Trying to Have No Fear

Last night I had dinner with some retreat friends who are in town for the Crafts for Christmas retreat which begins later today--two retreats in two weeks!  I am the luckiest woman, and this situation would not be possible if I still lived in South Florida.

Lest you think we talk about nothing but God and spirituality, our talk was primarily of politics and all the ways that people in charge of various governments are going off the rails and our fear of being dragged off the rails with them.  I'm not just talking about our US government; one of our group keeps track of events in Gaza in ways that I can't follow.

Of course, I'm beginning to feel the same way about most geopolitical trends--I can't possibly keep up or follow the course of events.  And in part, it's because all of it makes me feel any number of negative ways:  anxious, sad, depressed, worried.  

So this morning is a good time to remind myself of a verse from a  Gospel reading from several weeks ago, Luke 12, verse 32:  "Have no fear, little flock."

I made this sketch, which continues to delight me:

It's a good reminder.  We've had hard times before and will again.  God is with us through it all.

Narrow Gates, Wide Paths, and the Holy Trinity

When I first started this sketch, I thought I was illustrating this verse from the Gospel of Matthew:   “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy[a] that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7: 13-14 NRSVUE).

I don't have a copy of the early days of the sketch, the black line drawing that looked more like paths winding their way across the page.

As I started to add color, I started to see three figures, and as I added more color, the one on the left, the one in yellows and reds, started to seem female.  My mind went, as it always does, to ideas about the Holy Trinity.  And so, I decided to explore that.  

In the end, the figure on the left in yellows and reds became the Holy Spirit, and the one on the right, in greens, became the Creator.  The middle figure ended up being an amalgamation of colors and shapes that I often use for the Virgin Mary, along with images I've used, and the culture has used, for Christ.  There are three crosses, done in fine-line black pen, in the bottom circle, along with a star, also done in pen, in the space between the two circles. The darker ovals in the top circle were supposed to represent the empty tomb.

I'm pleased with how it turned out--but I continue to be intrigued by how I thought I was drawing something totally different only to end up sketching Trinitarian images again.

Notes on the Halfway Point of Summer

I am at the end of week 4 of chaplaincy training.  July has begun.  We are at the halfway point of summer camp at Lutheridge.  Let me make a few notes.

--My cold has a long tail.  I can go through much of my day only coughing occasionally.  I'm no longer blowing my nose each hour.  But I still have a slightly scratchy throat.  If I talk for too long, I need a drink of water, and I don't feel like I can count on my voice.

--I have been wearing Saucony running shoes to work every day.  I am channeling that 80's woman commuting to work on public transportation--but I'm not changing into heels when I get to the office.  It's a new level of frumpiness for me.  But I am able to spend much of the day on my feet without excruciating back pain at night, so I'll stick with frumpy comfort.

--Music Week at Lutheridge starts on Sunday.  It will be a different experience for me this year--but I'm hoping I still get some quality time with friends and family who are coming through for Music Week.

--We are at so many halfway points:  summer is halfway over, Lutheridge summer camp is halfway over, the year is halfway over.  I wonder where we will be at the halfway point of next summer.  Hopefully I will be meeting with my candidacy committee to proceed to endorsement, which is usually a halfway point to ordination, but in my case, I'm doing things a bit out of order.  At Lutheran seminaries, students would do CPE much earlier, often in the summer after the first year, and then they'd get to endorsement sometime in the following year, before internship (year 3 of seminary) and the last year of seminary. 

--This week, my sketching was lifted up as one of my gifts that I should use in ministry.  I never really thought about my sketching as one of my gifts. I still think of myself as not good at visual art at all.

--As I've been training in various office spaces, I've discovered art supplies stashed away--a delight!  I found a tin box of Crayola markers, but much better quality markers than the Crayola label would imply.  The red marker is missing, which makes me wonder what happened to it.  Did someone love it and take it?  Did it run out of ink?

--I arrived early to rounds and discovered a guitar in the corner of the small conference room.  I strummed it, and to my untrained ears, it sounded like it was in tune.  I assumed that it belonged to someone who might not appreciate me playing it.  But no one is sure who owns it or how it came to be there.  Was it a person who once did music therapy?  That seems most likely, but why would that person leave the guitar behind?

--I looked up the chords to "This Land Is Your Land."  I reminded myself that I am not a guitar player.  I thought about getting my ukulele and bringing it on rounds--but I need a year or two of practice before I might be able to count the ukulele as one of my spiritual gifts

Lifting Up My Eyes

If I had to choose a text that sums up this week, the text that has surfaced in my brain more than any other, it would be this one:

As part of my self-care each day, I try to leave the hospital at least once to go look at the mountains.  And I continue to be struck by how many patient rooms have a window with a view of the mountains.  The other day, when I was with a non-verbal patient, I commented on the wonderful view, and he sat up to look out the window.  It was the first moment that I felt sure that he understood what I had just said, and this verse came to my brain, in all its King James version glory.

Yesterday my monthly Bible study met by way of Zoom.  It's become a way for members of my Florida church to stay in touch, even as some of us have moved very far away.  Yesterday, we didn't have a definitive plan for the meeting, and I happened to have the Psalm open in a website.  So we did a lectio divina on the Psalm, and I did a bit of sketching while we discussed.

The sketch is done with fine tip pens, and then I took a watercolor brush and brushed water over it.  The color for the sky comes from the color in the brush when I went over the mountains with the wet brush.  

It's not exactly what I had in mind when I started, but that's part of what makes it wonderful.  Between the uncertainty of the ink and the water, and my non-professional skill, it makes art an adventurous process, which can reveal much more than if I had skills to reproduce the same image, time after time.

I am planning to take supplies with me to work and to spend some time each week sketching--another self-care practice I hope to implement.  Exploring self-care practices is one of my learning goals, so I'm allowed to explore them--what a joy to be in such a place!

The Feast Day of the Visitation in Sketches and Storytelling

Today is the feast day of the Visitation, the day when we celebrate the time that Mary, pregnant with Jesus, goes to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  Elizabeth's story, though rare, isn't completely original; scholars point out that the barren/old woman miraculously pregnant wouldn't be unfamiliar to ancient audiences.  Mary's story is much more unusual.  I've written about this feast day numerous times:  this post is a good example.

For my Biblical Storytelling class that I took in Fall of 2024, when I had to choose a passage to memorize to go with the first one I chose, the bleeding woman, I returned to Luke 1:  39-45.  I recorded it, and overall, I was pleased.  It won't win any awards, but that's fine.  You can view this effort here on my YouTube channel.

Lately I've started sketching this scene more.  I made the above and the below sketch as my Christmas and Easter seminary class discussed the passage.  

I decided not to write about the passage for my longer essay.  Instead, I wrote about Anna, the prophetess who gets much less space, but may be more important.  Here are two paragraphs that explain my approach:

"If we go back to take a closer look at Luke, we’ll see that older people and women have a starring role in many parts of the birth narrative. The main star, of course, is Mary, the woman who will incubate salvation in her womb and nurture the second part of the Trinity until he is able to move into the ministry activities for which he was born. Her story has been studied from many angles, and often it is the only one offered to those of us who want a vision of Jesus and the disciples that is more inclusive.

But what about women who aren’t young, women who don’t see the appeal in motherhood, women who don’t have a Joseph who will love them? Elizabeth might seem like an answer, but she, too, is finding fulfillment in a very patriarchal approved way, through pregnancy and motherhood. The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1: 5-25 and 39-80) might be the one most of us think of when we look for the presence of elders in the Nativity story or we might think of Simeon, a chapter later. Anna’s appearance, near the end of the second chapter of Luke, is much shorter, but also packed with meaning when we work on discerning the meaning of the incarnation."

Earlier this month, I started sketching, and I thought I'd do another sketch of Mary and Elizabeth.  But I didn't like the initial sketch, so I started rounding out the figures that began as the two women and ended up as chrysalises.  I love the sketch because it works on multiple levels.  The middle green part is both leaf and Holy Spirit.

It's not a traditional approach to the two women, but it's been one that has been delighting me, as I've worked on it during the month of May

Week-end Recap: Wild Women and Sedate Sketching

Well, Spring Break is over for me as a teacher.  For me as a student, Wesley Theological Seminary has reading week this week, a sort of week off.  Unlike last semester, I don't have an onground intensive at the campus this week, so I'm hoping to make use of this time off to get some work done.

I am realizing that I am in the time of the semester when I will always feel like I am never going to feel caught up.  I am tired, and I am wondering what it would feel like to only have one job for pay.  I've rarely had that.  It's been hard for me to give up part-time teaching because I can't be sure that my full-time job, whichever one I've had in the past, will last.

Given the state of the country, I don't think I will ever feel sure that my full-time job will last or that I can count on Social Security or that my retirement funds will be safe.  But let me not focus on the things I can't control.

Let me do a quick recap of the week-end.  I spent much of it helping with a retreat, the Wild Women Week-end at Lutheridge.  I had a much easier commute than the last time I was here for the Wild Women Week-end back in 2003, the first one I ever attended, the one where I heard about the Create in Me retreat, which became my retreat of choice.

I was on hand to offer an optional workshop during the time right after lunch that had several optional options.  

I planned a few writing activities, like the free writing after choosing an object from the table, and the writing letters to ourselves from the point of view of our younger selves and older selves.  I tried to structure the time as a drop in kind of opportunity, and about 15 people came by.  They seemed enthusiastic, and I was happy to be part of their options.

The retreat itself was good, but it didn't tell me anything about Mary Magdalene that I didn't already know.  I am fairly sure that most of the retreat participants learned a lot; most of them likely haven't spent time researching the subject.  But it's the kind of topic that I don't mind revisiting.

Yesterday after I got back from a good day at church, preaching and presiding at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, I went over to one of my good friend's house in the neighborhood.  We sat in her downstairs studio and did some sketching and painting while we caught up with each other.  She has more art supplies (of the painting and paper variety) than I do, and she's happy to share.  It was very satisfying.

And now, back to a more regular schedule.  Let me try to get a walk in this morning.  It will be dark, which doesn't make me happy, but it will be better to do it this morning while my spirit is willing, as are my feet.

A Sketch for Solstice

 Last night, after creating a sketch for a notecard for a friend who is having a difficult December, I made a sketch for me, while we were watching that old stop-motion animated show, "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town":

I hadn't planned to create a haiku-like thing, but it emerged;  in case you can't read it, it says, "Winter turns her back / On this foresaken season / Autumn of our woes."  I didn't realize that I had misspelled forsaken until I typed it out just now.  Intriguing! 

I was trying to create some sort of winter fairy-like creature.  As I often did, I drew the creature from the back, which allows me to avoid my lack of skill in sketching faces and hands; I drew the creature in a flowing dress, which allows me to avoid my lack of skill in drawing shoes from the back, and my difficulty with perspective (more specifically how to draw legs and arms in proper proportion to the body).

The gold marker for wings made me think about a star, so I drew one.  I wanted to draw a forest of Christmas trees, but I ran out of room on the page, so one tree would have to do.  I liked the ambiguity of the sketch.  Is that a winter witch or the angel Gabriel or some stray angel who stayed home from choir practice and so could not appear to the shepherds?  Is that the star that guided the Magi?  Are those ornaments on the tree or the red berries that are on some bushes this time of year?

The whole process delighted me and reminded me to return to this sketchbook more often.  I bought it about a year ago, thinking I wanted to create a daybook of sorts, a place to record sketches and haiku-like responses to the day, a place to record inspirations.  As I flipped back through it, and as I've been flipping back through my sketchbook that I use predominantly during my morning meditation time, it's good to remember how many sketches I made.

In the two sketchbooks alone, I made roughly 80 sketches.  I also made some individual sketches, which I then turned into notecards to send to friends.  That's a lot of sketching, and it's taken place in less than 30 minute increments.

When I met the family member of the friend who had a stroke, she said, "I wanted to meet this person who kept sending these delightful cards--you're so talented."

I don't think of myself as talented at sketching--I can't draw humans in a realistic way that would please me, the way I can sketch a tree or a flower.  Maybe I should change that:  I can't quickly draw humans, I can't consistently draw humans.

Let me record this idea, which is not a commitment at this point, but more of an idea that inspires me:  if I did a quick sketch of a human, a daily sketch, would I improve?  Or maybe if I saw my drawings of humans on a more regular basis, maybe I would get more comfortable with the quirky/imperfect way that I do it.

Haunted by Color, Soothed by Stitching

I turned in my last seminary paper on Saturday, and I turned in my last batch of grades a few days before that.  But yesterday, Thursday, was my first truly unscheduled day of this winter break.  On Sunday, I spent a good chunk of the day attending to my preaching job, on Monday I went to Columbia, on Tuesday I came home, and on Wednesday, I had a holiday lunch with the local church quilt group and an evening Zoom session.  At one point, my spouse said, "Did the Little Engine Who Could have a name?  Because you remind me of an Energizer Bunny in the way that you keep going."

It's a mix of metaphors, but I understand what he was saying.  Even when I'm on break, I'm not really on break.  I still have my part-time preaching job, and there are upcoming classes that start on January 7, onground classes where I need to create syllabi still.  And even though I know that I'm done with the fall semester responsibilities, both as teacher and student, I still wake up in the middle of the night feeling fretful.

I still did a bit of chugging along; I wanted to get to Michael's to get new sketchbooks while they were on sale.  So after rounding up the last of the recycling before the arrival of the trash collectors, I headed out to run some errands.  We did a bit of cooking, and then settled in to watch some plays by way of the National Theatre at Home.  I had to subscribe for a class, and we've been enjoying watching good theatre.  Yesterday we watched two plays.

I still felt fidgety, so I pulled out my basket of fabric.  I've been creating a quilt out of scraps of fabric--you may say, "Yes, that's the very nature of quilting, correct?  Scraps of fabric?"  But I began this project by thinking I would put the scraps together in a less organized way.  I thought I could pay no attention to size or color of each scrap and just put them together as I pulled them out of the basket.  Here's what I have so far:

Clearly, I'm not putting this quilt together in the random way I first envisioned.  But I'm having fun assembling my scraps into longer strips.  Here's the one I worked on last night:

And then I did a few quick sketches for notecards that I'm always creating.  You can see one nestled in the cloth:

Today I'll do a bit more writing than yesterday, a bit more shopping than yesterday (4 x the fuel points at Ingles!).  But I plan to keep doing some sewing each day.  It reminds me of this quote that I saw on the wall of the museum on Tuesday:

Halloween Vibes

--If we're sticklers for historical accuracy, we'll be celebrating Reformation Day today.  Today is the actual day in 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenberg door. But for far longer, it's been Halloween, a holiday that both delights and bedevils the modern believer.

--I am a believer who has concerns about Halloween, but they're not the kinds of concerns that some Christians have. I'm not worried about opening a portal through which evil will enter the world--that portal has been wide open for a long time. I'm not worried about demon possession. I am worried about how much we spend and whether or not that's the best use of our money.

--But I'm past the age of legislating all of that. I'm happy to let grown people make their own decisions. But I will exhort us all to at least think about these decisions.

--As we give out candy, let us give a silent benediction to each trick-or-treater: "May your days be sweet and your life be sweeter."

--If you're like me, you won't have trick-or-treaters, and it's too late to carve a pumpkin.  We can still sketch a pumpkin and think about how pumpkins are like the kingdom of God.

two different pictures, made with different types of markers

--No two pumpkins are the same, and they all have a beauty. They don't have to prove themselves. They are already worthy.

--As we light our Halloween candles tonight, let us think about the ways we can be light to the world. Let us concentrate on the ways we can chase away the gathering gloom.

Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth I

Today is Queen Elizabeth I's birthday, which made me want to create a card for a friend of mine who loves Queen Elizabeth.  No time to shop for a card--but I did have time to make a quick sketch:

She looks rather ghastly, but then again, most of the portraits that I've seen of her show her as a rather ghastly visage.

I thought about what I had written for a weekly writing about her for Church HistoryII.  My writing time is short this morning, so here's what I wrote in February of 2023:

This week, I am thinking about all the ways of governing a country (and governing a Reformation):

--Hearing that so many French Huguenots survived King Louis XIV because they fled or were forced out—that fact made wonder why a country decides to burn so many “heretics” at the stake, as England did, and why some countries evict people (like the Jews from Spain) and some countries seems to manage to have a more flexible live and let live approach (although I realize that most countries did not manage to create a live and let live approach for very long, even if they were successful for a certain time period). I realize the reasons may be very complicated: control by fear/terror of the remaining population, not wanting to lose valuable people as they flee, royal connections to other countries that might temper the tendency to terror or inflame it. And of course, some of these rulers, like Mary Tudor, believe they are doing the Lord’s work by purifying the country (and yes, I do realize her motives may have been more mixed).

--Thinking of different approaches to heretics made me think of Elizabeth I and how I have admired her for so many years now. When I was very young, I read a biography of her: the kind that was marketed for elementary grades, a whole biography series on a shelf in the library, with orange binding, and I worked my way through the whole series. I remember how much the biographer praised her for how smart she was not to get married, to keep her suitors waiting and hoping, how she avoided wars with other countries this way. It may have been a gross oversimplification, but I do remember thinking, she got to be a queen and rule all by herself, which is better than any other option she had. Why on earth would you want to be married when you could be the queen? And yes, I am married, but I’m married to a philosopher who delights in these kinds of questions, so it’s not a slight against my spouse or even against marriage, so much as it’s an insight into my way of thinking about patriarchy and leadership.

--I am also thinking about another lesson in how to rule a country that I learned as an English major in college. We were taught that Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans failed because they were a joyless bunch, and when they cancelled Christmas, that was the last straw: bring back the king! Happily, Charles II had been safe in Europe, waiting for just this change in sentiment. Again, an oversimplification, but as is the way with many oversimplifications, a bit of truth.

--Lessons learned if ever I am a ruler: don’t cancel Christmas or the holidays/events that are relatively harmless, good for the economy, and bring people joy. Don’t commit to one suitor (or in contemporary terms, one ally), so that everyone remains on their best behavior. And be aware that just because I think I’m doing the Lord’s work, I may not be, so don’t institute reigns of terror. I say this with a bit of humor, but also with the realization that we’d have a better world if more leaders governed this way.

Sketching for Schoolwork

I am really enjoying my Foundations of Preaching class.  I'm impressed with the wide range of activities that we do to show that we've learned the material.  

I'm also surprised by which parts take the most time.  A few weeks ago, we had to make a PowerPoint to teach others about the worship traditions that formed us.  Not only did that project take less time than I had budgeted (hurrah!), but it also made my inner artist happy, although my inner tech person was exasperated with the deficiency of the software (and unwilling to learn a new system like Canva in short order).

The project for last week seemed like it would be solidly in my skill set:

A creative activity! Imagine you are trying to explain Christian concepts of time for a child/youth.

 

1) Draw your own lectionary wheel, with informative notes on each season. 

 

2) Draw an infographic on the Christian concept of time, including how "Sunday" was established as a tradition.

 

3) Upload drawings as your activity submission.

 

*You will not be graded on your artistic talent. ;) 

I spent so much time on this one.  Part of it was my fault; I didn't sketch with a pencil, so once I made a mistake, I had to start over.  It was hard for me to figure out how to divide the lectionary wheel, since some seasons like the time after Easter and the time after Epiphany vary widely from year to year.  And I wasn't sure what an infographic should include, the proportion of pictures to words.

I'm not going to post my work here, not until it gets graded.  I would hate for the plagiarism detection software to flag the work that I turned in, because the software found it here.  Plus, it speaks to another issue I had:  the photo isn't as good as the work itself.  I'm not sure that here you would be able to see it clearly.

Now it's off to Faith Lutheran, where in addition to preaching, I am leading a several week session to get children ready for First Communion.  It's an interesting endeavor, and I'm really enjoying it.

Creation Theories

Yesterday, I posted this picture, with this Facebook post:  "One of these things does more to affirm my belief in a benevolent God than the others (the cup contains coffee from a pod, and the graham crackers contain chocolate frosting). Discuss."

Yesterday was a day of modest revelations.  I read God in Creation while waiting for students to come for their individual conferences.  Moltmann is the Systematics theologian around whom we're structuring our two semesters of Systematic Theology.  So far, my reaction has been a shrug, but I really liked yesterday's reading.

As I was getting ready to go to school, I wished I had a pen with purple ink and a finer tip.  And I remembered the Copic multiliner pens I bought a few years ago.  They worked perfectly, for both writing on student papers in a conference and for underlining as I read.  I bought a variety of colors, and I should really use them before they dry up.  And now I have some ideas about how to do that--they aren't useful for sketching, the way I thought they would be.

But no, the real revelation was the graham cracker and chocolate frosting concoction.  When I got to campus, the glass walled conference room was being set up for the weekly Academic Affairs meeting.  As I walked back and forth to the only working printer, I kept my eyes on the graham cracker treats.  Were they sandwiching peanut butter or chocolate or Nutella?

I have noticed that the treats from the weekly meeting are often set out in the break room after the meeting, and sure enough, later in the morning, there they were.  The break room has a Keurig and pods, so I helped myself.  What a delicious treat.

I told the admin assistant how much I had enjoyed them, and lo and behold, the Vice President for Academic Affairs had made them; his mother used to make them when he was a kid.  I asked if she thought it was just frosting from a can, and she said that she thought it was from scratch:  "He cooks a lot--he even makes his own pasta!"  I thought it tasted better than canned frosting.

In fact, it tasted so good that I had three of them.  I was relieved to see that they were all gone when I came back from class.  Here's a close up of one of them:

I finished the day by going to class by way of Zoom, a good Systematic Theology class; I am intrigued by what some of my classmates assert about Adam and Eve and that garden.  Once again, I think about what a strange seminarian I am, with my poet's sensibility, my academic training/Ph.D. in literary criticism, my decades of rebellious rejection of much of traditional Christianity.  

As we talked about Adam and Eve and other creation myths (familiar to me, but not to everyone) from both that time period and much, much earlier, I started this sketch:

Why did I give Eve wings?  I didn't start with that intention.  But Eve's upper back and left shoulder had a feathery look, and I thought it worked in some ways--plus, I was covering a mistake (there's a life lesson in here somewhere).  In some ways, I think I've drawn Eve that looks more like a muppet than a human.  I'm OK with that too.

So, yes, a good day, a day that left me tired, but in a good way.

Winter Weather Inspirations

When we left the house yesterday morning, we thought we'd stay for the covered dish dinner after the worship service at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  But as we approached the higher elevations at 7:45 in the morning, snow started to swirl.  On the other side of the mountain, in Bristol, it wasn't snowing, but the forecast called for rain to turn to snow in the early afternoon, so we decided not to stay for lunch.

On our way back across the mountains, I was surprised by how much snow had stuck to the ground and the trees while we were in Bristol.  The roads were still in good shape, wet, yes, but not frozen.  I was glad we had decided to get back earlier than planned.  The higher elevations were under a winter storm warning, so it was good to get up and over earlier rather than later.

Later, I tried to sketch what I had seen. As with last year, the first glance of a winter landscape looks like variations of gray and black to me, but when I look closer, I see lots of browns, along with some deep greens and burgundies.  I continue to try to capture what I see, but both my skills and my art supplies (Copic markers) are inadequate.

In many ways, it's much more fun to take the longer view (and to take more time):

Last week, I tried to sketch the winter sky, as it shifted from blue to snow, and I thought I had failed.  I was happy to look at my sketchbook last night and like this picture more than I remembered:

A goal for my sketching practice for this year is to include snippets of observations that might become poems.  Here's one of my favorites so far (the sketch itself doesn't photograph well):

Squirrels scamper

across the spines of winter trees.

Skeletons of past springs.

Sunset coming, cold winter sky.

Soon I will bundle up and head out for a different kind of inspiration, the kind that comes from a walk in the winter landscape.  It's the kind of day that will be windy and cold all day, so I may as well go early before I can talk myself out of it. 

Virgin Mary, Harriet Tubman, and Haunted Landscapes

 It has been awhile since I posted anything about my sketching practice.  I've continued sketching, at least 5 minutes a day; it's part of my morning spiritual discipline, the Morning Watch devotion time that I lead for my Florida church on Facebook.  I've been doing that since late March of 2020.

I've also continued to sketch at other times, but it's often closer to doodling than anything that seems worthy of a blog post.  However, last week I changed my approach and ended up with this sketch:

It began when I read this passage for my seminary Systematic Theology course, a passage from Jurgen Moltmann's The Way of Jesus Christ:  Christology in Messianic Dimensions:

"The Holy Spirit, not Mary, is the source of life, the mother of believers, the divine Wisdom, and the indwelling of the divine essence in creation, from which the face of the earth will be renewed.  . . . It is the Holy Spirit, not Mary herself, who is co-worker with the messianic son of God, and who together with him will redeem the world" (p. 86).

I felt a bit annoyed at the dismissal of Mary as a mere vessel, a womb for hire.  Moltmann's language aligns the Holy Spirit with some feminine aspects, but it still irked me.  I had a vision of the kind of Mary image that I had sketched somewhat obsessively back in December of 2020:

I had a vision of that figure but with trees and a big moon in the sky, a more autumnal Mary.  As I sketched, I also added the star in the left corner, the star that is the Christmas Eve star in my iconography.

As I sketched, I was also thinking of Harriet Tubman and swampy landscapes.  I wasn't surprised when the river emerged, but I didn't anticipate the basket when I was first thinking of the sketch.  Unlike many sketches, I started work on it and completed it in the same sitting.

It's not quite done with me, this sketch.  Earlier this week I started another sketch as part of my morning spiritual discipline.

I Feed the Birds, and the Birds Feed Me

 I am late to the world of smart phones and the apps that go with them.  We just got smart phones in August, and so far, I've mainly used mine as a phone and a camera, which didn't seem revolutionary to me.  I've been grateful to be able to access a map and directions a few times.  I send a text here and there.  But the Merlin Bird ID app gives me a window into the ways that a smart phone might be a game changer in so many ways.

I haven't downloaded any apps until this one; my phone did come with apps, but I haven't used them.  We don't have unlimited data, but more than that, I don't want the phone sucking my attention away.  But unlike many other apps, the Merlin app helps me pay attention.  Yesterday on my morning walk, without a phone, I could identify the song of the cardinals.

Of course, birdseed helps me pay attention too.  We've been spreading birdseed along the deck rail, and the birds come to visit in the evening.  It feels magical, but I realize it's not.  It's a basic principle of hospitality--offer food and see what happens:

The other night, I tried to sketch these cardinals.  

I didn't want to try to add color, although I was tempted.  But my markers are imprecise, and many of them are dried out.  I made the sketch using the photo.  At some point, maybe I'll try a more impressionistic sketch.  Or maybe I'll just continue trying to snap pictures:

The birds are tough to capture as they zip down, grab a seed and go.  Last night, we didn't have the seeds spread out, and one landed and stared at us as we sat there with our cheese and crackers.  I didn't have my phone with me to capture that one, but it looked a bit like this bird:

We haven't seen any fireflies yet.  I'm too much of an early bird for that--I often go to bed before it's completely dark, in these days heading to the Summer Solstice.  

Each day, I wonder if I can last until that moment that the birds are most likely to feed, as the sun sinks.  Most days, I can.  After all, I'm getting fed too.  Feeding the birds has reminded me of a basic of hospitality: set out food, and the miraculous can happen (or the mundane will seem miraculous).