The whole time I was working on the above piece, I was asking the question, "But what if I could?"

​I knew what I'd draw.  First, a transition from day to night. Second, an explosion of light, that can only be properly experienced when started in darkness. 

This is my imaginary playground.  Every once in awhile, I can see the potential- it explodes out. Then I realize it can't happen, and I'm left with the idea, and no way to do it. See, I am constantly living in the world of "what if," knowing there is little more that I can do. 

I wrote two scriptures into this drawing's foundation.

The first is John 1:1- "In the beginning was the Word, and the world was with God, and the Word was God." It tells the viewer this is still a new creation. You can tell from all the chaos that needs ordering. Beautiful new chaos. This image is exciting in it's potential. This image is fun. There's protection too. The "1:1" looks like 7:7- "The world can’t hate you. It hates me, though, because I testify that its works are evil." A little proof texty, I know- but when you have image to tell a story, you have to tell so much with so little. It speaks to Christ taking the burden.  God's love made known through the new creation.

The second is Luke 13:34- "Jerusalem, Jerusalem. The city that kills the prophets and stones those that are sent to it.  How I've longed to gather your children, like a hen gathers her chicks." That turns this drawing against itself. I told you it was potential.  Jesus' words were potential too. He's speaking to the potential to care and save Jerusalem, knowing they would crucify him in return. Notice the ground. It's a hidden rainbow. She is standing on God's promise. The rainbow was considered God's war bow, pointed away from the earth, but now she's standing on it.

It's so beautiful, but in it's beauty it's sad too.

When I was a child, I wanted to be part of church. The only way I could, was to light the candles at the beginning of church, and be part of the children's moment. 

The children's moment, was a 5 minute mini-sermon given before Communion. The kid's would come up. An adult would tell a story, ask a couple of questions, and sometimes we'd get a treat.

There came a point, where the adults felt I had aged out of the children's moment. To be fair, I was still a kid- 4th grade. They just decided I was done. The problem was, they couldn't keep me from going to the front of the church.  My dad sung in the choir, so no one was there to tell me, "No!"

One of the matriarchs took it upon herself to be that person. She took it upon herself to sit next to me one Sunday. When it came time for the children's moment, she firmly told me no. I ignored her, because she wasn't my dad, and started to go up. She grabbed my arm, and tried to hold me back. In shock and fear, I pulled away.

That was how the church decided to tell me, and I had multiple nightmares about that event throughout the rest of my childhood.

Gals keep other gals from God's promise in a multitude of ways.

Maybe it's under the guise of reciprocity. One generation didn't get something, so a future generation shouldn't have it either. Only the previous group can't see it wasn't fair for them, and in turn, it's not fair now. 

Maybe it's under the guise of justice. "These are the rules and we've been following them for generations."  The matriarch was only enforcing the rules, and her sense of justice gave me nightmares about God's house. But, I've seen the guise of justice being used in other ways too. Maybe it's the way the rules are harsher on women in ministry to prove a point. If one can find a single grain of guilt in a sea of ministry, that's it.  It's stifling. 

Or maybe, just maybe, it's the feeling women get that puts ministry as a limited resource.  The churches only have so many jobs for women in their building. The media only has one woman they can raise up as their spiritual darling. It forces us to fight one another for something God promised abundantly. We lose sight of the fact that me getting it, helps you get it later. You getting it, is celebration, because you getting it helps us all. 

We also become far more critical of one another, because we know that failure speaks to all of us, not just the woman who failed. It's painful, and it's real.

Flipped Mitten Press is a publishing company started by Kristy Burmeister.  She used her words to begin to tell the story of trauma suffered through the institution of Church.

I made this for her. 

She is doing it. She took God's promise and made something with it. She will continue to do so. There is nothing in this image, but love. 

This piece is the entire reason all of this exists. 

I've been spending 12 weeks long-term subbing for high school art class. Whenever I long term sub, I always immerse myself in the content. That's why the pieces look so diverse in their media. With the exception of a few pieces I went home and did because I was inspired, they are all pieces to help me, help the students. This was the first week with Drawing/Painting II. The prompt was "Illuminated pages."  While they took on Fairy Tales, I took on John 1:1-4. 

It's currently hanging in Fig Tree's worship area, and you can see it behind me Sunday mornings. 

This piece lit the flame to get me to explore how to preach without physical words, but with Word.

Oh, I know how uncomfortable this piece is. I can simply explain it, and you should see it differently than you are probably looking at it now.

Their are two images fighting for your focus: Communion and Dead Church.
Communion was broken and made whole. (Notice the mended cup.)
The Church was whole and is now broken.

This is an image of focus. What are you going to focus on? The building that will eventually decay and go back to dust? OR The Communion that is eternal?

I want to end here for a couple of reasons:
First, I don't want to end on Dead Church. I find it to be a solid piece, and I love it, but it's dense, and let's end on a lighter note.
Second, we're ending on life, and that makes this piece perfect.

The image on her brow is one of the Native American symbols for life. 
There are four quadrants, and each quadrant has four meanings.

Child-Youth-Adult-Older Adult
Morning-Midday-Afternoon-Night
Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter
North-South-East-West

There is only one type of person who has fully lived in all four: and older person. 
This person knows all of life.
What I love even more are her wrinkles. As we age, our skin creases in ways that show how we lived. This woman laughed! You can tell from her crows feet.

It’s like Taco Tuesday, but on a Thursday!

This is a continuing Lenten exploration of non-religious artists' take on religion.

This is how I’ve suggested one engages these meditations. 

1. Look at the art without any context. 
2. Read what is written about the artist, the art, and my take.
3. Return to the art with context and see if you view it differently.

​
HOWEVER- This one is a book review. I'll try to keep it spoiler free. I do suggest reading this review AFTER you've read her book.

Apologies: A Somewhat Interactive Poetry Experiment

Rev Howard Fenster (1916-2001)- Born in Alabama, he was one of 16 kids. In 1930, compelled by the Holy Spirit, he took up preaching. To supplement his income, he was also a bicycle repair man. In 1961 he moved to Pennville. It was while he was checking a tire with some white paint, he felt the Spirit again. The paint on his finger looked like a face. He heard the Spirit tell him to paint. Already, he was frustrated because he believed his sermons went in one ear and out another. His only concern was his talent. He heard the Spirit again to do it anyway. That’s when he started his career as a folk artist. His work is almost exclusively sacred in nature. He’s been on album covers, music videos, and late night talk shows. He created over 46,000 individual pieces of art from 1961 until his death in 2001. ​

I already knew the creators of religious art was oversaturated with men. I thought I'd go outside the church to find artistic expression and I'd find women. Only secular expression of religious themes are still over saturated with men.

Basically, I wanted to see what women outside the Church thought about Church, as much as I was seeing what men thought, only I was only finding men. Just look back at all the posts so far. Amazing talent. Awe inspiring work. All men.

In my frustration, I picked out one of the artists, and began a feminist critique through art of their work.

About the Art: To really get what I'm doing, it is important to see the related piece. In this case, I chose Aaron Douglas's Creation. I love Douglas' work. It looks simplistic, but the way he uses simple shapes, and range is much much more complex than it appears. His Creation, shows a man looking up at the hand of God. It's a white god, and the stars themselves are white. As the viewer I thought, can he have those stars? Probably not. With these illusions to the flood, the rainbow and Father Abraham, it's a deep piece by an agnostic painter. I recently wrote on his piece titled: Noah's Ark. I picked Douglas for my critique for two reasons. 

First, I want you to look this artist up. I want you to see his work. He lived in the 20's. When he's visualizing segregation, slavery and oppression he's doing it as an African American who know it. He deserves more attention from all audiences. 

Secondly, my critique of him is the masculinity in all his work. He lived in a time where "man" meant all of humanity. He could stay masculine, and no one would have questioned him.  That can't exist today.  

About the Artist: If I create something I truly love, I'm usually the most upset by it's creation. I've been doing this for almost a decade. There are backlogs of attempts to put myself out there. There are critiques meant to set something broken back to wholeness. I have been met with an echo. We all have. Some of us think our echoes are validation.  Nothing changes if people who already agree with us, choose to agree with us more. 

I've been ordained for a dozen years. Like, literally 12 as of Feb 14th. I've worked in churches and religious systems since 99'.  Twice as long as I've been ordained. As long as I don't rock boats, or don't take too much power, I'm safe. Well, I was safe. Well, I was never safe. I sealed my fate in high school when I led a group of fellow teenagers to walk out on the (who would eventually be) the General Moderator for the Christian Church, (Disciples of Christ). We walked out right when he began his sermon because he was hired as the senior minister, and didn't get along with the associate who happened to be a woman and the youth director. No one in the church knew, and not involving the church in a decision like that was my big problem. As time progressed, he was the one who owned the narrative, so the story became twisted. The story became that the associate led a coup d'etat to take down the poor senior minister.  Only it appears the walk out did absolutely nothing bad to this minister. His hissy fit, throwing down the gauntlet to say it was him or her, got her fired, and hurt the church for a generation. He did gangbusters! 

That was my introduction to ministry. This associate was the first time I had seen a woman preach. I saw how she was treated, and I STILL felt called to go into ministry! Getting God's call is not the same as "finding your passion," or "doing what you always wanted to do." A real honest to goodness call will not often get you accolades or high paying jobs.  It's taking on things no one wants to support. It's saying things that no one wants to hear. It's preaching to Nineveh. 

Notice what is the same: There is a person looking up. There is an olive branch next to the person. There is the hand of god. There are stars the same color as the hand of god. The rainbow is hidden in both. There is water. There are squiggly lines.

​Notice what is different: Douglas put the entire piece underwater. At least that's how I see it. The bubbles, and the waves tell me this is after Noah's Ark, but before the water's receded. That also puts the person in the chaos, because the uncreated world was in the oceans. That makes it even more poignant that the olive branch stands next to him.

What's different is the person's gender and color. The man is black. The woman is white. I'm speaking from my context, and only my context. I'm a white woman. I'm not taking on anything that doesn't belong to me. God is white in Douglas's work, while god is a man in mine. Douglas's man is looking up at god. My woman is looking at a star, and wants to touch it.

There is still the illusion to the flood, because Douglas's road was transformed into a creek in mine. I knew I couldn't put bubbles in the sky, so I decided for wind, only my wind became the spirit. Also blue, and completely by accident.

It's filled with so much hope. I want her to get the star. I want the Abrahamic promise to belong to her too! Only, I fear the star will never reach her, or if it does she won't be able to use it.
This painting is the truth, and what the truth holds depends on what we do with it.

How does "New Creation" preach the Word of God to the people of God?