Category Archives: brokeness

sign of the Fig Tree

It’s the time of year when buds are emerging. It’s also the time of centuries, long awaited, of Israel’s coming to fruition. The re-born nation is celebrating 70 years back in her land. “Can a nation be built in a day?” exclaimed the royal prophet Isaiah at the very end of his grand vision. I am convinced we are living in the time of Israel’s glorious denouement. The evidence is obviously visible: the land is blooming. Many trees, besides the broad-leafed fig, show the fruit of Israel’s 70 year cultivation of the land on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean. They are back where they started. This monotype is a reflection of that further becoming.

Like mirrors which echo imagery down a long corridor, has the fig tree been a watchword in every age for those who have read the Jewish prophet Jesus. Many have longed to see what we are seeing now with our own eyes. Many prophets promised it, and many more eager for the fruit yet to appear.

Before the Roman devastation of the 2^ndtemple in Jerusalem, Jesus, from the tribe of Judah, used a fig tree as a metaphor for his nation. It was not the time for harvest. And so the “sign of the fig tree” became a sad precursor to the Roman ruin of the Jewish homeland just decades after Jesus. The tree’s unfruitfulness at that time was a prophetic illustration of what was about to come down.

Now that nation is reborn, and fig trees are blooming again. There is reason for anticipation.

The fig is the third tree mentioned in Genesis, after the tree of life, then the forbidden tree (knowledge of good and evil) that was nonetheless sampled by Eve then Adam. The Fig was the fall-back, not for eating at that point, but for the more desperate need for cover-up. Its broad leaves were grasped and stitched together for now there was an instinctive knowing of inadequacy, a need for costume-ing. It was the first masquerade.

But for the gracious kindness of a seeking God, that is not where the whole story ended, though it could have. And that is precisely why this sign interests me. It wasn’t the poor tree’s fault to be a sign of leafy futility. The fig tree that Jesus spoke of remains a metaphor of what was and what is yet coming: Isael’s long term future toward fruitfulness. He finishes everything He began.

Fig trees are blooming again in the land. And the God of Abraham is still walking around. He’s still asking any who want to care the very first question he posed to mankind in another garden: “where are you?”

on art making in a disintegrating time

“Hope is the thing with feathers — that perches in the soul” Emily Dickinson, who penned this sweet line, knew a thing or three about meaningful hope. Hers was a buoyant expression, all the more poignant because she was equally aware of the hardness of her time/place and of her own internal struggle. Her poetry is rich for this reason: real, but outward even as she felt the confines of her tiny upper room.

Any glib optimism about our current cultural future is berated and mocked by reports we hear, and evidence we see daily, hourly. One could go numb, choosing to be unfeeling. One could get frantic with fear (outrage is already exhausted). Or, one could get busy/stay alert doing what speaks to the bigger issues as Emily, and Flannery O’Connor, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Georges Rouault, and any number of others did in their own disintegrating times. Real honest, counter-cultural artistry comes out of hard ground. Each of theirs was hard, and their work still speaks now.

Real artistry takes the stuff available, even broken stuff, and does something whole with it because there is such a thing as creation and cultivation and hope. We were made for this — under the watch-care of the One who started all this creativity and then got into the dirt with us. (that’s key: He got into the dirt with us). There is real, counter-cultural, reason for hope then.

Taylor Worley, a prof of faith and culture at Trinity Intl. Univ. says “hope does not operate in the abstract. It must reckon with the real material of the disaster. It must start somewhere.” And adds this “We’re reminded once again that hope is dangerous, and yet for that reason immensely prophetic.” The art critic James Romaine remarks “I see art as very similar to prayer. It’s as futile or as powerful as prayer. It all depends on your faith.”

If my faith is in men, or in some idea of political progress or in what I can do with my own hands, I am honestly sunk. But if my faith is cast instead to the One who forms, gives breath, renews real hope and is still at work in this time, in this culture, then I get really energized in spite of what is all around me. What energizes you?

This little 8×10 oil piece is named Tanager, for the flush of color moving from a scavenging but still beautiful bird. It will be for sale at a Holiday event in my town next week.

look out

Yesterday in studio I worked up a palette of hues in oil, building from a photo I’d saved of an arctic scene in National Geo. You can see that here if you look closely at my messy table. I mixed up a set of replicated hues, pleasing together, and then added notes of my own with them, before I had any idea what I would do myself with this color grouping.

Then I took several prepared papers, and one rubber brush and started making marks. My angled rubber tool is pretty cool for I can switch easily from hue to hue by just quickly wiping it down. This gives me a brief freedom. I can vary the stroke widths by the angle, and modulate the intensity of the laid down paint so easily that exercises with this tool become play. For me, quick work like this gets better at what is deeply inside me than labored more planned out attempts at perfection.

The artic quiet of the original image had me captivated, the skies in that photo looked foreboding. And that’s maybe why I selected it. The skies outside my window were carrying ominous hints too as hurricane bands are moving our way. But things move slow. And it’s in the slowness where I live. Things that matter take so much time! I ponder this and my soul is impatient to the point of unease. That’s maybe also why quick work is so cathartic to me. And so I purposed to just make marks, to let my arms work it out, to try to outline it, as if prompting a resolve. This work is like prayer, it suddenly occurs to me. It happens only because things are not right. It’s productive, learned and practiced because there is felt need. I’m looking out, but “we’re not there yet.”

The Irish writer Josephine Hart said “there is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.” And Jesus praised those who hunger and thirst for the things that matter most. I think this is why I keep articulating the contours of horizon.

broken bits and an emblem toward the Restoration

This past weekend our University Art Museum was opened up on an off day so that a grieving family could gather in the space. The woman being remembered, was a unique local artist of incredible talent. She would take found objects, broken discards, scraps of fiber, bone, clay and make assemblages that could reach deeply into your soul. Her work spoke, and I was so privileged to know her. This is an image I shot from a juried show in 2016 where I was first introduced to her.

But in these last months she was not in good health, single, very private, and she sadly died alone. The family and community are heartsick. So, folks brought in things this artist had made and given away: One was a book of mixed media type quilt scraps with words of direction as if these were signs on the underground railroad. A tall wood pillar, with a house top roof, had a book within it and objects depicting Jesus’ story of the parable of the sower. Another set of notes were for women recovering from trauma in which the artist encouraged one “You know when the final piece is complete” she said, “it will result in a thing of beauty…”

I thought of how she herself is complete now, the real her, not what stayed behind. All the material bits found around her were vestiges of the unfinished, but her soul is safe, beautiful and certainly now intact. “for the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, where He searches all the inward parts” Proverbs 20:27. I thought of words we shared, reminding each other of the promise Peter gave in the 1^st century to believers: assuring that such a developing Jesus follower would not be “useless nor unfruitful”. And I expect she died just as she lived, holding onto the One she was following.

This same week I found a fascinating article about the Japanese method of repairing broken clay vessels. The ancient practice continues where cracks are filled with a lacquer-like glue, then carefully sanded and finally coated with a cover of gold. The resultant piece, with its particular history of brokenness, shines with that same jagged brokenness made beautiful. And I thought again of my friend. And I thought of the broken edges in my own life too. And I thought of what Peter says: that the proof of one’s faith in the promise of Jesus is more precious than perishable gold. And Paul said that we hold these truths in broken vessels that the surpassing greatness might be apprehended as coming from God Himself. “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though the outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” So the clay pots pieced back together are a sign of something that broken souls long for. If it were not true, it would not resonate.

bookkeeper

Another sketch from my Vox series, here illustrated is one verse from the very last book of the Hebrew collection. The prophet Malachi had some blistering words to say to his hearers, as well as a couple reassuring promises.

Any current assumption that spiritual giants “just need to be nice” are blinding themselves to alot of rich material. Moses, Joshua and Jeremiah were not known for being nice. John the Baptist was a firebrand; Jesus was a spiritual revolutionary and if either of them had just been “nice” we would never have heard of them again.

Piercing words function like an alarm clock to those who need to be jolted awake. Here’s just one example from Malachi’s short treatise: (the prophet speaking for God in chapter 1) “I am honored all over the world. And there are people who know how to worship me all over the world, who honor me by bringing their best to me. They’re saying it everywhere: ‘God is greater, this God-of-the-Angel-Armies.’ All except you. Instead of honoring me, you profane me. You profane me when you say, ‘Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,’ and when you say, ‘I’m bored—this doesn’t do anything for me.’ You act so superior, sticking your noses in the air—act superior to me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! And when you do offer something to me, it’s a hand-me-down, or broken, or useless. Do you think I’m going to accept it? This is God speaking to you!”

I would call that a verbal alarm clock. It sounds like the words of an angry parent. In the next chapter, vs.17 is this critique: “You make God tired with all your talk.”

But the verse in this small 3 chapter book that I selected to illustrate was one of promise toward the end of Malachi’s warnings. That promise melts my wavering heart. Chapter 2 actually sets the context by reminding the listeners (whoever is still listening) that God is a covenant keeper. And what God has promised will stand though others will not stand in the day of His sure appearing. After more warning words, God challenges “Test me… I will defend you.” vs.10-11.

And as if it is a follow through response from that call-out “Then those whose lives honored God got together and talked it over. God saw what they were doing and listened in. A book was opened in God’s presence and minutes were taken of the meeting, with the names of the God-fearers written down, all the names of those who honored God’s name.” (This is the same verse 3:16 that I illustrated in the image, set in a contemporary paraphrase called The Message.)

I’ve often thought of that promise when speaking quietly with others. I take His words literally just as I see He does ours. And when we gather and speak of Him, He lets us know that He’s a bookkeeper.

images before words

The Hebrew prophets: might you be able to name just one? Starting with Moses, there were at least 17 who asserted warnings then assurances of hope before Jesus showed up. Their persistence, heartfelt passion and vivid imagery has long fascinated me. Their unified story is a gold mine. Yet we live in a time now where fewer and fewer people have even minimal awareness of the ancient messages.

There’s nothing new under the sun and such bible-word cluelessness is not unlike the times when some of the characters like Jeremiah and Micah, Hosea and Isaiah spoke out-loud (each tying back uniquely to what had been written down already). But the listeners were not having it. So, Jeremiah was told to make his own body a visual in some stark ways. Jonah became a walking billboard, and Amos recorded vivid pictures prompted by God: “What do you see, Amos?” He was then to visualize it for others.

One of my first jobs out of college was to design visuals, charts and graphics for historical spiritual ideas. I didn’t know I was good at it, just enjoyed it. I also didn’t know that while there came a long hiatus for me from that kind of work (once babies arrived) that the whole culture was moving away from words and needing images. I just kept reading. And like a soup simmering on my stove, images would waft up like the scent of seasons.

So, fast forward several decades to where people get their news in sound bites promoted by image and grabbed by icons. And Bibles are sold with coloring pages. It is what it is. Visuals have the potential to beckon toward understanding (see last post), but many just stop at the signs, blinking blindly.

Several years ago I did a series of small sketches after reading through every page of my Bible. I picked one verse that jumped out to me from each in the collection of 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament books. Then I worked quickly at recording a summary image for each of those 66. They were displayed for a month at my church. The series was called “Vox”.

I am highlighting these again now, the more vivid ones at least, on instagram and twitter, paying particular attention to the prophets. For their words still speak and are better than the evening news.

Here’s just one from the tiny book of Haggai, 2nd chapter, verse 5:

blood on the door

We’re preparing. And since visuals speak so powerfully to me, I painted a symbol on our front door. Similar to any other sign, one has to stop here and think. Strange things require some investigation to understand what’s really going on. People who know me already are primed for surprises. My engineer looked tentatively, bemused at the gleam in my eyes as to what I’d done now. One of my daughters just smiled at her weird mom. I got out some red paint, and researched which branches in my backyard would more closely resemble the hyssop used in Exodus. When the Israelites were told to paint blood on the lintel and posts of their doors right before their great rescue it must have been a truly weird act of faith. But the instructions came from the Lord, thru Moses. And the events that quickly followed proved their worth.

This was an unprecedented rescue, the effect of which was known in every home in Egypt after that night.

Blood spent for the forgiveness of sin was not a new concept. It was initiated in the garden, then explained more after the flood, but painting it on the doors? This was an entirely new expression. It was fresh, and it was startling.

You might be aware of the red banners on the tops and sides of doorways that the Chinese put up during the first of their lunar year’s celebration. I’ve taught in China many times and often asked friends about this custom and it’s history. There’s surely something of visual importance going on with these banners. “Why is this here?” Nobody knows except that it’s ancient and it means blessing on that house, and “everybody does it who wants to be blessed”. I don’t think that’s a cultural coincidence, nor originally a random act.

So at my house, we’re covered. Not because there’s any magic in the sign or in my red paint, but because this represents an unseen covering, from the blood of an unblemished lamb, long ago instituted by the One who rescues out of death.

standing O

I got a standing ovation this week. First ever. I forgot to say thank-you. I just watched, stunned: in relief that the talk was over. The whole room of some 50 people stood up in spontaneous applause. This was a group of courageous folks involved in recovery from addictions and I was asked to speak to them about the meaning in my work and how I came to it. It was clear to me that their thanks was for the One who was really shining through, and that was my prayer. It was so sweet! And, I sold every one of my books that I brought along that night.

The emphasis I’d planned was how my own life was changed by the same God who can change them. I am used to more hardened audiences. I prepare for skeptics and others who “have to be there” like the kid in a University class last month who asked in the Q&A “how old ARE you?”

But this group of hurting folks was the most loving and alert large group I’ve ever encountered. I heard a verse from a song by Chris Rice this morning that summarized the experience “Raise your head for love is passing by”. That’s the way I felt when with these earnest recover-ers. They are raising their heads, and with them we all got to see Love in the room.

I showed them some pieces like this one, “Time and Mercy” where the chaos is falling down all around the inner life. But there on the inside is the mark of a heartbeat, and the recording of time. There’s a history that is undeniable, part of the fabric that cannot be changed. There’s a span ahead yet unknown. But in this present moment I can breathe and pause. This is the potential moment where beauty is born. For right now I can lift my head because the evidence of love is still shining through for those who are eager for it.

time’s slow move

We had a wonderful snowfall this past weekend. Everyone took a break to look-out and to rest within. That was glorious at such a busy season. I have lots of pictures, but the impression that got translated into oil was some aftermath from the bigger event. There’s story here. For, as the snow blanket thinned, the ground revealed some surprising December alive-ness. You could not see it happen, this snow thinning, unless you sped up a time-lapse cam. It’s lived so slow from our angle. We move here on the ground at a snail’s response to what is happening second by second in the heavenlies. My sky here is active, for that’s where the real drama is being directed. The land only reflects the weather patterns and the light working above it. I live on the ground, held by gravity, where time creeps sometimes agonizingly slow. I don’t like that slowness, for there’s so much that needs to change down here, so much I long for from the only One who can bring us justice and peace. Humans and their leaders so disappoint me! He said He’d return, why is He taking so long!?

In the first century, after the resurrection, one of Jesus’ followers must have been wondering the same for he writes: “with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness (me), but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.”

So what happens on the ground is timed-out by a God who is waiting patiently, redemptively for those who will take the time to consider.

I don’t mean to just drop off a sweet Sunday school lesson here; in fact I am eeking it out with tears some days lately. He knows. I tell Him. For I am startled at the deep vexation in my spirit. It’s like my soul is buried under frigid crystals, but there are angry embers way down deep. In my piece, it’s the higher grounded areas where the snow is still sitting (in real fields it’s typically the other way around, for the heights catch the sun first and longest.) But the valleys, where tiny me cannot see far enough, are where my hot anger resides.

The thinning snow, pulled back it’s cover, so the heat could eek out slow. Timed slowly, the active sky is in a duet with the receiving ground, and something much grander is happening.

to strike, then to speak

The journey of Moses leading the Hebrews out of slavery and into the land has informed some recent visual work. There’s a curious episode with water coming out of a rock that strangely happens twice: once at the beginning of their sojourn and then again right before they enter the land promised them. Both times the people are thirsty and near riotous. Both times God gives Moses instruction. Both times Moses needs to take action. But the action the first time is to strike the rock and the second time Moses is only to speak to it. It’s a fascinating repeat with an important distinction.

Patterns and parallels catch attention. When something repeats, be it sound or sight, there’s a resonance of some sort. There’s potential being built. We’re hardwired, I think, to be alerted when there’s a repeat. Curiosity gets engaged—something intentional seems to be happening. When a strange chirp repeats I know it’s more than random, so I go looking for it. When the 2^nd plane hit the towers, there was universal recognition that we were no longer dealing with accident. I watched that 2^nd plane hit, and was startled at how instantly that repeat was a game changer of terrifying consequence. Everyone who saw that knew instinctively.

I was in a workshop this past week with an artist who’s done a lot of reading about how our brains perceive and then recognize. He posited that we’re all visual learners; we all take in data and start making connections. But it’s in the investigating where real learning gets sealed in our memory. And that takes some time and consideration.

So back to Moses, why was he tasked to strike the first time but only speak the second? For me this parallel of two rock stories is really pregnant, there’s more here. Moses had learned about striking. And by the end of the long wilderness journey he was oh-so ready to strike again. Why twice this rock thing then at these completely different times/locations? There’s nothing particularly distinguishable about the rocks in either episode. What is God teaching here in the narrative? It’s not random. There’s much that is not explained in the text, but some particulars are very clear. Needed water came out of rock both times and the people were sated. God gave words, both times. But Moses failed miserably at the 2^nd rock because he applied an old instruction to the parallel. At the repeat episode, he was only to speak to the rock. Most find this biblical episode harsh, as if we gift-receivers have any high ground for critiquing the gift-giver. But God poured out that gift of water—both times, in spite of Moses’ fail. I am wondering if the parallel isn’t more deeply meaningful than our memories can yet gather in.

Moses personally addresses God later as “The Rock!” and he does so with overflowing praise at God’s perfection in all His ways. Moses had learned these ways of God, even through severe disappointment. I am not a good listener, so this story stills me. I am an activist who gets angry easily, therefore my empathy for Moses is pretty deep. But deeper still is the provision from the water giver, unseen but present within each of these common rocks. The first time the rock was to be struck. The second time: only spoken to.

what mercy requires

A recent show opening this past week (well attended by students, artists and appreciators) was a kaleidoscope of ideas and emotion. The Fl3tch3r Exhibit’s aim is to further social and politically engaged art. The juror, Canadian Anita Kunz, is an internationally published illustrator who selected from over 350 entries coming in from around the world. Because of space restrictions, she eventually had to limit down to a 20% submission ratio. The show is strong. The ideas varied and electrically charged. And, I admit that with some tenderness, even as my own piece was among those passed over. Rejection stings. But good work, well curated, lifts even those who are observing from the reject pool.

Openings are not a good time to really let the whole sink in deeply, so I went back today to consider more. There were the usual political diatribes against prominent public personalities. There were powerful aesthetic statements against guns and drugs and racial violence. Some of that work was remarkably masterful. But then, I noticed a diminutive collage, chosen as a favorite by the museum staff, “Art to Stop Traffic: What Mercy Requires of Us”. The piece is only 5”x 3.5”. This submission is a poignant contrast, rendered from found images, paper, pen and pencil. The value and color contrast is immediately obvious, but peering closer one sees the uncomfortable juxtaposition of plastic expressions, skin color, garish lighting, things hidden and things exposed.

This very idea of things hidden and finally exposed is something I’ve been placing my heart on recently, and so I was gripped again.

Jesus is the one who called this out as a promise to His followers: “for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed”. Such a paradox this: that the ultimate mercy giver is also going to be the final adjudicator. The harshest words He had to say when walking our ground were to the religiously complacent (visualized in this collage). And the most lavish praise he gave was to a woman, not unlike the one pictured in this fragile piece, who wept at His feet. I am moved by this. And I am heartened that the museum staff would even notice a less prominent submission for this very grandest of ideas.

collage by Lucy Julia Hale, Cave Spring, GA

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape