All posts by Kaye

October Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, , ,

I read and hear a great deal about keeping up spiritual practice in our hectic lives. These past few months, however, another question has intrigued me: what spiritual practices help us wait? Waiting requires intense endurance, especially in a society addicted to busyness. Do any of the following “waiting places” resonate with your experience?

Having emailed countless job applications, you now sit at the computer, awaiting a response from some potential employer somewhere. Having stamped and mailed your “reach school” application, you visit the mailbox each day to discover whether or not they find you worthy. Your medical tests sit in a lab somewhere while you wonder whether or not you can bear what they may disclose. You are mending from an illness or injury; you wonder when life will get back to “normal.” You took a risk in a relationship and now wait, wondering how—or if—the other person will respond.

Waiting season have a timeless quality to them: we itch to DO SOMETHING when the something we are called to do is well . . . wait. Waiting is a marathon we do not run; waiting is an endurance marathon.

I hope some of the practices will supply stamina power for your waiting season.

  • Go deep. Waiting provides us space for reflection. Consider the following books as reflection aids: The Artists Way and The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Edward and Tarcher.
  • Play. If you have ever wanted to mess around with clay or write a limerick or take a walk to nowhere in particular, now is the time!
  • Serve. Waiting can leave us feeling powerless. Yet we always have the power to do the world good. Write someone a letter of encouragement . . . look the cashier in the eye and say “thanks” . . . bake a loaf of bread and give it away.
  • Find a metaphor. It helps me to imagine waiting as the transition phase of birth labor. Because I am in transition, I feel nothing but pain, yet I know that labor ends in birth. Imaging waiting as transition helps me hope—and hope helps me endure.

August Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, ,

It’s there—right beside Austin’s Long Center in a park filled with gentle curves. I nearly passed it by, but then I stopped and studied the pattern of white and red bricks: could it be what I thought it was? Yes, the city of Austin had built a labyrinth into its newest park, near the Barton Springs Road side. This one’s not the only labyrinth in Austin, however. You can find them both outside and inside several area churches. In fact, labyrinths are increasingly popular across the country: in hospital courtyards, in city parks, at retreat centers, and in prisons.

A labyrinth is a walking maze, but it is impossible to get lost within its circle. The labyrinth path takes the walker on a circuitous route toward the center, where its traveler can then sit or stand. When ready, the walker retraces his or her steps out of the maze.

So what’s the big deal about labyrinths? Studies show that walking a labyrinth reduces stress. I find it to be more than that: for me, labyrinth walking is prayer. As my feet move along its path, I feel the solidity of God’s creation bearing me up, and the natural rhythm of my gait joins the music of the universe. The path is deceptive: when it appears that I am almost to the center, the path suddenly turns back on itself and heads me in the other direction. How often have I experienced that! The labyrinth’s hairpin bends slow me down and challenge me to find my center of balance. The labyrinth grounds me—literally. When I walk the labyrinth with another person, the path draws us so near that one of us must pause and allow the other to move forward. How often in daily living do we speed along, isolated in our horse-powered tins cans, passing other tins cans without any real consciousness of their occupants? On a labyrinth I make room for the other and the other does the same for me. At last, the labyrinth welcomes me into its center, into its very heart, and lets me simply be. On a hot summer morning I can sit and feel the stone’s refreshing chill or, on a winter’s day, I can stand at the center, watching my breath go up like a prayer before me. When I am ready, I am lead, gently but firmly, outward to its entrance. It feels like being birthed.

The labyrinth is grace-filled. It accepts my walking feet no matter what I am wearing. It blesses my steps whether I take its path slowly and contemplatively or whether I dance along it, laughing as I go. I can come to it alone or in the company of others. It is always there; if I haven’t the time or inclination one day, it patiently awaits my feet the next. How does that sound to you?

Sometime during the coming month, find a labyrinth near you and gift yourself by walking it. Don’t feel you have to come with any kind of “attitude” other than to stay on the path, to pause at the center, and return as you entered.

July Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality,

I knew it would be there­. I’d seen the photo on their website and I held in my hand a glossy brochure with its reproduction on the cover. In fact, I’d come to see it. But when I stepped into the room where it was displayed, the crowd separated like a curtain drawing back. It stared at me with a frankness and a simplicity that stopped my heart and welded my feet to the floor. Van Gogh’s painting, The Bedroom, one of many Impressionist masterpieces on display at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, appears simple on first impression, but it packs a punch. I couldn’t tear myself away. The reproductions just could not carry the power of the original. The painting drew me in and held me fast: studying me as I studied it. The painting transformed me.

We carry images in our heads of art museums being hushed-up places where only people with art degrees or mink stoles can feel welcome, but today museums provide recording devices that describe the artworks and the artists. Some even provide programs for children.

Sometime in the next month visit an art exhibit. It could be a display in a public building or even a downtown outdoor mural. Stand before the painting, letting it have its way with you. Don’t agonize over whether you’ve “got it right.” Just let it be what it is with you. Then respond to the artwork in some way: write about it or sketch it or describe it to a friend, or create something wholly new inspired by it.

June Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality,

The film Pretty Woman, though certainly a Cinderella story with attitude, is also a film about blessing. Watch the film, noting the times characters bless one another and the result of their blessing. The Blessing is typically understood as something a parent bestows on a child. Pretty Woman reminds me that we do not have to be biological parents to offer others a blessing. A blessing can take many forms: it can be a comment made in passing, a message in a greeting card, a gift that shows thought was given to the recipient, or a simple touch (in Pretty Woman an older man lays his hand on Richard Gere and offers words of blessing).

Practice blessing giving during the month of June. What do you experience in doing the practice? What do you sense the practice means to those you bless? Do you think it is important for humans to bless one another? Why or why not?

May Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality,

I had to take an art course to complete my degree . . . at the time I was deep in soul pain . . . I didn’t feel the least bit creative. In class we made several clay pieces; all of mine STUNK! I drove home in tears, opened the door to my house, and dashed every one against our entryway floor. If I had known about altered art back then, I would have done something with those shards other than pitching them into the trash.

Altered art gives us an opportunity to transform bitter experiences into beauty. Want to give it a try? Take a piece of visual art you made that does not please you OR create an artwork that depicts a painful experience in your life. You can paint it, sculpt it, craft it, whatever. Let the piece sit before you and imagine how it might be altered. If it was done on paper, you can tear it to shreds, slather it in flour and water, and then create a paper mache piece that soothes your soul. You can break clay into shards and use them to create a mosaic that feels beautiful and hopeful. Just about any material can be integrated into a collage either as the collage’s underpinning or as its face. Anything can be transformed. Give it a try and then sit back and ponder. Where did your soul journey in the creating of your altered art piece? How did you feel as you were creating? Were you in any way surprised? What else can you alter?

Share your experiences with us on the A Spacious Place blog . We would love to hear from you!

April Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, , ,

Poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “The universe is made of stories, not atoms.”

During April, explore the power of active, attentive listening to another person’s story. Try this: at least once a week, when a friend, family member, co-worker, or acquaintance speaks, give him or her your full attention. Maintain eye contact, ask questions only for clarification, and refrain from giving advice unless specifically asked. During the listening time, seek to encourage the other person’s soul, imagining that person as a powerful and beautiful story.

At the end of April, ponder these questions: What effect, if any, did the practice of active listening have on my soul and my story? How did my listening affect the persons to whom I listened? Do I imagine the universe made up of atoms or stories or . . .? Where might my imagining lead?

March Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, ,

As spring approaches, nature stirs to life; we see it almost shaking itself awake. Join the life stirrings that surround you. For Soul & Solace this month, take a sensory walk, inviting God to nourish you through what you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. You might take five separate walks, awakening a different sense to God’s presence in each one. You can share your sensory walk experiences on this blog. We’d love to hear from you!