Peace to You

Contemplating   “Peace to You”

I recently ran across this quote by modern mystic Valentin Tomberg,

“Modern Science has come to understand that matter is only condensed energy.  Sooner or later science will also discover that what it calls energy is only condensed psychic force, which discovery will lead, in the end, to the establishment of the fact that all psychic force is the condensation, purely and simply, of consciousness (i.e. Spirit).” 

I have this mental image of a microscope peering into a table or a feather or into my own hand.  The magnified image shows that what I saw on the surface, what I thought was static and solid, is actually composed of pure flowing energy.  The energy itself is then somehow magnified and I discover that there is something even less dense than energy itself, it is prayers and attention and presence, a lighter and more spacious essence than even energy.  But then those prayers are in some mysterious way examined to reveal that there is even a more basic, pure, spacious, fundamental building block that gives form and life to those prayers and that something or better someone is what we call Spirit or God or Life, Truth, Love, Peace or whatever name we choose to use.  

A closer look at the hand image reveals that it is not actually made with lines but with words.  “Peace” and “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you” from the Gospel of John 14:27 are what makes the image materialize.  This, in my mind, is what we are all made of at the deepest most sacred most ineffable level.  Our true, holy, pure essence (the image of God) is here at (actually within) our literal fingertips.  To realize that this deep peace is cursing through our bodies as well as through the bodies of all those around us, and then to ever so clumsily allow this indescribable “Isness” to form and animate and guide us, this is what our life is truly about. 

1.   What comes to mind as you look at this image?

2.   If at our core we are made of something good and wonderful why do we humans cause so much destruction and pain in the world.

3.   What are some things that seem to hinder you from living a life out of peace and love?

Non Sequitur

Contemplating “Non Sequitur”

We claim to be different.  But from our appearances, from our actions, from our business dealings, from the way we spend money, from what we watch on TV, from our vacations, from what we eat, from the houses we live in, from the cars we drive, from the words we use, from how we treat our neighbors, from our health, from what we worry about, from being truthful, from how we dress, from what we read… it is difficult to see any difference at all.   Is there really any difference?

1.  What catches your attention about this doodle?

2.   What scriptures come to mind?

3.   Do you believe we are supposed to be different from the world outwardly and inwardly?  If so how? 

4.   Can you think of Christians who are obviously different from the world?  In what ways do they stand out? 

5.   How was Jesus inwardly and outwardly different from the world? 

6.   How is God calling you to be different? 

How the World Ends

Contemplating  “How the World Ends”                                               

In her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard mentions the idea that the universe looks more like a great thought than a great machine. She says, "The question of who is thinking the thought is more fruitful than the question of who made the machine, for a machinist can of course wipe his hands and leave, and his simple machine still hums; but if the thinker’s attention strays for a minute, his simplest thought ceases altogether." This idea of God’s amazing and loving ability to keep the universe in existence by sheer thought really catches my attention. Especially since I can hold an uninterrupted thought for what, 30 seconds?

1.   What do you think of the idea of God keeping everything together by thought?

2.   What’s your attention span?  How long do you think you can hold a thought?  Try it.

3.   What tends to distract you?  How would you label these distractions (worries, fears, regrets, planning, ego, etc)?

4.   How might your day be different if you could give complete attention to everyone you met and everything you did?

Be Transformed

Contemplating  “Be Transformed”

I like it that the NIV translation uses the word "pattern" in Romans 12:2. The spiritual life is about noticing the patterns we are stuck in. Prayer practices, or spiritual disciplines, help us break free from these patterns. Once we begin to break free, once we begin to be truly transformed, those around us are affected in very deep ways.  "When one person finds peace, thousands are saved."

1.   Why do you think it is so difficult to notice the patterns of the world we are currently stuck in?

2.   How is it that prayer practices help us break free from patterns?

3.   What patterns do you need to break free from?

4.   Do you agree with the intriguing ancient quote "When one person finds peace, thousands are saved"? Why or why not?

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?

Bob's View

Contemplating  “Bob’s View”

Who hasn’t enjoyed a View Master?  I remember sitting around as a kid, my View Master pointed toward the sunlit window, staring in wonder at the oh-so-real images of Noah and the Ark.  It was as if, for that moment, I was right there watching tigers being captured, seeing the devastating flood waters first hand, watching the dove fly from Noah’s hand.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that an invisible View Master is actually strapped to my eyes, and everyone else’s, all the time.   This invisible “View Master” is our mind.  Our mind converts, changes, and adapts reality into what feeds, protects, and empowers our ego.  My neighbor walks across my front yard.  I tell myself,  “I work hard and I own this property.   He has no right to cut across my yard.  Who does he think he is?  That’s the problem with our society.  Maybe I should put up a fence. Maybe I’ll walk through his living room sometime.  But Jesus says forgive.  And if Jesus can forgive those who nailed him to the cross the least I can do is forgive my thoughtless neighbor.  In fact I’ll do more than forgive him I’ll pray for his soul.  He probably needs help.  He probably needs a good friend and maybe that’s what God wants me to be, his good friend.  I will do that God.   Help me to help him.”   What just happened?  My neighbor walked across my yard, that’s what just happened.  All that other stuff is Trey’s View.  It’s a make-believe world that I buy into every moment of every day.  It’s filtered reality that suits my ego.  I begin to realize this when my wife says to me at supper, “I saw our neighbor pick up some trash out of our yard this morning.  What a nice guy.”  

1.   What catches your attention about this image?

2.   What is reality? 

3.   Unlike us Jesus had no “View Master.”  What stories from the life of Jesus illustrate this truth?

4.   Take a few minutes to remember an event or conversation that just happened today.  What parts of that event or conversation are real and what parts of it is your commentary, your version of reality?  

5.   If this were an image of you right now what discs would you be holding?

6.   So, once we realize we have this “View Master” strapped to our heads, now what?

Downpour of the Mind

Contemplating “Downpour of the Mind”

I struggled with a title for this doodle.  “The Power of Silence,”  “Protection,” “Centering Prayer,” and “Be Prepared” were a few of the titles I thought of before I decided on “Downpour of the Mind.”   We are constantly deluged with our inner dialogue.  It keeps us distracted shivering and focused on the unreal world we tailor make.  Trying to stop the continual flow of discursive thought is like trying to stop the rain.  We can’t.  But we can be aware of it and, like using an umbrella, simply observe it with out being drenched.  The drawing illustrates how we can continue on with our attention to God and to what is real in the midst of the distracting downpour of the mind. 

1.   What catches your attention about this drawing?

2.   What does the storm of words remind you of in your life?

3.   What does the umbrella represent to you?

4.   What Scripture references come to mind?

5.   When was the last time you used the “umbrella?”  What would help you use it more often?