Be an Artist

I started taking yoga classes last winter, as I tried to deal with my rising stress levels at work. I had wanted to try it for a while, but never had the nerve in Belgium to attempt to learn the French word for “downward dog” while also learning the pose. (Of course, I suppose there is a good chance that it’s just “downward dog.”)

But there’s a yoga studio about five minutes from my house here, and with the stress thing, I figured it would be worth the money. The fact that it reminds me of my friend Laura in San Francisco is just all the better.

I don’t buy into everything. I still can’t bring myself to do the long, chanting OM that some teachers have you do at the end of class. (And yes, I do totally fake it.)

But I do love the kind of environment it can breed. Like tonight. My teacher started the class by saying what a wonderful job she had. And you could tell she meant it. She is the sort of person who breathes life into the people she meets and the places she goes.

She went on during the class to encourage us all to be more creative, to tap into our inner artists. To be free of the burden of expectation and perfectionism. The last thing she said before we left was something along the lines of: Be an artist.

I find it hard to find the courage to even acknowledge to myself that I am creative. (Be practical!) But over the weekend as I read an article in last month's Vanity Fair about the making of Raging Bull, I found myself craving that kind of creativity in my life.

And I think we all must have an artist in us. Whether it’s the art of loving or creating or baking or writing or organizing or healing. So I’m hoping to make a little more time in my life to nurture the artist in me. To give myself room to fail. As Henry Miller said: We don’t have to turn out a masterpiece every day. To paint is the thing. Not to make masterpieces.

Good Intentions

I have the best intentions.

I mean to write a blog post every day. I mean to leave work on time. I mean to take a lunch break. I mean to go to yoga four times a week. I mean to write friends whose emails have been lingering in my inbox for months, slowly getting pushed back to page 5 or 6. I mean to call friends I haven’t spoken to in ages. I mean to love my colleagues well.

But most of the time, as the erratic posts here prove, I fall flat on my face.

I have to remind myself to not feel guilty. I am a rather guilt-plagued person. Oh I should have. If only I had. Yep, that’s me. I can make myself feel guilty about any little thing. It’s hard work, really, making yourself feel guilty about all the things you could have done differently.

And lately I just don’t have the energy for it. God has been reminding me that it’s OK, that I’m a work in progress. At times it doesn’t feel like it. I don’t even often see the scaffolding going up around my heart. If I’m lucky, I notice a rail or two. It usually takes a jackhammer going off at 5 a.m. to get my attention.

In London at the moment there is all kinds of construction going on. (Apparently there’s a big rush to spend spend spend before a new government is elected.) You can hardly walk down a street without seeing a detour sign. It’s crazy. First it was on Ludgate Hill, leading up to St. Paul’s, where they've blocked half of the street. Then it was at Notting Hill Gate, where they seem to be fixing a pipe or two. Now it’s on the street outside my flat.

And it seems like the construction on this heart of mine is getting closer to home too. It’s good. It could use a little spring cleaning. Hopefully I’ll let the guilt get swept out with the cobwebs, instead of hiding it under the rug, and in the meantime give myself a little more grace.

(Not So) In Control

Today a massive cloud of ash moved its way from the spewing mouth of an Icelandic volcano down across much of Europe and just like that, it shut down air travel across a wide swath of the globe.

In its wake are thousands of people stuck at airports or at the very least with annoying last-minute changes to their plans. Hundreds who have had to be evacuated from their homes because, oh yeah, the volcano happened to be sitting under a glacier.

It’s funny how often we fool ourselves into thinking we are in control. I don’t know about you, but I really like to think I have a firm grip on life – even knowing in my deepest self that I’m faking it. I’m a bit of a control freak, really. I think we all are in our own ways. But in moments like these, and in ones that aren’t quite so bizarre, it’s pretty clear that we’re not.

While that drives me crazy more often than not – patience is not really one of my virtues – it should actually be a massive relief for a people pleaser like myself. Because it sometimes feels like I’m Atlas carrying around a bronze world on my shoulders. When the truth of the matter is: I don’t have to.

And really it comes down to who I think God is, which is way too often way too small. So here’s to a God who knows the exact number of the billions of ash particles in a certain cloud making its way across a rather small continent in a planet in a solar system in a galaxy in a possibly infinite universe. And here’s to a God who also knows the number of hairs on my head and each moment of my day.

His eye is on the sparrow.

The Gleam of a Penny

When I look back on the last several months, I feel like – well, to be honest, I feel like I can’t remember much about them outside of my trip to Italy with my mom and sister.

It may be just that I’m getting older, but my memory isn’t THAT bad – yet. Or maybe it’s the London fog. But I have a feeling that it has more to do with the fact that I’ve just been too busy. Too busy to see God, to wait for his still small voice.

I feel it most keenly when I’m at church, where lately I find myself fidgeting and very aware of my inability to be still.

But I’ve been as aware of how God has met me, even in those times – especially in those times.

In her book “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” Annie Dillard wrote: “The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.”

While I feel like I’ve had a bit of tunnel vision these last few months, even in my limited view, I have seen the gleam of a penny or two. More than that. God has been reminding me lately of his abundant love and of all the pennies stored up for me. So many, in fact, that even when I’m not looking, I stumble upon them.

A New Season

Spring finally arrived in London this week.

There were signs before now that it was coming. But then the grey and rain would come again and you’d forget that the sky could be blue or the feeling of the sun against your skin.

The last few days have been glorious. Blue skies. Sun. Flowers everywhere. Trees blossoming. I’ve spent them in the parks and on the streets. It’s amazing how people seem to come out of the woodwork on the first warm day. The sidewalks are packed. The parks have no green patch left under the mass of people.

I am thankful for a new season. For the reminder that things don’t always stay the same. That things we once thought dead – hopes, dreams, relationships – can be brought back to life, resurrected. Even from the greyest of winter. I needed that reminder. Work has been hard. Life has felt a little lonely. I have found myself wondering, as I often do, what I’m doing with my life.

The sun has done me good. I feel like I am coming to life with the nature around me.

And I decided tonight that this new season needs a new soundtrack. I have been stuck in a rut for a while – listening to old stuff, mostly The Smiths. But today I downloaded some new music to mark at least these next few months.

I’m already in love with Local Native. And somehow I think I’ll be as obsessed with Frightened Rabbit’s “The Winter of Mixed Drinks” as I was their last album. It will be nice to have good company on my tube rides.

An Education

The U.K.’s election season started in earnest today. In a series of calculated moves, Gordon Brown met with his cabinet before heading to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament so that elections could be called. She said yes.

Coming from a very American idea of democracy and government, the politics here – and the ceremony, the decorum and the sometimes lack thereof – at times baffle me almost as much as the accents. (Today I found myself yet again sitting next to some girls on the tube who I at first thought were from some foreign country, speaking a language I couldn’t decipher. Only to find that when I listened for a few minutes, they were – in fact – speaking English.)

It is a strange time to be an American in the U.K. Or maybe it’s just a strange time to be in the U.K.

The media are calling it the most interesting election since 1997, when Tony Blair and the Labour Party swept to power with a promise to modernize the country – ending years of Tory dominance.

Strangely enough, this weekend I was a bit immersed in that exact moment. I finally watched The Queen. (Late, as usual, to the party.) And it was an education.

I can’t say I understand this place much more than I did. Or that I will fully grasp the politics of this election. Then again, I don’t think I really comprehend the politics of my own country much either.

But I find that history is always important in understanding countries and people. We each have our own background – small or maybe large moments that add up to a certain point of view, a certain way of interacting with others. That add up to who we are. And it is important to try to see, at least for a moment, from the other point of view.

I wish that were easier to practice than to preach. It is, in fact, one of the harder things we can attempt. But it is also one of the things that would make this world a more compassionate place.

Contemplating Easter

Last February, I got sick. Really sick. I was out of work for over a month with a second bout of mono. My mom came to take care of me for several weeks, because I was pretty much unable to do even basic things without extreme, exhausting effort.

It was awful. But it was also one of the best things that has happened to me. After a week or so of watching TV shows and DVDs on my computer, of reading gossip Web sites, of trying to find ways to occupy endless hours of boredom, I found myself just wanting to rest, to be quiet, to spend time with God.

It is a rare thing in this crazy world of ours to have time like that. But leave it to mono to open up all kinds of opportunity.

My sickness came during Lent, which I don’t think was any kind of coincidence. And as I read books like Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God” along with my readings from a little book my friend Caroline found years ago and which still guides my everyday time with God – “A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants,” I found myself understanding for what seemed like the first time the meaning of the cross and the depth of God’s love.

I grew up a Christian. I've gone to church for as long as I can remember. I am actually really thankful for that, but I also find that there are some things that simply become route about faith because you have heard them your whole life. “God loves you.” “Yep. Got it.” “Jesus died on the cross for you.” “Uh huh.”

But as I was forced to take a big step back from the restlessness of my life, as I spent hours in quiet solitude with God, those most basic truths about my faith became real to me again.

A year out, in an entirely different city, on an entirely different couch, I find myself contemplating those same things as Easter comes again. And I am amazed at a God who comes. Who meets us in the darkest night. Who brings us out into the light. Who loves us beyond anything we can measure or imagine.

It can be hard to remember that. This world is broken. I am broken. There are things — awful things, evil things — that I just can’t explain. But what I always come back to, in the end, is that the God I believe in is one who isn’t removed from pain or suffering. He knows the depths of the deepest pit. And the thing that gives me hope is his resurrection. Because it means that one day everything will be restored, everyone will be whole again.

I know that seems crazy to most people in this world of ours. Sometimes I think it’s a bit crazy too. But my life’s been completely changed by it. And as Jonathan Edwards once said: “There is a difference between believing that God is holy and gracious, and having a new sense on the heart of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. The difference between believing God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having an actual sense of its sweetness.”