the "laughter of God"

The "laughter of God"

Recently, and over the course of 5 weeks, one evening a week, I attended a Contemplative Prayer seminar at Queen's House of Retreats.  It was an enlightening experience with lots of information and some participation.  One evening one of the ladies mentioned that, in her time of silence that week, she had sensed God laughing. She was somewhat startled but also pleased.

The "laughter of God" is not something we generally think of.  A stern God, a wise God, a pleased or loving God may cross our minds - but a "laughing God" - to speak it or to write it down seems strange and almost sacrilegious.  I'm intrigued by the vision of God's laughter echoing across the hills through the fog, or bounding upon the waves to land with aplomb on the sandy shore....as I, sit in silence awaiting some indication that He is indeed there.

Yesterday, I read from Esther deWaal's, Lost in Wonder, 

Uncrowd my heart, O God,

Until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words,

and the confusion of speaking,

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.

She continues, with reference to the writings of Thomas Merton, "As the silence opens up in our hearts, and as we listen to it, it is as though we begin to feel the secret presence of the Word expanding 'Like a marvellous hidden smile'."

Merton quotes Isaac of Stella, a 12th cry Cistercian:

Let the Son of God grow in thee,

for He is formed in thee.

Let Him become immense in thee,

and may He become a great smile

and exultation and perfect joy.

Several years ago I was introduced to the writings of John O'Donohue, an Irish mystic and philosopher, who wrote a book of blessings, titled Benedictus.  In it was one titled, "A Blessing for Equilibrium" and the last phrase introduced me to the "laughter of God" phrase.

This blessing continues to entice me to listen more deeply not simply for the Word who spoke and yielded up the cosmos... or as Barbara Brown Taylor says, God spoke the logos, the Word "and a solemn procession of creatures steps out of the darkness, so steady on their feet that it is hard to believe they are using them for the first time." But I am enticed to listen more attentively for God's laughter.  

And so, I give you "A Blessing for Equilibrium" in this season of Lent - where the ups and downs created by the tension we invariably experience as we walk the path of Jesus through the Passover to Golgotha, where the joy and the sorrow stir up and unsettle our souls - and ultimately bring them once more to equilibrium, a wellness or a "Shalom"of the soul as Jesus promised, "my Peace I give to you..."

A Blessing for Equilibrium

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,

May the music of laughter break through your soul.

As the wind wants to make everything dance,

May your gravity be lightened by grace.

Like the freedom of the monastery bell,

May clarity of mind make your eyes smile.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,

So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,

May a sense of irony give you perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,

May fear or worry never put you in chains.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough

To hear in the distance the laughter of God.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(Benedictus - A Book of Blessings)

the making of a painting...

The making of a painting... the "White Roses" took many steps and many days. There always comes the point where I want to throw the painting away and toss my paint box as well... however, that is sometimes a turning point and I've learned to press on a bit further before deciding.  While the "White Roses" is, as most of my paintings tend to be, darker than I wanted, with watercolour one just needs to let it go and promise oneself to be more careful next time!

Time to set it aside for a week before finally deciding if it is worth framing.

Beginnings....

The beginning of a series?

My mind, that is my mind's aspirations, seem to run beyond my abilities and energy! 

Do you ever feel like you are way behind in what you'd like to accomplish - that you just don't have the time to complete what you have planned and that sometimes you wonder if what you have planned makes sense or is realistic?  It's easy to get discouraged and decide I need a 'break' and then, of course, I fall further behind and need to write off or modify my aspirations - once again!

geranium

In planning for a group art show, this coming April, I realized I would need more paintings.  I also realized that paintings always take more time to complete than I expect and when you mix that in with a 'part-time' job, laziness, and now learning to walk after a knee replacement - well, I just know that I need to better manage not only my time but my aspirations.  

So I came up with a plan - a series of smaller 10"x10" watercolours.  The subject matter would be a little piece of a larger picture -  I tend to like to focus in on a part of the whole so this appealed to me.

from a statue in Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah

So far, while I would love to complete about 12 of these, I have only finished the 3 included here!  Actually, I have been surprised at how much time they've taken.  I am coming to realize that smaller paintings can sometimes take almost as much time as larger paintings!  That some, not all, larger paintings are easier to paint than smaller paintings... it really becomes a complex adjustment of how intricate the subject is, how the colour combinations work or don't work out, how quickly or not I lose interest in the painting [which is something that always surprises me], and how long it takes me to settle and get to work - I find it difficult to paint if I don't have a reasonable amount of time.

Oh well - here are the first three - I have a long ways to go on this series and at the moment I am sidetracked by a larger painting, which I "hope" to finish today!!!

So I best get on with it.

Vestigia

Many years have come and gone since I was in grade 11 but -  I have a copy of our Literature class text, A Book of Good Poems and today as I finished a painting I thought I'd look for a poem to maybe go along with the painting.  

The painting is overly bright and when I asked Doug what he thought he simply frowned and didn't say anything!!  So it obviously didn't draw him in - oh well.... Yes, it is obviously more autumn-ish and completely out of place on what I hear is a wonderfully warm winter day - no, I have not ventured out today and have not since last Tuesday when I went to physio for my knee replacement exercise checkup.

While Wilfred Campbell's "Indian Summer" might go best visibly with the painting -
"Along the line of smoky hills
The crimson forest stands,
And all the day the blue-jay calls
Throughout the autumn lands..."

- I've decided to go with 

"Vestigia" by Bliss Carmen

I took a day to search for God,

And found Him not. But as I trod

By rocky ledge, through woods untamed,

Just where one scarlet lily flamed,

I saw His footprint in the sod.

Then suddenly, all unaware,


Far off in the deep shadows, where


A solitary hermit thrush

Sang through the holy twilight hush—

I heard His voice upon the air.

And even as I marvelled how


God gives us Heaven here and now,


In a stir of wind that hardly shook


The poplar leaves beside the brook—

His hand was light upon my brow.

At last with evening as I turned


Homeward, and thought what I had learned


And all that there was still to probe—


I caught the glory of His robe

Where the last fires of sunset burned.

Back to the world with quickening start


I looked and longed for any part


In making saving Beauty be . . .


And from that kindling ecstasy

I knew God dwelt within my heart.

Esther deWaal, Lost in Wonder.... "When we move with poetry and the imagination, when we deal with symbols and images, we become people who are happy with mystery and open to discover. To deepen the mystery, to embrace complexity is risky.  We need to have courage enough to be ready for an unveiling which can be a startling process.... The longer that we stay with an image and dialogue with it, the more will it yield up. 'A symbol should go on deepening' as Flannery O'Connor says.  We have to wait for the image to find us. Sometimes it may come unbidden, but often we must expect to stay with it, and to be ready to go deeper, layer upon layer - always waiting expectantly.  Images are best described - as footholds into a truth that cannot be expressed fully in words...sometimes they come suddenly and easily... and then, they depart suddenly just when we most wanted to hold on to them."

Well, I do like poems which take hold of my imagination and give me a reprieve from the everydayness of life.  I "sometimes" like it when a painting is more imaginative than real and perhaps because of the colours this painting is more imaginative... perhaps it can draw someone into an imaginary place of meaning and contentment before landing them on the dock to walk back into reality.

"A word in the mind is like a pebble in the shoe."

"May you work on yourself,
Building up and refining the ways of your mind...

May you treasure the gifts of the mind
Through reading and creative thinking
So you continue as a servant of the frontier
Where the new will draw its enrichment from the old,
And you never become a functionary." 
                              - For a Leader,  John O'Donohue


Doug grabbed a book at the library which he thought I might like - and I do like it!

Does This Church Make me Look Fat? by Rhoda Janzen. http://rhodajanzen.com 

I'm not sure yet how the book title actually relates to the content but I am enjoying the story and insights.  For example - learning to hold oneself more loosely and others more carefully.

"The stories we surround ourselves with can either move us forward or hold us back.  A word in the mind is like a pebble in the shoe: both can bring our journey to a full stop....we ended up learning a lesson about language.  We both got stuck on words.  I should never have asked if my friends from the dinner party believed in a literal fish. [the discussion included Jonah and the whale]  Whoo boy.  We can hold so tightly to language that our grip on it actually weakens communication,  We insist on our interpretation, but at what cost!  How lovely it would be if we could hold our words loosely, like sand cupped underwater, carried away by the swift moving current of meaning itself.

Like Leroy, we white out the past [teenager -  painted over phrases on his bedroom walls relating to how much he loved the girl who had just ditched him:)] We erase not our history, but its power to harm us.  This is what it takes to move forward: an outpouring of grace, coat after coat, day after day, a willingness to keep going back to the room that speaks of our defeat.  Faith is the hope that our work will have meaning, that someday our troubled rooms will be transformed."

"In surrendering to the divine we yield to divine transformation. A causes B.  This surrender is the only intentional gesture we can make to invite real and permanent character change.  It may not perfect us; but thank God, it sure makes us better than we were..."  

Gather me to be with you...

An Advent Blessing which I received today from a friend and pass on to you...

May you be Wrapped in Hope

Graced with Peace

Filled with Joy and 

Embraced in Love

under our front evergreen seems like a good spot for small animals to shelter

  

O GOD, gather me now to be with you as you are with me.

Soothe my tiredness;

quiet my fretfulness;

curb my aimlessness;

receive my compulsiveness;

let me be easy for a moment.

O LORD, release me from the fears and guilts which grip me so tightly;

from the expectations and opinions which I so tightly grip,

that I may be open to receiving,

to learn something refreshingly different.

O GOD, gather me to be with you as you are with me.

Forgive me for claiming so much for myself that I leave no room for gratitude;

for confusing exercises in self-importance with acceptance of self-worth;

for complaining so much of my burdens that I become a burden;

for competing against others so insidiously that I stifle celebrating them and receiving your blessing through their gifts.

O GOD, gather me to be with you as you are with me.

 

Keep me in touch with myself,

with my needs,

my anxieties,

my angers,

my pains,

my corruptions,

that I may claim them as my own rather than blame them on someone else.

O LORD, deepen my wounds into wisdom;

shape my weakness into compassion;

gentle my envy into enjoyment,

my fear into trust,

my guilt into honesty,

my accusing finger into tickling ones.

O GOD, gather me to be with you as you are with me.

by Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace

by the front door - somehow inviting