Reflections

2010-03-10T23:50:00.000-06:00

I remember when I was about 5 yrs old that my dad let me play with a small clay portrait that he had sculpted in one of his art classes. Before I interrupted my parent’s nine years of marriage without any children, he took art classes regularly at Delgado in New Orleans. I remember that this small clay head of a man was gray and moist, almost oily, and I do not remember the face exactly, but I remember the thin features. I remember thinking it was amazing that my dad made that! It fit perfectly in my two hands. He let me play with it, and not once did he tell me to be careful with it. He let me press into it so that I could see my fingerprints. He let me slide my finger over it, and I remember watching the clay move and slide just a bit under the light pressure of my small finger. I had found the clay portrait in our garage, which at the time was his office. My memory of that “garage office” is that it was huge, with lots of places to play underneath desks. I remember playing with friends, and every now and then, finding the clay head in a drawer or on a shelf somewhere. I can remember playing with it in front of my friends, showing it proudly to them, and then smearing into it. I don’t remember my dad ever saying a word about it. And I know he saw me and would see me playing with it over his shoulder as he talked to the other people in the office. My only memory of me ever talking to him about it was the first time I saw it. “You made this?!” And he let me hold it.

Each time after I played with it, I remember assuming that somehow it would go back to the way it was supposed to be. I was always surprised the next time I saw it that it was looking more and more distorted. But I was still happy that I could recognize some of those thin features—my Dad’s work. But one day, it was finally no longer recognizable. I had smeared it into a ball with lumps, and the ears were flattened on either side. I tried to draw the eyes again with my fingernails. I eventually stopped playing with it.

I found myself today remembering this clay portrait and wishing that I could see it the way it was when I first found it. Why did my Dad let me play with it? Why did he let me mess it up? I found myself wishing he could make one again and give it to me, and this time I promise I won’t mess it up! I will respect it and love to look at it because he made it . . .and I felt so sad that I had ever destroyed it.

But . . .Maybe my fascination and my discovery was more important to my Dad than what he had made. What was he thinking when he saw me smearing into it?

I can’t help but to think that sometimes I feel like God has given me something, and I smear, tear it up, and make a mess of it. Why did he trust me with it then? What if I make a mess of it all? What if I make him mad? Maybe I shouldn’t try because it might turn out ugly. Fear of failure.

But maybe he knows something I don’t know. Maybe it is part of the process. Maybe sometimes tearing something up proceeds building something that could be great? Maybe he just wants to see me enjoy and be fascinated with what he gives me regardless of how it looks? And maybe all along it was really about the process, the dialogue, the relationship? Maybe the product will once again become a seed for someone else. Maybe what we pass on isn’t about the thing we created, but the people we share with and the life we celebrate.

I haven’t thought about that clay head in years. But looking back, it is interesting to me that when I was in high school, I fell in love with trying to create things out of clay, and by the time I was in college I was taking figure and portrait sculpture classes and had chosen Sculpture as my major for almost 2 years of that journey. My first portrait sculpture, which I worked on for 6 months, was later broken in a mishap, but surprisingly, I was okay with that. I had loved the process, and no one could take that experience away from me. I had loved studying someone’s features enough to be able to smear and carve out a likeness from a once wet ball of clay. And the desire to put my hands into clay and to study my world and surroundings in such a way grew strong.

I had the thought today that I want my dad to make me another clay head. And this time, I won’t mess it up! I won’t smear it, and I can always have it to remember him and to remember that my dad loved to make art, and that he could make beautiful things. But . . . I thought maybe instead I will just thank him for the first—for allowing me to discover that making art is about the action—the discovery—the life that happens every second, and not about making trophies. I want to thank him for loving me enough to let me be a little messy and for allowing me the freedom to discover things on my own. For letting me look through his art books that were low enough on the shelf for me to reach them, for taking me to church extra times with him all by myself, for taking me to the construction sites when he had his remodeling business where I was fascinated by people building such big beautiful things, and for being so generous—like the time he bought me and my brothers and sisters each a present for HIS birthday, because that is what he wanted for his birthday—for each of us to open a present. Thanks, Dad.

The Laughing Game

2008-07-27T15:32:00.006-05:00

I just finished a week long dance workshop that I planned with 6 teenage girls, each of whom I know pretty well, having taught them for the last 2-3 years. It was our last time together because we will all be moving on to new studios this fall. It was kind of my last shot at teaching them--being with them, sharing with them--after having worked to train them for the last 3 years or so. So here I am, now that it is over, completely exhausted, yet completely satisfied. When I pause for a moment and let the past week--the classes, the games, the talks--run through my mind, I experience something so priceless, and something that I haven't really felt for a while. It's like I can see the face of the Father close to me, knowing me, and laughing with me--the kind of laugh you would have if you ran into an old, loved friend you hadn't seen in a while. It is kind of weird, but I am experiencing a rush of being known and found. How did I get lost in the first place? Hiding, I guess. Covering who I am with who I should be? Brennan Manning's "Imposter?"

I took on a challenge this past week, and on Wednesday evening, I felt a second wave of the challenge come as I was driving, having just dropped the girls off at the Good Cup (our carpool meeting place). And the challenge was this--in the 7 hours each day I had with the girls, to only do what I like and love to do and nothing else. And I kept hearing in my heart over and over that they will love it because I love it. All I had to do was to be free and open to do what I love. I realized this was so hard for me to do because I usually plan methodically, and I had to wade through my tangled thoughts of how dance workshops are supposed to be done and what will the girls think about this--will they like it?--and what will the parents think and what is the right way to do this and that.

Some unexpected encouragement came--that afternoon, I ran into my friend Georgia, who with a camera in hand, started to tell me that she, that day, had felt challenged with her photography to just take pictures of what she liked and to stop thinking about what she "should" do. I was of course amazed she was feeling the same things!

So I did decide to let go, and I found myself changing plans and putting all the emphasis on things I loved to do. And wow! I experienced such freedom and the fruit of this was nothing but laughter and real relating on a deeper level with the girls. Some of my favorite moments--playing an improv game we ended up naming "The Laughing Game," where we laughed our heads off, and our talk on Friday about seeing dance as a gift to give (rather than a performance to be judged.) We talked about being vulnerable, about taking the risk to let our real self show through our dance. We talked about how it can be painful if we present a gift and people don't like it. But we challenged ourselves that day to use our dance as our own voice coming from deep within. And not only to present a gift of dance, something we have trained and worked our bodies so hard to be able to do, but the gift of ourselves and what is important to us. Then we can really communicate with God and each other on an intimate level. Of course by Friday, I felt qualified to teach this, now that I had operated in it for a week. :)

I'm thankful to have had a safe environment to practice the "art of being myself" this past week. I don't know why sometimes I feel like whatever I like must be stupid, but somehow in overcoming that, I've run right into an old Friend. And all we can do is laugh.

Fragments

2008-01-25T20:07:00.000-06:00

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, I drove down to New Orleans to visit my family. I remember digging through boxes of things salvaged from my sister's devastated home, and I remember the smell and the feeling of trying to identify even though I didn't go through the experience with them. The feeling of not being there, to go through the ordeal with them, but only to watch from afar, was a sort of distant unbelief.

We left my parents home, where we all grew up, and walked about five minutes away, over the levee to Lake Ponchartrain. It was strange to see the water line, not far from the top of the hill and trash everywhere. You couldn't even see the brand new bike path and walking trail. Even though I was told not to touch anything because of contamination, I couldn't help but to pick up bits and pieces of beautiful glass covered with filth. It was like picking up broken pieces of my city. And somehow I identified with those fragments.

For years I had felt fragmented. Like my life consisted of pieces I could not string together; I could not connect the dots. I struggled to reconcile my love for God and spiritual things--church, bible studies, youth group--with my love for art, dance, science. Those things had nothing to do with God, or so I thought.

For the past 4 years I have been on a long journey in being reconciled to myself as an artist. And during this journey, I have had many struggles, but I have felt the disassembled pieces of my life begin to fit together, all because I decided to be honest with myself. Before beginning this journey, I felt more and more that I was losing myself-my own dreams and deep desires, that I had somehow "divorced my own heart" in words of John Eldridge. It is too long of a story to write here, but I am completely in awe at the faithfulness of God to answer the cries of my heart at a time when I could no longer hear or feel Him, having lost Him when I lost myself. In lying to myself, I was lying to God. In hiding from myself, I was hiding from God. It became painful to dream. And because I began to feel such pain, in desperation, I began this journey.

I have been reading about Paul Brand, the man who worked at the leper colony in Louisiana and who made many ground-breaking discoveries concerning leprosy. (Brand is one of the 13 "unlikely mentors" in Philip Yancey's book Soul Survivor, the book that documents Yancey's own personal recovery of faith by looking at the lives of these mentors.) Paul Brand said that he could think of no better gift he could give any one of his patients than the gift of pain. He had discovered that lepers could not feel pain and because of this problem in the nervous system, they would burn themselves, cut off their circulation, go blind, etc, and this problem would eventually lead to their death.

I have been thinking a lot lately about this "gift of pain." About a year before Katrina, I would have told you that I had just been through what I called then, a personal hurricane. I felt like everything had to come down in a way, in my life, so that I could start over and rebuild with what was left standing.

When I look at those pieces of glass that I collected from Lake Ponchartrain that day, I want to take them and make something beautiful out of them. Because I know that beauty can come from broken things.

What beautiful things came of Katrina, I don't know. But I know they must be there. Maybe we can find it when we read about the heroic stories or if we look inside to see what kind of change has taken place.

I was just listening to music from a piece of choreography I performed in recently with the Jose Limon Dance Company (now known as simply, Limon). The piece is called Missa Brevis and was written by a Hungarian composer while he was hiding from the Nazis for two weeks in a cellar during WWII. I wish you could hear this music and maybe you too would have tears in your eyes and wonder at how such heavenly beauty could have been birthed in the midst of hell on earth.

That amazes me.

Always

2007-08-13T09:07:00.000-05:00

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

About three years ago on a Sunday morning, I was driving to church feeling hopeless, miserable, and lost. I had been teaching high school science for three years, and by then, I felt like a part of me had died. I had wanted so badly to work in the arts, to teach dance, and maybe even start a dance school. I had just begun to do this prior to moving to Nashville and had planned in my heart to do the same when I arrived here, but somehow, things didn't work out like I had hoped. I found myself trading in my tutu for a lab coat and goggles in order to pay rent. And now, driving to church, I felt like God had tricked me. He had given me a taste of something I loved, only to snatch it away and hand me a beaker and test tube tongs. And I realized that deep in my heart, I felt devastated that God had tricked me. Then, suddenly, as I was driving, and I can still remember the exact spot where I was on the road that day, I remembered what I had learned as a child--God's promise that if we ask for bread, he will not give us a stone. He doesn't trick us. He doesn't sit and watch to see if we will break our teeth. And I started to laugh. I knew I had just won. And at that moment I could see what wasn't there. I could finally smell it and taste it after all those nights of crying in my bed. I knew that the things I had dreamed about would come. I didn't know how or when, but I knew.

Last week, I heard someone talk about Hannah in the Bible, so this morning I decided to read the story in 1 Samuel 1. Hannah could not have children, and her rival, her husband's other less-favored wife, made fun of Hannah and provoked her so much that Hannah would cry and could not eat. She went into the temple to pray, and she wept and prayed so much out of bitterness of soul that when Eli the priest saw her, he thought she was drunk. He told her to quit drinking, but she pleaded with him and told her she was a woman in great anguish, pouring out her soul to the Lord. Eli told her to go in peace, and may God grant you what you have asked. This is the best part--then, she went home and ate, and her face was no longer downcast. What happened?! You would think it should say that she went home, got pregnant, had a child and then her face was radiant. But she knew something. She could eat and smile, even though what she wanted hadn't happened yet. Her heart wasn't sick anymore. She must have seen it from afar. And later she did conceive; and her son was the great prophet Samuel.

I just read this poem in a book by Fenelon:
The man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass
And then the heavens espy.

I have always thought of the creative process (whether writing, painting, choreographing, etc.) as a way to help me be still enough to see. I have seen it as a way to sort of wipe the mud off the glass. Not just so I can gaze at my own reflection in the glass, but so that I can look through to see God. There is a desperate longing in my heart to look at him.

This is my prayer for today: Teach me to see through the glass. Help me to see with the eye of faith--to see what is coming and to welcome it from afar. Don't let my heart forget your promises.

One word that is important to me is the word "Always." Sometimes I hear that word wispered inside of me, and I suddenly have a ground to stand on. Things change, the sun gets covered up with clouds, but he is Always there. Never "sometimes." And I won't forget his promises because they are Always true. It is better to endure the pain of longing, and believing until we see, than to live in resignation and die to the life promised.

Preservers of Humanity

2007-03-03T17:50:00.000-06:00

For the past few months I have found my attentions consistently turned toward the issues of slavery, both historical and modern-day, and also the Jewish Holocaust. The dance company I am part of, StillPoint Dance Theatre, is working on two pieces, one called "Voices from the Ground" which is a memorial to Holocaust victims and one called "Buried Alive" about human trafficking, both by our director Sharon Perry. Just three weeks ago we did a lecture/demonstration on the Holocaust for 350 8th graders at a local public middle school. The students had been studying about the Holocaust in their English classes. It just seems that everywhere I turn, whether it is a movie, or the news, or conversations with friends, these topics surface. For example, yesterday I heard that there was another human trafficking bust in Tennessee, and then even tonight I was at a café and met a Jewish man who is about to take his wife to visit the former sites of concentration camps in Germany. He bitterly told me that one of his friends, who is from the Middle East, recently told him that he doesn’t see why the Holocaust is so important. That really hurt him of course, but he seemed encouraged to hear about a local modern dance company trying to bring awareness and a memorial to something so close to his heart.

The picture above is one that I took earlier this year in Washington D.C. outside the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I had traveled to D.C. with Sharon, our director, to go to a gala for the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. There we heard a powerful speech by an older congressman who had survived the Holocaust as a little boy after escaping from the Nazis, not once, but twice. Both of his parents were killed. I heard him speak only a couple of days after spending over 5 hours at the Holocaust museum, so the horrors of this attempt at genocide in recent history were fresh in my mind. Soon after he told his personal story, he discussed the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in the world today, especially dangerous now with the Islamic agenda. Then this man, Congressman Tom Lantos, asked all of the Christians in the room to stand up. Aside from all the secret service men who were already standing, almost half of the room took a few moments to humbly stand. Looking at us, he said, "I know the antidote to all of the evils in society—It is you." He said, “You will never know how much we (the Jewish people he represents) love
you . . . You are the preservers of humanity and the most civilized people on the planet, and if more people like you had existed in Europe during the Holocaust, it would not have happened.”

I can't tell you the weight of that moment. "The preservers of humanity . . ." My mind travels to remember what I have heard all my life. . .You are the salt of the earth . . . The light to shine in the darkness . . . in the world, but not of it. In culture, but counter-culture. I think of the scene in the movie Freedom Writers when the Christian woman whose family had housed Anne Frank during the Holocaust said of herself that she was no hero. She simply did what was right. And as I walked the halls of the Holocaust museum in D.C., I saw these same words echoed by many others who had assisted the victims of the Holocaust. Ordinary people, just doing the right thing. People who valued life.

I just finished a novel called the Darwin Conspiracy, and it is frightening to think how much the evolutionary world-view provided such a warm bed for what led to the Jewish Holocaust. I saw at the Holocaust museum, pictures of children and students being taught in schools the “progression” of man. There were charts with pictures of people ranked from the most intelligent and advanced to the lowest and crudest. The Jews and Africans were at the bottom of the charts, of course. I also saw the tools that they used to measure the body to see how close a person was to the highest, most intelligent form. Jews and handicapped people were nothing but rats, tainting the ideals of a perfect society. I think of my own uncle, who has down-syndrome and what they would have done to him. Experiments? Gassing? It is horrible to think of it. It just doesn't make sense, and it shouldn't. It doesn't make sense because I believe in a God who has created all men in his image. Francis Schaeffer said in A Christian Manifesto, “Our view of reality—whether it is material-energy, shaped by impersonal chance (evolution), or the living God and Creator—will determine our position on every crucial issue we face today. It will determine our views on the value and dignity of
people . . .”

I love to think about this—that we as Christians, as we are spread out in culture, are the salt of the earth. And this does not mean only a select few of us, but all of us as we live out our faith in our own individual circles of influence. I saw in the movie Amazing Grace a scene when William Wilberforce (the man whose efforts eventually abolished slavery in England) found God and thought he should go into full time ministry and get out of public-life and politics. Then the abolitionists came to him, dropped some shackles on the table as a reminder to him of the realities of the slave-trade, then strongly suggested that he could do both. I loved this because it is a strong reminder that all of us, whether we are educators, artists, stay-at-home moms, work in healthcare, manage or own a store, etc., we can do the work of God and affect culture right where we are. And not because we are so great, but because of Christ in us the hope of glory, and together may we always be—the preservers of humanity.

“The only way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
—Edmund Burke

Stillness

2007-02-10T11:21:00.000-06:00

I woke up slowly this morning, in and out of sleep, thinking about people I love and thinking about my life--how much it has changed in the past couple of years, and how much I love what I do. And later I had the thought, "I love being able to love." I know it is a simple thought, but many times in my life I have felt like a machine, doing this and that, spitting things out, thinking about all the things I have to do, things I want to do but don't have the time, and before long I become dull and blinded by my lack of stillness. I feel cluttered, unable to focus, having lost the simplicity I have longed for in my life.

I recently read a story about the atom in a book called The God Particle. It is so weird to think about the world being made up of particles--to weed through the complexity to get to the core, the basic building blocks of life and matter. The story is rather strange--about a group of aliens who cannot see black or white who visit the planet earth. Of all places, they find themselves at a World Cup soccer game, and they, being investigative by nature, attempt to figure out the game. However, there is one problem. They cannot see the ball! They observe the game carefully, making all kinds of charts and diagrams, and they soon come up with dozens of complicated formulas and rules about soccer matches. Even with all of this, they do not truly capture the essence of the game, until one little alien nervously postulates the existence of an invisible ball. Then everything makes sense--all the rules, diagrams, and formulas. This of course is an extended metaphor for the atom, but it makes me think about how much of my life makes sense when I choose to see the hand of God in everything. And to see this, I have to be still. I have to listen and observe, and only then can I stop focusing on what looks like clutter in my life to see the beauty all around me. To see beauty even in broken things. And to be free to love.

I think, "If I could just get back to simplicity--like breaking things down to the atom, breaking things down to God." I want to restore God to the throne in my life to where he is central and exalted, not just stamped onto everything I do. This brings me to a quote by A.W. Tozer from The Pursuit of God, "Reach a place where life and lips join to say continually, 'Be thou exalted,' and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once."

I desire to live a focused and examined life, full of creativity and love. I hope to use this blog as a way to focus my thoughts and to share with you some of my moments of stillness. I would love to hear your comments or your own reflections as you too journey to see the invisible.