… watching for the brushstrokes of God
“We need to find God, and God cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.” Teresa of Calcutta
What touches your soul?
I came across a reference to the early Velazquez palette named after the Spanish painter who used it frequently. For the primary colors of yellow, red and blue he apparently used Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber and black (or Payne’s Grey here).
What kind of playfulness does this call for? How deep do you have to dig within?
In this digital world of ours, as we move from one meeting to another without leaving the room, we have lost the spaciousness of travel, the in-between spaces that open up to reflection and deep breath, of noticing the leaves on the trees and watching the sun rise through the morning fog…the spaces where we are held by God, the creator and sustainer.
How do you create moments to catch your breath?
“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…Let him who is not in community be aware of being alone…Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
How do you seek solitude and community?
Sometimes you need the ocean light and colors you’ve never seen before painted through the evening sky.
Sometimes you need your God to be a simple invitation… David Whyte
What invitation do you need?
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” Wendell Berry
When are you free?
With the Eyes of the Heart 