When I was a teenager, I was kind of weird.
Well, lets say a little weird okay? I used to go to this art gallery in downtown Portland, Oregon. I was hip.. Clove cigarettes, black trench coat and a pair of dockers and IZOD shirt and penny loafers…
Wow where has the time flown
This art gallery was my quiet place from the hectic of my life. I started going after a life shattering experience of being raped. I was alone many of those days. I was freshly a Christian but my heart was torn and I was lost… still reeling with pain and anger.
I had yet learned of Grace in my life.
These field trips per say became meaningful and almost healing.
I didn’t try to conquer it by taking a methodical tour of the pieces so that I saw everything and could say “I did it,”
I would just wander around, eyes and soul open, and let the art speak to me.
Some of the pieces would draw me, the ones I would sit in front of with my coffee gazing and daydreaming. Rather than try to figure it out or deconstruct it, the pieces of art played out a story or a soft hushed melody from a fine tuned orchestra.
The art made an impact, paying as much attention to what’s happening inside me as to what’s going on in the painting or sculpture.
I think that’s a great analogy or metaphor for the “artful way” of engaging with life…treating it not as something to be forced to bend to your will, but rather as though the world were a gallery full of art, and your soul is the instrument through which it fully comes alive.
In that approach to living, what you do with your day has as much to do with listening to your soul as it does with reading your to-do list.
Impractical? Maybe.
But I wonder if the real reason I don’t live this way more often isn’t because I think it’s impractical, but rather because my fear of failing the to-do list and forgetting that my soul still needs to be stirred at times.
10 Comments
July 14, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Heidi! You are such an awesome writer! You have the artist soul.
(What book are you writing?? It HAS to take off for you!)
I sometimes think i live on two planes….we have to get our daily things done, yet our minds can also travel to deeper things. Multi-tasking, in an artful way.
Sorry to hear about your painful past.
)
We live is such a broken world, yet have so much to be thankful for.
I’m thankful for YOU, and your insightful thoughts!
July 14, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Sounds like you need to own your to-do list instead of it owning you. But I totally understand. You sound as if you have been healed from the broken past and I hope that is true
July 14, 2008 at 4:50 pm
“In that approach to living, what you do with your day has as much to do with listening to your soul as it does with reading your to-do list.”
WOW! Thank you for this!!! Listening to your soul…I love it! It is where He dwells, and only there can you see who He truly created you to be..
July 14, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I sometimes look at my ‘to-do-list’ and have to enquire whether everything on it really deserves to be on it. Dentist yes – dust bunnies – that can wait. Art and music, often speak to our hearts don’t they. Love ya!
July 14, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Life is good Heidi – enjoy it!
July 15, 2008 at 12:41 am
You are awesome, and I do understand…the whole healing process, and even the less visited quiet places…trying to accomplish the to-do list…
I can’t speak for you..but right now I need to stop everything and just climb up on HIS lap and feel HIS strength and HIS passion…He is there waiting for us…no words for that thought.
July 15, 2008 at 1:02 am
I have been in bondage to my “to do” list and not finding ways to “stir my soul”. Thanks for giving me permission…
July 16, 2008 at 3:08 am
thank you for sharing that painful part of your past… i would hug you right now if i could.
and i believe God speaks so often through things like art. we make our own dividing wall between sacred and secular. but God doesn’t. it’s all sacred to Him.
July 16, 2008 at 3:37 am
Heidi…It is so hard to articulate what I want to say in words about your to-do list and how it effects you. I know what I want to say but just can’t put the words there.
There have been so many times when a higher level of transparency comes from you that totally speaks to me. I think that I have done about a half a mile in your shoes. My heart longs to be close to yours to comisserate and heal together. God is awesome!
I would like to lighten this up just for a momemt by asking….which brand of cloves was your favorite? Kuta, Jakarta, Dajarum? I use to love them. Especially sitting on the beach at the change of a season. They always smelled different in the spring than the fall.
Truly love you Lady and so grateful that God let me find you! You are always in my prayers!!
July 16, 2008 at 4:08 am
hmm, yeah. This is so good… I’m still pondering it.
Thanks.