Please read the post THE INVITATION to better understand this blog.
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How’s your prayer life? Mine is a series of highs and lows…restless, mind-wandering, focused attention in short bursts. I would classify myself as an “A.D.D. Pray-er. After years of guilt and boredom and saying “I should pray… and making vain attempts to set a side a time to pray daily.”….I find like Paul states in Romans; ” I don’t do the things I want to do and seem to do the things I don’t want to do. Most of my prayers seem to be daily, moment or flash prayers, as I go through my day…with maybe 5 min. focused prayer at bedtime. ( probably a result of years of childhood traditions of bedtime prayer…I’m conditioned to pray at that time.)
Then I had a encounter with an art therapy class…that reminded me to paint/play with color and image as I had done as a child. As a professional artist…I had stopped playing and just tried to work at creating paintings for product.
This radically changed the way I approached my painting and later I then started teaching Art from the Heart classes, using some of the principals I had learned in the Art therapy class and adding things that I had learned along the way from a spiritual perspective. In my Art form the Heart classes we learned to paint from spirit/soul, enjoying the freedom of the process instead of painting from the intellect which teaches us to paint for “Product” or a “pretty picture”.
BAM !!!! The lights came on……I had been doing the same thing in prayer. As an adult I was now praying for “product” not process. My prayer life had become work…praying from the mind with a list of rules of should’s I had lost the spontaneity of praying with the joy and freedom of a child. Even as I write this today I realize my flashes of prayer were more in line with that of a child but the voice of the Pharisee, critic and judge, had blinded me to this truth…free and spontaneous.
On my next “Post” , there will be more on Painted Prayer.
One day will surfing the net I came across one of the greatest examples of the WHOLE Body of Christ. Taize is an international ecumenical community founded in France in 1940 by Brother Roger (a protestant). This community is made up of Protestants, Catholics and Greek Orthodox from a number of different nations. The worship and prayer services combine several languages in all the services to represent the different nations present. Taize is a parable of community that wants it’s life to be a sign of reconciliation between divided Christians.
Here is one example of a worship service (you do not have to press photo’s on the screen of the video, they will automatically appear in a few seconds)
If you did not read the last post, “How Do You See” I recommend you read it before reading this post. As this post builds on the previous post.
This is the question posed by Einstein, “Is the universe a friendly place or not?”
I believe this quote should be a fundamental question all Christians should ask themselves. For it is a clear indication of how they view God and their relationship with God, humanity, and all of creation!
When I ask someone the question, “What is happening spiritually in your life, family, community, city or nation?” Normally I get a litany of what the “enemy or evil” is doing and all the problems they are having. Very seldom is the response about what God is doing! This is a strong indicator that they view earth as an unfriendly place.
This is a BIG problem at the very heart of a Christians experience, relationship, and journey! They can’t SEE the BEAUTY REALM, the very place of the glory, love and blessings of God!
The scriptures are filled with passages on God’s glory and blessings being shown in all of creation and Christ, The Creator, presence being seen in the universe. The Living Word holding all of life together by His power. The place of abundance, joy peace and thankfulness. We marvel at life..Alive to the Beauty Realm!
Albert Einstein was once asked this question? “What is the most important question you can ask in life?” His response was, “Is the universe a friendly place or not?”
My question to you the reader is, “Is earth a friendly place to you or not?”
What is the image you have of earth?
Is this your image?
Is this your image?
What you think and what you see…is what you plant…is what you grow… and that is what you get!
Throughout life’s journey we come to forks in the road. These paths force us to make choices: “Do I continue on the same path that is known and there is some level of comfort, or do in go on the narrow road … the path of the unknown?”
The Choice
In Jewish biblical teaching the journey on the road of life is … a series of crossroads and forks in the road. Also, it is a circle that brings us around to the place where we started. There… we revisit something we have encountered before. I may choose to go around the mountain again on the same path or I can spiral upward to a new path that goes around the mountain of God.
Understanding these two principals of the “road” will help you navigate the journey.
Re-visiting the Prophetic
Journey around the mountain
In this season I find myself embarking on an old journey, the path of the prophetic. The longer that I walked this path several years ago, the more abuses I encountered. My question to God was, “How can such a wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit be so misused.” I had come to a fork in the road and chose to leave “the path of the prophetic” and start a journey on “the road of contemplative prayer and Lectio Divina.”
The Road of the Contemplative Life
This is the “road of the Divine Indwelling, the Living Word.” This is the “road to Emmaus,” where Christ the Shepherd opens Himself as The Living Scriptures and my heart burns within me with divine love for Yahweh. This is the road that brings one to experience the scripture that reads,
the great mystery is …..Christ in you, the hope of glory.
The New Road
This new path brings together the Gift of the Prophetic and the Spiritual Practice of Contemplative Prayer. I look forward to being taught by the Holy Spirit how to walk this path in my life and art. If you would like to see how this unfolds in my art go to my blog “www.paintedvoice.com” or click on my link at the top right of this page that reads MY ART BLOG.
The first day it was beautiful…. 6 inches of gorgeous snow. The weatherman called this snow, Thunder Snow which is a strange phenomena. While it was snowing there was thunder and lightening that resembles heat lightening….very spectacular! Then the power went out and we were snowed in for 38 hours….. trees and power lines were down all over the area.
I am very grateful to Georgia Power employees who are working tirelessly day and night to get the power back on. A big ” THANK YOU “.
One of the blessings of being snowed in was enjoying how beautiful everything was. My husband commented on the silence, no cars going by, no hums of appliances, no noise other than birds and animals….all seemed at peace.
Occasionally, we had a cell phone call from family and friends. We all were commenting on the beauty of the snow and sharing in the excitement of the day. Because there were few distractions people were “seeing”…..”really seeing”! They were making comments like; ” Did you see the way the sunlight causes the snow to glimmer? “, ” Look at the shades of lavender and blue in the shadows on the snow. “, ” The trees are twinkling with what looks like thousands of little diamonds. ” and ” The colors of the birds and animals in the fields were very bright against the crisp white snow! “.
It was a feast for the eyes!
I think that sometime we are blessed with little interuptions in life. This allow us to stop, see, enjoy and be grateful for life and the beauty of God’s creation.
Another Letting Go, another teaching, another example of how the little choices I make in life produces big results! This blog is about the day to day journey… or … as I call it…the divine dance of the day that weaves the tapestry of my life.
As a professional artist, the question always seems to be: ” Where do I go to sell my work? “ A place that is readily available is craft fairs. Feeling the need to make money, I decided to go in that direction. As I proceeded down this road I found that it was becoming increasingly more expensive to market at fairs.
My lesson came in a trip to Sams!
Finding that I needed a tent in-order to show at the fair, my husband and I headed off to Sams. We found the tents…the cheapest being $200.00. This marketing at a craft fair was getting more and more expensive! As we stood in Sams having our discussion, I mentally started totaling the cost of participating at the fair which would be around $400.00 to $500.00. This meant that before I could even start making any profit I would have to clear $500.00. In my heart the war started! My emotions and thoughts were running wild… ” I need and want the tent! “, ” this is not a good business decision! “, ” if I don’t do the fair, how will I make money! “ Fear and unrest were running rampant in my heart and there was no sense of peace inside of me.
The Letting Go…the choice. ♥♥♥
I stopped my “monkey mind” for a moment…and looked inward at my heart. There was no Peace, so I made the choice, said “No” to purchasing the tent and walked away. Was my heart at peace at this moment…no….yet as I continued to walk away, slowly Peace came. You see, this Peace isn’t a feeling it is a Person ♥ The Living Word ♥.
The next morning, I went to my study to meditate, pray and read….and Peace came to me. Deep with-in my heart, the Shepherd of my soul gave me His plans for marketing His artwork.
“Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need! He lets me rest in the meadow grass and leads me beside the quiet streams. He restores my soul. He helps me do what honors Him the most.”
We are excited about all the things we are developing. We are working on “New Pages” and we added a link to my spiritual art blog “PAINTED VOICE”….check it out. Also, the “ABOUT” has been up-dated and we have added the beginnings of “Favorite Books” page.
As several of you know, I work in area of using spiritual art combined with economic development to help bring healing to those in the “at risk” community of Athens. I received a phone call from Pastor Earl, at the Sparrows Nest (an organization that works with the homeless, the poor, and the “at risk”). A teenage girl brought in a folder of art work…that Earl said; “it was amazing!” and that he would like me to come in and meet Cindy, and see her work. So, in the first week of March I will be going in to meet with them, look at the work, and talked to them about the next step. So stay tuned and please pray for us..I looking forward to what God has in-store for us. ♥
First I want to thank the two people that wrote comments on my post, “The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas”.
For me spiritual journeys are not just about praying, studying and meditating…but also about who you meet along the way. I believe we are all on a journey and nothing happens by chance. When another pilgrim crosses my path and stops for moment…we meet, share, question, comment, or maybe just listen….that this a part of the divine dance or the weaving of Gods great tapestry of life. A wonderful book “The Alchemist” illustrates this so well. The story is about a shepherd boy, who is seeking his destiny and how the people that he meets along the way help him in his journey.
In response to the comment made by Michael Wiese…..I would like to thank him for making such an interesting documentary. As I said in my previous post on this subject my interest for going to this movie was to see photography of Tibet, the artwork of the Tibetan people and to get some understanding of a persons spiritual quest.
One of my spiritual teachers, Thomas Keating speaks of God looking at the intention and attention of the heart. When I apply this teaching to my experience and my interest in going to this film….I came away with several “gifts”.
First Gift: The cinematography was great! Some of the colors in the pictures of the landscapes were spectacular. As an artist, these landscapes gave me new combination of colors to add to my paintings.
Second Gift: As a teacher of mystical art, I came away from the film with more understanding of how Buddhists use color, painted images, symbols and sculpture to enhance their spiritual experience. The visual art pointed me in the direction towards understanding types of pigments and binding agents used in creating Tibetan art.
Third Gift: This was a newer understanding of the plight of the Tibetan people and the persecution that they have endured. Also, I was able to see how their spiritual practices were very similar to other religions.
Fourth Gift: An enrichment of my own spiritual journey, and a sense of thankfulness for the blessings I received from a meeting along the road of the cosmic journey.
Again I say “thank you” to Michael for his creative work and may he be blessed as he continues on his cosmic path. ☼
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall soft upon you fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
My response to the comment written by Kunzany Molam will be in my next post.
A THANK YOU!