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Have you noticed that life takes place in patterns or rhythms? Just as the passage of time is seasonal, inner personal growth can also be traced by seasons. If I pay attention, I see these transformational junctures clearly despite their subtle assimilation into daily life. I’ve finally lived through enough passages to be able to notice their dependability. Sometimes I get caught off guard because I’m distracted by mourning the past or longing for an imagined future and I can miss the signs of emerging life-change. It’s only when I notice growing pains, ranging from discomfort to full-on suffering, that I realize that my inner life is shaking in order to make room for enlargement. Faith is on the move, changing me as it grows. This growth seems to happen consistently during each decade of life. I can see it most clearly when I look back. 

Most of my life has taken place in California so I know what shaking feels like; to have the solid foundation of earth move in a rolling fashion or with a sharp jolt. Both movements are unnerving and my thoughts immediately go to what I should do to be safe. Sometimes a series of subtle tremors indicate a larger, more significant event is about to take place; sometimes the tremors mean that platelet pressure has been relieved, lowering the chance for a larger shift of land mass. Either way, Californians accept the fact that the “Big One” is coming and try to live prepared to meet it. 

Like earth tremors, circumstances do not always clearly indicate whether what is coming is good or bad, but they can certainly shake things up. It’s hard to live ambivalently when usually-solid foundations begin to move. This can be true for positive events as well as painful changes. The movements in our world today certainly bring a sense of unease, like an earthquake, leaving most people searching for a feeling of empowerment. We are wondering what we can do to be safe, or who will provide the solid political and economic ground we think will stop the rocking. Those who have lived through powerful, destructive earthquakes or political upheaval know what it feels like to be betrayed by the very ground under their feet. My heart goes out to the masses looking for something solid to stand on, both literally and figuratively. I wish I could speak and write profoundly about such things; I’m grateful for those who do.

I can only speak to my own inner journey taking place on a minute scale, in the daily practice of art. The experience of painting involves faith. I don’t always know what FINISHED will look like and sometimes I overwork a painting while trying to make it behave a certain way. Overworking happens when I start looking for an expected end rather than being immersed in the joy of expression. This usually happens when I get distracted by the approval and acceptance of others. The result feels forced rather than fresh and spontaneous. Painting isn’t about applause for a good performance. For me it’s fostering the art of immersion and focus in order to get better at communicating an idea or feeling.

Like an overworked painting, my heart and mind can misplace the sparkle of joy. I can lose now as I try to plan for future stability— or should I more honesty say, when I let go of simple trust and worry about the future? I find it interesting that my current readings and musings converge into this theme:

The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. Aide from the fact that just reading the writings of C.S. Lewis is good for the brain, this small book takes on our greatest battle with God: Why does He allow suffering? I’m on my second time through this challenge mainly because I have found that I need help regaining my faith footing after the events of the last few years. Lewis speaks of a loving God in his unique, logical, if not cumbersome, style:

 “When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man; not that He has some ‘disinterested’, because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God; you have one...

not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, 

not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate,

 nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests,

 but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds,

persistent as the artist’s love for his work 

 and despotic as a man’s love for a dog,

 provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child,

jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes.

 How this should be, I do not know; it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes.”

Trustworthy, a study of 1 & 2 Kings by Lisa Terkeurst, looks at overcoming our greatest struggles to trust God. “When hard times come and it seems God is deviating from the plan we assume our lives should follow, we’re much more likely to want to tame God, not trust Him. It’s then that we begin to press into our own ways and our own timing. No human can carry the weight of being their own god, but so many of us try”.

Anne of Green Gables, the 1985 movie and sequels (my husband stays in another room for this one!). We “put on airs” (as Morilla would say) of independence and self-importance while lacking trust in Love we don’t really understand. We are driven to do life in our own way, in our own strength and perceived wisdom. We question the goodness of God, either straying or running from Him. In its lovely, child-like way, Anne of Green Gables illustrates our struggle. We are artfully swept up and held close as Anne is brought from doggedness to trust, an illustration of our own striving with God. 

I have lived through six decades of life’s seasonal rhythms and I sense its once again time for some shaking. I hear a voice like thunder calling to His created ones to come back, spend time, and learn of Him. He’s inviting me to live a brush stroke at a time, to let go of self-motivated overworking. Painting is immersion in elements such as color and shape and line, and being changed by their splendor. It’s no wonder the Creator made us in His image with our own longing and capacity to create; the process teaches us to abide — stay in expectation, continue, endure, be present, remain, tarry, linger (from Strong’s Concordance).

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” John 15:4

I'm learning to linger in His presence.