Stunted

Contemplating “Stunted”

As I drew this picture a vivid childhood memory came to mind.  I was standing on the sidewalk next to my elementary school.  My mother and Mr. Huff, the principle, were standing next to me.   We were looking up a long steep curved sidewalk admiring the huge new addition that more than doubled the size of the school.   I still remember how steep that sidewalk was had how large the new elementary school addition seemed.  But when I drive by my old elementary school today it looks much different than I remember.   That sidewalk isn’t very steep and that large building, well, it isn’t very large.  As we grow our perspective changes.  What seemed one way as a child seems much different as an adult.

Faith is the same.  Our eight-year-old theological beliefs, ideas, and structures fit us quite well when we were eight-years-old.  If, however, we continue to adhere to that same faith as grown adults we are bound to feel confined and frustrated.  We are trying to live and function in a faith that no longer fits.  I don’t believe this means God changes, I believe it means that as our hearts and minds become more open to God, God reveals to us a much larger faith then we could have imagined as a child.  This adult faith often requires much grappling but it is also one that is very spacious and wonderful and fits us quite well.

1.   What Scripture passages come to mind as you look as this picture?

2.   What happens when we have a faith that is a few sizes too small for us?

3.   What does a faith that is too small look like?

4.   What is the difference between this negative idea of a faith that is too small and the positive idea of having childlike faith?

5.   What tends to keep you confined in a smaller faith?

6.   Can your faith ever be too big?  Why or why not?

What Seeds Are You Watering?

Contemplating “What Seeds Are You Watering?”

We have within us the capacity to entertain a spectrum of emotions and desires.  Our lives can be filled with love and compassion as well as hate and revenge.  What is interesting is that we play a part in which emotions and desires manifest.  Whatever desire we pay attention to (feed and water) it will grow.  And, likewise, whatever we don’t give energy to doesn’t grow; it becomes smaller.  Complaining all the time will cause the seed of complaining to get bigger and bigger until one day we realize complaining has become a huge part of our character.  When we pay attention to being compassionate the seed of compassion will grow.   One day we realize we have become a compassionate person.   This is a simple yet profound truth. 

One aspect of the drawing that I like is the way the roots are surrounding one eye and one side of the face.   This reminds me that whatever we water will take root, and the roots go deep within. 

The one I love

The one I hate,

But the one I feed

Will dominate.

Questions

1.   What do you like about this drawing?

2.   In what ways do we water the negative seeds within us?

3.   How can we water the attributes we value and want in our life?

4.   How do we water the seeds (both negative and positive) in the lives of others?

5. What seeds have you been watering this week?

Hard Sayings of Jesus

Contemplating  “Hard Sayings of Jesus”
I am so amazed with our obsession with cell phones. I just read an article that called cell phones the “new cigarettes.” We immediately pull them out when we walk out of a building, we’re constantly fiddling with them, we’re never without them, and we even take cell phone breaks on the job and between classes. There’s even a phenomenon called “phantom ringing” when your brain tricks you into thinking your cell is ringing when it really isn’t. We let this little object interrupt our dinner, time with family, worship services, concerts, and so on. Are we with anything else (let alone anyone else) more in life than our cell phones?

1.   It’s been reported that people have high levels of anxiety, stress, and insecurity when they don’t have their cell phones. Why is that?

2.   What other devices in our lives seem to take over and control us?

3.   What would happen if you turned off your cell phone for 24 hours?

4.   Which would you consider a harder saying of Jesus, to turn the other cheek or to get rid of your cell phone?

All Numbered

Contemplating  “All Numbered”

Look close; on some strands of hair there really are minute numbers.   I used a very tiny pen.   As I was working on this image I found that the amount of hair on a person’s head varies according to the color of hair (yes, hair loss too of course).  On average blondes have around 140,000 strands, brunettes 110,000, raven black heads 108,000, and red heads have around 90,000.  And God is aware of them all!  In my mind this is just part of God’s amazing attention to detail.  

In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard writes, “In the top inch of forest soil, biologists found ‘an average of 1,356 living creatures present in each square foot, including 865 mites, 265 springtails, 22 millipedes, 19 adult beetles and various numbers of 12 other forms….Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa and algae-in a mere teaspoonful of soil.’”  And yes, every microscopic hair of every living thing in that one square foot of soil is numbered as well. 

1.   What captures your attention about this image?

2.   What details of creation amaze you?

3.   Why do you think God is so creative and detailed?

4.   How does it make you feel to know that God is so very aware of every detail of you?  Why do you think you feel this way?

5.   What is God saying to you?

The Spiritual Journey

Contemplating  “The Spiritual Journey”
The images in this series came to me after reading An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land by William Stringfellow and after some conversations Dan and I had about the spiritual life. Room One has all the “answers” but at the same time it is the most unhealthy and confining place to exist. The last picture titled “The Possibilities” gives us an idea of what Christ wants to offer. Moving from one room to the next represents our continuous and wonderful journey with God. One milestone along the spiritual journey is when we are no longer afraid of entering the next room and we actually start looking for doors. It is interesting to note that when we are separated from someone by two or more rooms it is almost impossible to describe to them our spiritual experience. There are really no common points of reference.

1. What room do you currently see yourself in?
2. Christ has come to set us free, what does that mean to you?
3. How do you think God leads us from one room to the next?
4. Do you find yourself afraid of the next room or do you find yourself looking for doorways? Why?

  

The Great Wave

Contemplating   “The Great Wave”

     As humans we have this dominant river of thought flowing through our minds day and night.  The river almost magically allows us to time travel into the distant past of our childhood or just as easily takes us into the imagined future.  We, basically unknowingly, live in our thoughts of logic and desire and worry and regret.  We don’t even have to try to make this thought world appear, it’s just always there.  What is most important is not trying to stop this river of thought, that’s impossible, the challenge is not allowing our selves to be submerged and carried away from reality.  Over time I have become more and more aware of this great flowing river of thoughts and just how overpowering they can be.  Recently I had an epiphany.  I suddenly had an acute sense that my thoughts are actually far and away greater and more powerful than I had initially assumed.  I realized they are multi-layered, thoughts within thoughts.  Some are huge and vibrant easy to recognize, others are secretive and hidden and only in moments of great clarity do I realize they are there, some are subversive and drag me along almost against my will, others are like a vague gray background ever present.  But these hundreds of different types of thoughts are all running at the same time. I realized thought is not a river but actually more like a bottomless ocean churning up wave after never ending wave with me right in the middle.

     This image is inspired from the famous Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock of “The Great Wave.”  The waves I drew are all made of the word “thoughts” written over and over.  The bottom of the caption rectangle is partly covered by the wave showing that thoughts are more powerful than the conversation.  The tiny boat, invisible at first glance, is even made of thought. However the two people in the boat are not made up of thoughts, indicating that we are more than our thoughts.

1.   What catches your attention about this drawing?

2.   How aware are you of the extent of your thoughts? Have you noticed subversive thoughts?  Hidden thoughts?  Multi-layered thoughts?

3.   If we are not our thoughts then what are we?

4.   So what if we live in our thoughts?  How does this affect us negatively?

5.   What are the positives of living in reality?

6.   How can we avoid being swallowed up by our thoughts?

7.   God is not interested a pretend me. God is interested in the real me.  God does not live in the past or future but in the present.  What are your thoughts on these statements?