The Path Back to the Garden

July 6th, 2010 | 6 Comments

I’ve recently read two good books: Women Food and God by Geneen Roth and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. At first glance they seem to be about very different subjects—making peace with food and making art. But reading them in close proximity has me thinking about them together and finding connections I didn’t expect.

Geneen Roth’s work arises out of her experience with compulsive eating and her years of helping others separate food from the emotional issues tangled up with eating. But her insight is into addictions of all kinds. Seeking refuge in the addiction is how we abandon ourselves, withholding the attention to our own hearts that can show us what we most need to know.

She describes it as:

an attempt to avoid the absence (of love, comfort, knowing what to do) when we find ourselves in the desert of a particular moment, feeling, situation. In the process of resisting the emptiness, in the act of turning away from our feelings…we ignore what could utterly transform us.

Steven Pressfield’s work is about overcoming the resistance that arises in anyone attempting to do something new. An artist must recognize and conquer the impediments that inevitably arise when we try to shape a new creation, realize a new vision, or express a new idea. Resistance would enforce the status quo, having us abandon our risky calling and with it our highest self.

He writes:

To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius.

Both writers see the work we’re called to do as deeply connected with the divine. Both understand how easily we are kept from that work, and the heartache that ensues. Roth urges us to remain present to ourselves when we’re tempted to flee. Pressfield insists that we show up to do the work even when it feels impossible. They are connected.

Being present to ourselves allows us to do the work. Doing the work makes us present to ourselves. Both place us in the presence of God. Taking refuge in addiction is a kind of resistance to the life we’re called to live. Allowing resistance to come between us and our true work creates a false refuge in which we can never find a fulfilling life. Both are an attempt to hide when God calls our name.

An addiction cuts us off from the Tree of Knowledge standing in the center of the Garden. But as soon as we bring our attention to our behavior, to the thoughts and emotions driving it, the addiction shows us the way back. Likewise resistance keeps us out of the garden we were created to tend. No other work will give us satisfaction until we climb over the walls that stand between us and our calling.

What’s the next step leading back to the garden?

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Chaos and Creation

June 16th, 2010 | 4 Comments

Lately I’ve been reading Barbara C. Sproul’s Primal Myths, and enjoying her insight into creation stories from around the world. As she explains in her introduction, creation stories offer a glimpse of the infinite and unknowable by showing how that absolute reality permeates the world we know. The stories are concerned with the world we experience and its connection to the ground of all being, which lies beyond our experience. Creation myths express the spiritual truth that “the Holy is here as well as everywhere; it is now as well as always….The Holy is immanent as well as transcendent.”

There are many stories of beginnings, but I love those that show the world created out of the chaos that precedes all existence. The creator, standing outside of the categories of being and not-being, encounters a primordial sea of pure potential. From the abyss of unrealized possibilities the creator speaks a word, gives definition to an idea, and confers upon it existence. The creator fashions what has never been from the chaos of all that might be.

Sproul makes an interesting distinction between two kinds of chaos, one full of potential and the other a force for tearing down. A generative expression of chaos is very different from the forces of chaos that threaten to destroy. In Sproul’s words, the chaos that precedes creation “is a fruitful pre-order rather than a negative dis-order.” They’re probably related, but that’s another post.

The chaotic sea of potential is not something to resist; lingering there expands possibilities and allows a new vision to emerge. If we want to do something different from what we’ve done before, we can’t insist on putting thoughts and plans in order too quickly.

At the same time, to thrive we need structure that promotes health and well-being. We need enough order to support our basic needs, so that our attention can be freed to pursue what feeds the soul. A fruitful pre-order is necessary for creative work, but the chaos of disorder gets in the way.

I like to write early in the morning, before I do anything else. It’s a small-scale dip into the primordial chaos, when words carry news from another realm. I do that knowing that when I’m ready I can start the coffee brewing, turn on the computer, get breakfast, a shower, clean clothes, and move into the day.

But in the midst of my early-morning writing today, the power went out. No coffee. No internet. No hairdryer. No light in the bathroom. It made the morning a new challenge, requisitioning more attention than the usual routine requires. I set aside my work early to contend with the changed circumstances.

In a small way, this is an example of how disorder leaches energy from creative work. Establishing the rudiments of life requires effort in the best of circumstances, but without some kind of structure for support it’s hard to do more than get the basics covered.

There’s a limit to what I can control, and there’s only so much I can reasonably (or willingly) do to make life orderly. But I’m working to keep the distinction clear between the pre-order I need to encounter and the disorder that works against me.

What kind of relationship do you have with chaos?

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The Moment of Creation

June 1st, 2010 | 4 Comments

Lately I’ve been immersed in creation stories. These tales of the world’s beginning offer delightful images–from the universe on the back of a turtle to a spider’s weaving the world–unique and meaningful to the culture from which they emerge. They speak poetically of the meaning and value of life on earth, through the way they describe its origins.

Surprisingly often, they also share elements in common. Many stories begin with the loneliness and longing of the creator, and often involve wresting order out of chaos. Sound familiar? These themes echo through creation of any kind.

The ancient accounts of how the world was created hint at humanity’s deepest understanding of how something new comes into being. These rich stories offer brief sketches of the mystery of the creative process, and connect creativity to the source of life.

The story below is an example from the Hindu tradition. It’s part of the Nasadiya, or “There Was Nothing” hymn from the Rig Veda.

There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water bottomlessly deep? There was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night, nor of day. That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond. Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning; with no distinguishing sign, all this was water. The life force that was covered with emptiness, that One arose through the power of heat.

Desire came upon that One in the beginning; that was the first seed of mind. Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom found the bond of existence in non-existence. Their cord was extended across. Was there below? Was there above? There were seed-placers; there were powers. There was impulse beneath; there was giving-forth above.*

Creation is the work of the gods in these stories. When we echo this process in our own endeavors, we find that the human work of “little c” creation is also a monumental undertaking, if on a smaller scale. To bring something new into the world, we must transform the raw material we find within ourselves and in the world around us. Great effort and imagination is needed for the alchemy that changes experience into art. We need an infusion of divine energy to carry it out.

Beginning next week, I’ll be leading a workshop designed to gently lead artists of all kinds into their own creative process. Over a period of four weeks, we’ll look at how creation stories can inform the way we approach our work and encourage us in our creative efforts. We’ll allow the elements of the stories to move us into the work we long to do. The workshop is called Archetypes of Creation, and is offered through the Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky.  I’d love for you to join us.

What in you is asking to be brought into the world?

*This story is quoted by J. F. Bierlein in Parallel Myths, p. 37-38. Ballantine Books, New York, 1994.

Comments (4) | Creativity Tags: , ,

Don’t Do What I Do

May 19th, 2010 | 5 Comments

I’ve been trying for two days to write a post about maintenance vs. creativity. I wanted to look at how the endless chores of maintaining a life are necessary, even as they consume the energy needed for creative work. A paradox. I struggled unsuccessfully with the writing, but phone calls, paperwork, appointments, meetings, shopping, cooking, and laundry I’ve done.

I wanted a spiritual approach to making peace with what’s required of our limited time and energy. I wanted to offer some wisdom about the legitimate need for order, valuing the effort without being a slave to it. But I have no mastery of this subject.

I have not learned how to balance tending the details and rising above them. Instead, I keep riding this pendulum. I push away to-do’s that need attention until they’re so thick I can’t move. Then I set aside everything else to focus on the neglected tasks, desperate to be free of chaos and disorder. Only then can I turn my attention to the work I’d rather do, and the cycle repeats.

I’d like this blog to offer something of value, but in this case I can only say don’t do what I do. I don’t even want to do what I do. I know that maintenance and vision doesn’t have to be either/or; we call that a false dichotomy. Stacks of mail won’t obliterate creativity. Errands can’t negate a fulfilling life. But balance is elusive. Quite simply, I want to be freed from disorder and from the work of putting things in order. But I live in the inherent conflict of these desires.

Maybe the totality of my life will average out to be balanced—orderly enough with a glimmer of creativity. But I keep swinging past the sweet spot, overdoing it one way or the other.

Lord, have mercy.

Comments (5) | Creativity Tags: ,

Love Letter to Leonard Cohen

April 25th, 2010 | 3 Comments

Dear Leonard,

If I may call you Leonard—I don’t want to presume. It’s hard to know how to address you, of whom I am in awe. But “Mr. Cohen” seems terribly distant for someone who has touched me deeply, though we’ve never met.

The part of me that navigates everyday life feels silly about this endeavor, as if what I wrote about you in Responding to Beauty should have been enough. But the self that finds this letter necessary is driving. I’ve lived well into my forties without writing a fan letter to anyone, but apparently it’s time.

Yesterday I sat behind the wheel on Chinoe Drive waiting for the light to turn. I was listening to your Live in London recording, as I’ve been doing for many days now. But in that moment, as you spoke the words to “If It Be Your Will” I felt a piece of the great puzzle slip into place, easily and exactly. When the tears came, I had to find some way to respond, though it’s hard to know what to say. A connection, with another person, with the divine, is a gift that goes beyond words.

The crowd in London enjoyed your turn of phrase in “The Tower of Song” about being born with this golden voice. I take pleasure in the laughter and the line, and in how they turn back on themselves. Because your voice is truly golden: black gold, like coal. It lies beneath mountains to the east of here worn smooth by the passing of eons; it’s brought forth at great risk to the miners who work those underground seams. A chunk of coal is beautiful—dark and shining—with edges that cut the skin, and dust that marks a blue tattoo when the wound is healed. It yields heat beyond most anything else that burns. Not unlike art, sometimes. Like yours.

Your voice rumbles up from deep within, where the soul lies longing to rise. Your songs walk the earth with an ear attuned to the whispers of angels. They draw me in, break me open, and give me a heart of flesh.

I can’t help but wish I’d known you years ago, but won’t complain because I’ve found you now. What better time exists, for anything at all?

I don’t expect these words to reach you, but nonetheless I will say I’m grateful for the gifts you share. And if some sense of my heartfelt thanks were caught by the breeze to carry a blessing for you, an echo of the blessing you have been for me, I would be glad.

Thank you for your beautiful work. May you be well.

Yours sincerely,

Susan Christerson Brown

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Responding to Beauty

April 14th, 2010 | 7 Comments

Early in his life, Leonard Cohen prayed to be able to make some response to beauty. I’ve been dwelling in the richness of that statement for days.

To utter such a prayer is to already have the grace of appreciating beauty, of having one’s eyes open to its presence in the world. And to ask for a way to respond is an enlightened longing. It does not seek to possess what is beautiful, to claim beauty for oneself. It measures value according to something beyond what serves an individual life. It asks for the power not to claim creation, but to participate fully in it.

The power and complexity of Cohen’s work, the ability of his music and lyrics to break open the heart, is a testament to his answered prayer. He looks hard at life, all of it, and makes of it something mysteriously, achingly beautiful. His work makes me want to live in poetry, even though he says of poetry that when your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

If his poetry is ash, then his life has burned like the bush Moses encountered.

The Holy Spirit moves in wonderful ways, including through friends who put amazing things into my hands. The film, I’m Your Man, is such a gift. It’s a moving film, featuring interviews with Leonard Cohen and performances of his music by various artists.

His breathtaking song, “Hallelujah,” has been performed by many talented people. Jeff Buckley’s rendition is wonderful. And there is nothing like its powerful performance by Cohen himself.

What shall we pray for? And how shall we respond to beauty?

You might be interested in reading my Love Letter to Leonard Cohen.

Comments (7) | Creativity,Prayer Tags: , , , ,

Beyond Personal Growth: Trusting the Mystery of Transformation

April 1st, 2010 | 9 Comments

It took a long time to make much progress through John O’Donohue’s Anam Ċara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. I mean that in the best of ways. The Gaelic term, anam ċara is literally “soul friend,” and if books can be friends, this is such a one. Most pages hold something rich enough to send me off thinking about it for a while. I’ve kept returning through about two-thirds of it now, and today this is the passage on my mind:

Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any pre-determined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence.

A willingness to grow is a good thing, but the programs and plans available to encourage our development are overwhelming. Bookstore shelves teem with personal growth books, religious and secular, as if we can’t stop flagellating ourselves with agendas for self-improvement. And yes, I’m familiar with these store displays because I’m irresistibly drawn to them. It’s hard to pass up some bit of wisdom that will make me more capable, more fulfilled, more deserving. When an article promises to share Five Steps to Happiness, I can’t help but read it.

I want to grow, but I’d prefer to do it without all the messy uncertainty and annoying unpredictability of not knowing the way. I would love to learn what to do and just do it. But O’Donohue spells out what’s lacking in such a prescribed approach:

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their life into proper shape. The intellect identifies the goal of the program, and the will accordingly forces the life into that shape. This way of approaching the sacredness of one’s own presence is externalist and violent. It brings you falsely outside yourself, and you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programs. You can perish in a famine of your own making.

Creating, growing, transforming—these are all mysterious processes. They happen underground, in the depths, in the dark. Paying attention while a process unfolds that we can neither control nor rush is a counter-cultural way of life. It can be hard to learn and harder to trust.

But if we lose faith and limit ourselves to the kind of processes we can control, we banish ourselves to the wilderness O’Donohue describes. Will power is hard work, and doesn’t make for a very joyful life. Maybe it’s trust power I need to work on.

What kind of power keeps you moving forward?

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Post Cards from the Divine

March 16th, 2010 | 2 Comments

Names for God: Part 1 of a Series

I had seen reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings long before visiting the d’Orsay in Paris, so I expected that viewing his work would be an encounter with something familiar. It never occurred to me that the originals might hold so much more than those reproductions could show.

It left me completely unprepared for the experience I stumbled into. I was stunned by the vibrancy, riveted by the color. The skies he painted came at me like a physical force.

Maybe it was having recently enjoyed the saturated blues of Mediterranean evenings; maybe it was the mindset of a traveler taking in everything new. I don’t know what opened me to the power of Van Gogh’s canvasses, I only know that I have never experienced color the way I did standing before his paintings. I have never had a sky brought to life and emblazoned on my mind in the same way. For twenty or thirty minutes I couldn’t take in anything else. I was left with an image, or more specifically a color, that overtook everything. That blue.

I bought post cards before leaving the museum—replicas of some of the paintings I had seen. They were pale imitations; the colors were wrong, the depth flattened out, the life drained. The reproductions were just reminders of what I had seen, nothing like standing in front of the real thing. But nonetheless I’m glad for the mementos. Years later, the post cards help me remember the experience of taking in the works of art and being moved by them.

I framed one of the Van Gogh cards and placed it on my desk. I love the image, the color, the conveyance of light, the sense of shelter. It gives me pleasure. I enjoy the framed post card, but it only hints at the power of the original. It doesn’t begin to reveal the divine inspiration Van Gogh conveyed on canvas. And I suspect that even his amazing painting would have fallen short of fully capturing the inspiration he felt, as works of art tend to do.

The words we use to talk about God are a lot like that framed post card. Our names for God are accessible, we can make them part of our lives, they hold meaning and beauty. We fit them into frames on our desks—in readings and hymns, conversation, worship and prayers. But we miss out when we confuse those names with the real thing. We cut ourselves off from the experience of the divine when we think that the little image in the frame is the object of our longing or the expression of our desire.

We need names for God, yet any name for God is a placeholder, a reminder of what will not fit in the frame, what cannot be named.

Is “God” a name that suggests the ineffable for you? What name are you drawn to using?

You might also be interested in:

Part 2: Naming the Ineffable

Part 3: The Kaleidoscope of Divine Names

Comments (2) | Creativity,Paying Attention,Soul Tending Tags: , , , ,

Making Peace with What You Can Do

March 13th, 2010 | 2 Comments

Walking in the early spring air this morning, I got by with a light cotton jacket. Yet the weather remains cool and damp. Green fronds push up from the ground, but the skies are grey. Trees are full of birdsong, though the bare branches appear unchanged since winter.

This almost-spring feels nothing like winter, yet there is no blossoming. As if the earth is saying: This, today, is what I can do. I can bring forth this much, but for now I can go no farther.

And the slow warming is enough. The turning of the seasons is exactly this; nothing more is needed. There is no hurry, no catching up to do. All is sufficient.

***

It’s tempting to discount those efforts we are able to make. How do you make peace with the limits of what you can do?

Comments (2) | Inspiration in the Everyday,Seasons Tags: , , , ,

The Need for Retreat

February 26th, 2010 | 2 Comments

I’ve been working with other members of The KaBooM Writing Collective this week, planning a one-day writing retreat that happens tomorrow. It’s exciting to work with the possibilities that a day can hold, and I look forward to what will happen during those hours.

Retreats of any length are all too rare. A week or month is the classic model, and good to aspire to. But it’s not easy, and often not possible, to check out for so long. Shorter retreats are more accessible, though finding even a single hour out of the day’s course can be a challenge. An entire day is a pretty big deal for most of us, and I appreciate those writers willing to set that time aside.

Claiming any time at all requires attention and commitment. Even the intention to retreat is evidence of a change we’re already making.

Once we do that, a retreat unfolds differently from everyday hours. It’s a time entered hopefully, with openness to surprise; it’s lived out expectantly, but without an agenda. Retreat is a time we prepare for, but without planning what will transpire. It’s a time of asking a question and waiting for the response; allowing something new to happen and paying attention to the movement of the spirit.

We need to enter that mindset often to keep our spiritual and creative life nourished. Prayers and practices in everyday life help. But looking back I see important growth, in both my spiritual and artistic life, from the renewal that comes from retreat. Time taken off from “being productive” ends up generating the most productivity of all.

So I see the day as full of possibilities. We’ll enter our writing through the doorway of the senses, bringing life to words by being centered in the body. We’ll ground ourselves in a particular moment through focus on the physical, sensory experience of being alive. The context of a day of retreat adds another element as well: a chance to connect to the spirit that breathes life into our lives and our work.

The question I’m asking is, What new opening will the day bring?

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