Renewing Art, part 1

One of the hopes that I had for my renewal leave was to spend time making/learning about/ seeing art.
I took a wonderful drawing workshop at the Danforth Museum in Framingham with Bob Collins, a local artist. I also took a series of classes on drawing with colored pencils at the Decordova Museum in Lincoln. What I'm enjoying most is a class I’m still taking in collage/mixed media with Gary Nisbet at the South Shore Arts Center. I’ve enjoyed doing collage for many years and I’m excited to be learning some new techniques.
I’ve also continue to work on my rug making – though at a slower pace. On the way home from my visit in Burlington, VT with my sister and brother, I took a detour. I stopped at a barn somewhere in mid state Vermont (forgot the town) where Amy Oxford, the grande-dame of punchneedle rug hooking, was having a barn sale of rug material and equipment.

And, this week, on our way home from Stewart’s bike/camping adventure, we stopped in Bath, ME at Halcyon Yarn, a major distributor for yarn and yarn craft materials. It was like walking into a rainbow – a converted old shipping warehouse, filled from wooden floor to high ceiling with wooden bins of yarn of every description – rooms of it. Stewart had a great conversation with the friendly clerk there about spinning. We’ll see if that becomes his new winter hobby. If he spins it, I will hook with it.

Renewal leave reading

As it turns out, I was not very disciplined about keeping my reading list updated during renewal leave. I did a lot of reflecting in my journal, but it didn't make it to this spot.
But I've kept a (mostly complete) list of the titles I have read. One indulgence I allowed myself is that I did not finish any books that I didn't like. If it didn't capture my imagination within 50 pages, it went into the library return slot unfinished. I recently came to the awareness that if I read 2 books a week, that's just over 100 books in a year. There are too many good books out there to get bogged down in those I don't like.
Here's my list for May - July, 2012.
Non fiction
The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso and Russ Hudson
Self Compassion by Kristin Neff
The Province of Joy: Praying with Flannery O’Connor by Angela A. O’Donnell
An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler
Practicing Resurrection by Nora Gallagher
What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
Would it Kill You to Stop Doing That? By Henry Alford
Below Stairs by Margaret Powell
Lady Almina by Fiona Carnavon
God is not a Christian by Desmond Tutu
The Man who Loved Books Too Much by Alison Bartlett
God’s Hotel by Victoria Sweet
Still Life with Chickens by Catherine Goldhammer
The House in France by Gully Wells
The Best American Travel Writing 2010
The Best American Spiritual Writing 2012

Fiction

Best Love, Rosie by Nuala o’Faolain
A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman by Margaret Drabble
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James
Gourmet Rhapsody and The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry
The Drop by Michael Connelly
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: my year of magical reading by Nina Sankovitch
Louise Penny: all seven of her mysteries set in Quebec
Jonathan Kellerman: 3 detective novels
Faye Kellerman: 2 detective novels
Clive Cussler: 2 thrillers
The Best American Short Stories 2010

Reading

I’m trying to keep track of what I am reading while on renewal leave. It is such an indulgence to have time to read – to just read whatever I want. I love having several books going at the same time – a couple of “serious” books here by my reading chair, and another couple of lighter works upstairs by the bed and next to the TV, one on my ipad and, of course, the recorded books in the car.
I’ve mentioned a couple of books in previous posts, so here are a few disconnected thoughts on some of the other books I’ve recently finished:
Just before we went to California, I hurriedly loaded Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James onto the ipad. James is one of my favorite authors, and I’ve read most of her other books over and over. Having read nothing about this new work, I assumed it to be another in the Adam Dalgleish series. As the plane took off and we reached the altitude where electronic devices are permitted, I opened the ipad and was astounded. James has written a follow up to Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” (Pemberly, I had forgotten, is the estate in Derbyshire of Fitzwiliam Dacry, whom Elizabeth Bennet marries at the end of Austen’s novel). James does a wonderful job of recreating the setting and the ambiance and of bringing Austen’s characters once more to life. The mystery itself was not, for me, the highlight, but what a wonderful way to begin our trip.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: Barnes won the 2011 Booker Prize for this novel. To me, it’s a book about memory – the way our memories shape our current lives as well as the tricks our memories play on us. We tend to think of our memories as factual recordings of events as they happened, but that’s far from true. When my sister, Beth , and I get together, we enjoy comparing our memories of growing up – of events and people. Sometimes our memories coincide, sometimes we have different but complementary memories of the thing, and sometimes we can hardly believe we are talking about the same event. Barnes’ novel is short, but exquisite.
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by the Countess of Carnarvon: I didn’t watch the PBS series, but I did enjoy the sort of voyeuristic glimpse into the life of the great house. In the United States, we take pride in our delusion of a classless society. This book is a trip back to a time and place where rigid class divisions were accepted without much question. I’m looking forward to reading another book or two about Downton Abbey written by people who are not so deeply invested in presenting a rosy, uncritical picture. To read this book, you would think that Lady Almina was practically a saint!
The Brutal Telling and A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny: delightfully traditional murder mysteries, set in the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines, somewhere outside of Quebec City. Chief Inspector Armande Gamache is all you could want in a fictional detective – insightful, compassionate, patient. I love to read these formulaic stories, I think because it is so reassuring to know it will all be tidied up by the end.

Clutter

In her book, “Practicing Resurrection,” Nora Gallagher writes about the death of her brother, her Episcopal church in Santa Barbara, her marriage, and most of all, about discernment. She senses God calling her to something and she thinks it might ordained ministry. Or then again, it might not be. This book is a story of her struggles, her waiting, her listening for something, anything that will clarify the “call.” It’s a story of people, some who go with her on the journey, some whom she encounters briefly along the way.
One of these people says to her about her sense of ‘call’: If you use supernatural language then you end up waiting for a lightning bolt, instead of sticking to your own life… ‘Call’ makes you think of a voice from outer space, which it is not. These voices are in us already. They are drowned out or muffled. Discernment is about cleaning up the clutter to find the thread.” (p. 17)
Cleaning up the clutter is harder than it sounds. The temptation (for me) is to replace one kind of clutter with another. What I really need is empty space.

Manners

Henry Alford’s “Would it Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners” is a witty look at the state of manners in the contemporary world. It’s not so much a prescription or even a lament as it is an observation. So many of the stories are (sometimes sadly) funny .

It did make me think a bit about state of manners in the church. I’m tempted to go on a long rant. Letting people stand or sit by themselves at fellowship time (all the while insisting that we are don’t do that). Telling a newcomer “you are sitting in our pew.” Witnessing someone saying to a newcomer “you are sitting in our pew” and not doing anything to mitigate it. Telling someone “you can’t do it that way” without first finding out the whole story. Talking in “code” that other people can’t understand, making them feel like outsiders.

OK, so I gave in to temptation and ranted (those are a few of the things I have observed or heard about in the past few months at my church).

But Alford’s book made me think that manners in the church are like manners anywhere else. Good manners mean making people feel recognized and welcome and included. Not embarrassing people. Thinking of things from the other person’s perspective. Recognizing that other people have different perspectives and life experiences just as valid as yours.

He quotes Edmund Burke, an 18th century writer, who said that “manners are more important than laws.” Even the unspoken and unwritten “laws” in the church. Manners, I think, are about hospitality to everyone. And isn’t that what we should be about in Christ’s church?

Yesterday, I began to work in the flower beds in the back yard, ahead of the rain. I’m a bit delayed in starting this task, due to our early May trip to California, and the weeds have taken hold and the grass has inched back into the gardens. I worked for a couple of hours, then loaded up the wheel barrow with sticks and bits of rose canes. As I tipped them out into the brush pile, I made a discovery. The young men who mowed during our absence also raked the clippings – lots and lots of clippings – and put them in the brush pile. I was unreasonably excited – it felt like I had been given an unexpected gift. I gathered them up and heaped them onto the cleaned up beds. These relatively new beds, established in a yard created by fill, need all the organic help they can get. Heaps and piles of grass clippings – like a pile of gold.

The most fertile soil for plants to grow is compost: grass clippings, kitchen waste, plants from the garden that have died, dead leaves. What is leftover, discarded – garbage – created the most fertile soil.

Flannery O’Connor wrote that conversion is a lifelong process of turning away from one’s own egocentricity and seeing oneself in “a kind of blasting, annihilating light” that allows us to see ourselves realistically so that we can turn from our sin.

God gives hope and new life and possibility in the places where we least expect it: Pain. Garbage.

The prayer to St. Raphael, the “angel of happy meeting,” was Flannery O’Connor’s daily prayer and one that she also shared with friends. O’Connor suffered with an illness that limited her greatly and which she knew would be fatal. She was isolated and often lonely, living on the farm in Georgia. Still, she remained focused on “the province of joy,” a place without location in this world and a state in the life to come.

O Raphael, lead us towards those we are waiting for,
those who are waiting for us:
Raphael, Angel of happy meeting,
lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for.
May all our movements be guided by your Light
and transfigured with your joy.
Angel, guide of Tobias,
lay the request we now address to you at the feet of Him
on whose unveiled Face you are privileged to gaze.
Lonely and tired, crushed by the separation and sorrows
of life, we feel the need of calling you and of pleading
for the protection of your wings,
so that we may not be as strangers in the province of joy,
all ignorant of the concerns of our country.
Remember the weak, you who are strong.
you whose home lies beyond the region of thunder,
in a land that is always peaceful, always serene and bright
with the resplendent glory of God.
Amen.