Art Contemplation Exercise

Can 40 women really all be in the same room, sitting right next to each other, working on individual projects without saying a word?  Well, on our Women's Retreat earlier this month we answered that question with a resounding "Heck yeah!" during our Art Contemplation Project.  I know, it sounds too new agey to be for real, right?  However, I totally LOVED it and was able to interact with God's word in a new way through this project.

I was first introduced to the idea of using art as a means of contemplation during my debriefing when I returned from China (the last time).  It's part of the debrief process at MTW and while some people roll their eyes or scoff or deny any little itty bitty artistic talent, I absolutely loved my project.  Working through art (and I promise I'm not super artsy), I was able to give a voice to the combination of bleak despair and soul-deep hope I experienced during my last term in China.  The project revealed to my truths I didn't even remember I knew. So when I found out we were doing a project on the retreat, I was pretty excited.  

We started by meditating on our theme passage for awhile.  The leader of this exercise read the passage through three times and each time asked us to think about different things as she read.  While she read all of Isaiah 61, I chose to focus on verses 1-3:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord    for the display of his splendor.

Here's my final piece of art and below is the process of what I went through and what it means to me.

I started out by writing across the canvas all of my favorite phrases from the verses.  There are such rich promises in this text, and I wanted those to be the foundation from which I would build.  Good news to the poor.  Freedom for prisoners.  A crown of beauty. A spirit of joy.  A garment of praise.  The year of the LORD's favor.  Oaks of righteousness.  May these promises from God undergird my very life!

Next I painted over all of that in white.  I didn't mean for the words to show through quite as much as they did, but the paint dried a lot thinner than I thought it would. Oh well, it's not going to hurt to look at those words more frequently!

I wanted my art to show the transition from a life of despair, mourning, and desolation that we have without Christ to an eternal of life of joy, praise, and beauty that we have with Christ.  I had limited tools to work with, but I used the straw and black beans to represent poverty and hardship.  And then the burlap represents sackcloth which was an ancient garment of mourning.  I was going for more of a tattered look, but we had awesome scissors that cut through it so cleanly.  

Then the sackcloth turns into a dress of rich, plush velvet - a true garment of praise.  The leaves represent a branch of the Oaks of Righteousness that we are destined to become before the nations.  And the crown of beauty is waiting to adorn us in heaven.  

I love having this in my house now.  Currently, it's residing in the kitchen and it's a continual encouragement to me each time my eyes land on it.  The garment of praise reminds me to speak praises to God for His goodness while packing my lunch or sorting mail (or dealing with the compost bin which now totally revolts me-I'm pretty sure I did something wrong).  Reading those promises are such a sweet assurance from the Lord!

What about you?  Have you ever done a project like this?  How did it turn out?

And just in case you think you're not creative, here's an excerpt from my devotion last night (from Mosaic Bible which I totally love).  This is part of a longer article by Mark Miller:

Wherever there is a divide, God's creativity in us leads us to build a bridge.  Wherever there is doubt, God's creativity in us stirs our imagination produces faith.  Wherever there is despair, God's creativity in us pictures and produces hope.  Wherever there is injustice, God's creativity in us finds a way to show his love. 

Check out my previous post about a song I was introduced to at the retreat that challenged my perspective on hope.  

Anchor of Hope

Last weekend I had the absolute joy of going on the women's retreat at my church.  We do it up right at All Souls with a super relaxing, slightly decadent getaway to the lovely Inn at Serenbe (which is soooo my church - Serenbe is like its own working farm + yoga + a little town with cupcakes + wine + a spa + a prayer labyrinth).  I also have a minor freak-out before retreats because it's where the fact that I'm just slightly more of an I than E comes into play (check your Meyers-Briggs if that sentence is confusing).  Part of me wants to meet new people and laugh and talk and share good, deep, true things.  And the other part is inordinately thankful to have a Kindle and roommates who like to go running and yoga-ing and stuff (thus leaving me alone in the room with the Kindle).

Luckily for us ladies, the pastor's wife is also our worship leader so we have awesome music on our retreat.  We sang several new songs on this retreat.  At least they were new to me.  Apparently, if you're in Young Life then you've already discovered Ellie Holcomb.  We sang her song Anchor of Hope several times over the course of the weekend.  This is a rich, rich song with so many different facets of God's character to meditate on, but the words that stuck with me were "He's the anchor of hope for the souls of men." (note: I really, really tried to find a whole listing of the lyrics but came up empty. Internet, where are you hiding these lyrics!?!?)

I'd never, ever, ever (I've also been listening to some new Taylor Swift) thought of hope as an anchor before.  As I began to ponder what that might mean, I realized that I'd always been more of an "elusive-balloon-of-hope" kind of a girl.  I knew that hope was something good, something true, and something real.  Well, I mean, it was going to be real one day and it was kind of real now, or I fully believed now that one day the hope would be real, but it is kind of real already.  So...it's kind of like that whole already/not yet thing.  Although, it seems really, really "not yet" most days in the playing out of day to day life, hence the realization that the way I interact with hope seems more like it's a bright helium balloon with a string that's almost always just out of my grasp.  Every once and awhile I hold onto it for a second, but then it drifts off again.  I like some parts of this imagery - the looking upward and outward and pursing something, but I don't like the not ever feeling like I've really grasped it part.

So looking at hope as an anchor for my soul was revelatory.  Wait a minute, this hope, it's a foundation?  It roots me to my faith, to my God, and to my future.  It actually grounds me when the temptations and stress and fears and trials of this life would cause me to drift too far off course.  It's the nourishment my soul needs in the long hours of the night when healing seems still so far away.  When the depravity and brutality of this fallen world threaten the very fabric of my faith, it's this anchor of hope that provides the knowledge that one day evil will obliterated.  One day, this hope will be finally and fully consummated in the return of Christ.

While I still believe that we're running the race for this hope set before us, it's awfully nice to know that the very same hope keeps me from veering too far off course.

Oh, He's the Anchor of Hope for the souls of men.

Credits:  The balloon art came from this blog - http://ashlieblake.wordpress.com/illustration-friday-drifting/ - on which I have looked at nothing but the page this illustration is from.