather than as something essential to cognitive development. Images, therefore, belong to children. They are floss; they are fiction. We can get along without art— and if we can do without art we can do without artists. With this attitude… there has been little prospect for the last hundred years of convincing churches and schools (and, in particular, Christian schools) that they should support the arts. p.30

I try to picture a world without God's art. A flower that would be all function, no form. A web that would be all function, no form. A blankness, a sameness. A visual incoherence. And it escapes me.

You could say that God’s art suggests God's existence to me, with the same weight that the intricate form of all things suggests God's existence to me. And if God bothered to paint, to sculpt, to suspend the universe with delicate artistry, then we too might flick our eyes heavenward to consider the incontrovertible place of art…then run out, our shadows unwinding like rope behind us, to tell the world.


Glass Dollhouse Series photo by Gail Nadeau. (Dollhouse and sculpture also by Gail Nadeau.) Used with permission.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.