Go To The Edges

Luke 4:21-30

Today I’m thinking about edges. There are all types of edges we could talk about–edges of a page, edges of anything flat, really. We could call the moment the sun goes down, the edge or border between day and night. The earth’s ‘edge’ is turning away from the sun (or toward it as sunrise comes). People used to believe the Earth was flat and that there was an edge one could fall off. When I taught Middle School science, I used to ask students to talk about whether there is an edge to the universe—whether there is something beyond what we can see or know. And… I know my porch is edged because I’ve stepped off it sideways. Edges can be uncomfortable, exciting, and painful.  

The passage from the gospel of Luke teaches us something about edges. It begins by telling us of a peaceful Sabbath morning in the synagogue in Nazareth, where Jesus was raised and grew up preaching. Jesus is there giving a sermon and has just unrolled a scroll with words written by Isaiah. He reads the words written by the prophet and points out that he, Jesus, is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Jesus is claiming here that God sent him.  

After this, the ‘people’, those who knew him as a child and watched him growing, seem to be satisfied that this young person, from their very midst, is making them proud. Jesus is a hometown hero, and they claim him as their own. We can almost hear the cheering from here, can’t we? 

Jesus doesn’t stop there though. That’s where the story stopped last Sunday, and often, that’s where my memory of the story stops (partly because I don’t like to think about the rest of the story; I’m uncomfortable with the ‘edge’). You might say that we left the story last week at the point of a cliff hanger. 

Here’s the edge. Can you feel it? Jesus reads the words of Isaish and says scripture has been fulfilled. Then Jesus goes further. . . he says a prophet is not welcome or accepted in his hometown. Before the people can even begin to ask him for favors, he names their expectations. . . and then he dismisses them by saying he won’t be meeting them. He won’t, he says, be working miracles in Nazareth. What?! And the cheers from the crowd die down. The tension here is like another character in the story. 

Stepping away from the story for a bit, I have a question for all of us. Have you ever felt like you couldn’t meet the expectations of others? I wonder whether that felt uncomfortable for you. What feelings arise when you remember that time? For me, it’s like a living nightmare. I like to anticipate expectations and exceed them. I really don’t like the feeling of letting people down. 

I can tell you that I am doing a lot of work in this area–the area of feeling like I need to meet the expectations of others.  

When the expectations are agreed upon by two sides, meeting them is a good thing idea. This kind of situation creates peace. . . a Shalom community where all are thriving (the true biblical shalom means an inward sense of completeness or wholeness. Although it can also describe the absence of war, a majority of biblical references refer to an inner completeness and tranquility). But when the expectations are one-sided and not agreed upon by both sides, meeting them is not healthy. This situation would create an unbalanced community where some are pushed down by others (or some are raised up by stepping on others). This is exploitation; the opposite of Shalom. 

Back to the scripture, Jesus goes on to tell the people that in Israel’s history there were miracles performed by the prophets Elijah and Elisha that did not meet the expectations of the Israelite people. Jesus reminds them that Elijah was sent by God to heal a foreign woman while widows in Israel went unhealed. And Naaman, a man from Syria was healed by Elisha while the people of Israel were not healed.  

This is another ‘edge’ or turning point in this story. After Jesus had established that he was sent by God, and that he is a prophet like Elisha and Elijah; and after he predicted that the people of his hometown might start asking him to perform miracles in Nazareth, he tells them that he would not be doing that. As we might expect, the people (who had just admired his work and his prophet-ness) were furious with Jesus.  

Here is Jesus who says he’s sent by God and can work miracles, but instead of helping those in Nazareth—people who seem to feel like they own him—he promises to help people on the edge of society. The foreigner, the outcast, the poor. . .  

The people at the synagogue in Nazareth are quick to turn toward violence. They immediately bring Jesus to the edge of town, to the edge of a cliff. The Israelite people see themselves as chosen. Special in the eyes of God. Even so, they are oppressed and marginalized by the Roman occupation. And now their hometown hero refuses to perform miracles for them. They want exclusive rights to God. They want Jesus to work for them. 

In the story arc of the Bible, the Israelite people forget over and over that God’s love is for EVERYONE (not specifically them). The Romans, the Syrians, the poor, the rich, the ruler, the slave. I wonder whether we do too.  

I know that when something especially hard happens to me, I question God’s love for me. I find myself thinking, “God, I’ve done all the things you ask of me. I’ve tried hard to live my life according to your will.” I know I’m forgetting that God doesn’t promise any of us easy lives. God does tell us there is an abundance of love for ALL and that will never change. 

Jesus reached outside the edges of the community that claimed him as their hero. They wanted to claim him and his love for themselves. Jesus showed his own community that God’s love is for EVERYONE. No one deserves God’s love more or less than anyone else.  

Jesus taught about Shalom. Shalom can only be felt in a community. If all in the community are not thriving, there can be no Shalom. If there is exploitation—there is no Shalom or thriving. If there is exploitation, it creates an edge. 

And there are no edges, no boundaries to God’s love. 

Citations:

Jolene Miller from Roanoke Mennonite Church in Illinois

Luke 4:21-30

Recognizing Light (John 1: 9-18;Ephesians 1: 3-14)

There are days I don’t even recognize myself; days that feel too hard, too mean, too painful; days I just do not want to enter. I react to others in ways that don’t feel kind. Sometimes I let my fear and grief turn into anger. Do you have days in your life like that too? I’m guessing so. I don’t think this is unique to me. 

During my years of teaching middle school, I knew that each day could be a day that at least one of my students didn’t want to come to school. . . or study writing or history. It was always important to me to connect with ALL students, wherever they were at in the moment. But honestly, some moments were incredibly difficult. One memory comes to mind in particular: I was working hard to convince one 7th grade student to begin writing (I don’t remember what about). The point is that I remember encouraging him to begin by writing something and he refused repeatedly. Instead, he insisted on doing nothing. We were both so frustrated. At the end of that class period, this student left in a hurry and as I tidied up the classroom, I found a note crumpled on the ground. 

Now, I’m always curious about written notes wherever I find them, so of course I smoothed it out and read the words. This note turned out to be from this unwilling writer to another student and it said something like: “Mrs. Forney is so mean. I hate her so much.” This was 15 years ago, and this memory is still so vivid—that’s how much I was impacted by those written words.  I felt so misunderstood in that moment (as I’m sure the unwilling student felt this too). I felt as if I couldn’t express my desire to help him and he was not listening to my way of helping. That’s it, I felt helpless, and it was so painful to me. I’m sad about the fact that I never understood or was understood by this student and maybe that’s why the memory is so vivid. 

Everyone has different ways of expressing difficult feelings. Thankfully we learn more helpful ways of expressing ourselves as we grow and interact with the world.  I recently read a story* about a medical doctor who supervised residents at a pediatric hospital. 

One resident was sent to her for individual meetings because he was angry and surly with his colleagues regularly the director of the hospital thought it might help him. For a month they met one-on-one and mostly the doctor just listened to the resident complain about how his colleagues were not helping patients as much as they should. He was angry and felt that most of those working around him were callous, stupid, or uncaring. The doctor meeting with him helped him see that there might be an underlying reason for his rage. He asked her, “Why are things like this? Why are children suffering?” and he cried. 

At their final meeting, the supervising doctor asked the resident if he would try some imagery. After first refusing, he ended up agreeing to it. The doctor asked him to allow an image to come that was related to the suffering and the meaning of his work as a pediatrician. He found an image immediately and described it:

The image was of a young man, wearing a long white robe and sandals, with a beard. He went on to say the figure looked weak and soft, and just stood there. “He’s just standing there looking at me,” the resident said, “with his arms out. . . this guy could just stand there with his arms out like this forever and ever.” Next, the resident saw a little bird land in the figure’s hand. Both the doctor and resident realized he was describing St. Francis of Assisi. 

It turns out this resident had great respect for the historical figure of Brother Francis. He looked up to him for his love, kindness, and care of animals. In other words, this resident aspired to be like Brother Francis. The supervising doctor helped this resident remember why he was drawn to pediatrics in the first place, and to move past his criticism of his colleagues. She helped him recognize his grief of seeing children suffer was coming out as anger toward those he worked with. This supervisor went on to see many young people of vision who suffer from a deep sense of difference. She said, “They may first need to abandon their resentment of the way things are in order to begin repairing the world.”

Here’s what I think. We are reminded through scripture today that none of us has ever seen God. God was revealed to us through Jesus and his life here. But sometimes we humans have a hard time recognizing God, revealed through Jesus, in modern day life.

John 1:9 says: “The Word was coming into the world—was in the world—and though the world was made through the Word, the world didn’t recognize it. Though the Word came to its own realm, the Word’s own people didn’t accept it.”

I think this can make it challenging to recognize God’s love in and through others, not to mention in and through ourselves. It might seem like I’ve strayed a little from our scriptures by telling you these two stories, but please stick with me. In Ephesians 1 we heard, “Before the world began, God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless and to be full of love; God likewise predestined us through Christ Jesus to be adopted children—such was God’s pleasure and will—that everyone might praise the glory of God’s grace which was freely bestowed on us in God’s beloved, Jesus Christ.”

So, we are taught, through scripture, to see Jesus as the light radiating the love of God, and then to be like Jesus through our own lives, illuminating the world around us. 

Well, some days it’s easier to do this than others, isn’t it? Like I said at the beginning, some days I let anger/fear/grief get the better of me and it’s then that I can’t recognize myself, or Jesus’ light in me. Each day (each hour, each minute) I have another chance to start again on this idea of radiating God’s love to the world around me. We all do. And, we are human, so of course there will be some days that are harder than others. Since we are all human, interactions between us can add light or make it harder to see the light of God’s love.

What I hear God saying through these scriptures though, is to keep trying. To remember that each of us is a child of God. . . beloved. . . and can illuminate the world around us. Thomas Merton (the former bohemian New York literary figure who became a monk) wrote: 

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes; yet, with all that, God gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.

I have the immense joy of being human, a member of a race in which God became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

As our scripture from Ephesians tells us: “God has taken pleasure in revealing the mystery of the plan through Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time; namely, to bring all things—in heaven and on earth—together in Christ.”

My question for each of us is this: how do we plan to join God’s plan of bringing all things (in heaven and on earth) together in Christ? I don’t have an answer formulated for myself, but I do know I can feel it when I’m on the right path. Those are the moments in my life when I can recognize ‘myself’ and feel peaceful within my own body. 

* From My Grandfather’s Blessings, by Rachel Naomi Remen

Hope

Ordinary Courage 

What are the grounding practices we can lean on when life brings us challenges? Another way to ask this question is this: how do we find courage to keep going in the face of trials or challenges? The spiritual practice of prayer is one of our best tools for finding hope amidst the hardships in our lives. Recently, a friend of mine who is not a church goer, asked me: “Do you have a regular devotion or prayer time? In the morning or evening?” My answer was: “I pray by doing different things, like walking in the forest, driving, being with my dog in the quiet of my home.” To me, it seems like I’m always praying. 

Prayer likely looks different to all of us. For me, singing and poetry, walking and working with my hands are all forms of prayer; how I find hope and the courage to keep going. Sometimes, all I have the strength for is lighting a candle. In my most stressful moments, I find that I need to rearrange my space and move furniture, which often gives me a chance to see something new or see something old with new eyes. This has been true for me for a long time. Some of my most prayerful moments have been when I’m outdoors, among trees, or when I’m moving my body or working with my hands. 

I’m curious about some ways you find to pray. Do you prefer the peace and quiet of your own space, or do you like to go outside? Think about some ways you pray and feel free to call them out. Part of being courageous is being open to prayer and possibility (with God’s support).  

In my life, I’ve walked a lot of ground. I’ve even run and hiked many local hills and mountains, which was at that time a way of praying. I’ve since had to learn other ways to pray because my body doesn’t allow me to run. When I lived in the hills just north of Jefferson nearby, it was my habit to run about 7-10 miles from my house out into the country roads. One road was quite a rollercoaster ride when we drove on it. But when I ran on it, it was a new kind of challenge. Running downhill wasn’t much trouble and I felt good, like I was flying. Once the incline changed though, I found myself more winded. . . taking deep, slow breaths and slowing my pace a little bit.  

This is what life is like too. We all have those times when things are going along fine. There are no surprises, and we coast along without much effort. But then those challenging times come along and suddenly we need more strength to keep going. In the scripture today, we heard that Daniel was a friend of King Darius even though they prayed differently. The others in power around King Darius noticed this and plotted to have Daniel killed, out of jealousy. From Daniel’s perspective, nothing had changed, he kept praying to God. But the ‘hill’ he was traveling on suddenly got steeper for him because by praying to God, he was surely headed to a horrible death.  

TNH wrote: “When we climb the hill together, we don’t need to make an effort; we enjoy every step. Walking like that, if we are free of the past, free of the future, we can touch the kingdom of God with every step.” 

Praying and sharing God’s love with each other helps us walk like that, I think; sharing the effort of walking uphill together makes it possible for us to reach the top. By praying, we can ask God to share in our effort and I truly believe that God answers our prayers by sending/guiding others to act as the feet and hands of God. God sends others to walk with us during those uphill stretches of life.  

Daniel prayed, Darius fasted (a spiritual practice), and Jesus persisted in teaching about love and sharing with each other. All three hoped for something. Daniel hoped for the freedom to pray to God; Darius hoped his friend Daniel’s life would be spared; Jesus hoped his own life could be spared and that his teaching might continue. These hopes took all three of them on uphill journeys. All of them sought the help of spiritual practices to aid in their uphill journeys. 

Daniel, Darius and Jesus must have had a lion’s share of courage to face what they did, respectively.  

I did a word study in preparation for this message. I was reminded that the root word of Courage is ‘cor’ in Latin. In the Middle Ages the word Courage was used to describe “the heart as a source of feelings, spirit, confidence.” It originally meant “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” 

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to follow God’s calling and purpose, relying on God’s strength and guidance. 

In her book, Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown talks a lot about courage.  

“Over time the definition of courage has changed and today, courage is more synonymous with being heroic. Heroics is important and we need heroes, but I think we’ve lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we are, about what we’re feeling, and about our experiences (good and bad) is the definition of courage.  

“Heroics is often about putting our life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world that is pretty extraordinary.” 

Can you imagine the courage of these three people? Daniel persisted in his spiritual practice of praying three times daily even after the decree was put in place making it ‘illegal’; Darius, after realizing the trickery involved, joined Daniel in his own spiritual practice of fasting, hoping to save Daniel from death by lion. And Jesus—Jesus responds to his inquisition by Pilate by reacting calmly and with a sense of peace, using Pilate’s own words against him. When asked if he was indeed the King of the Jews, Jesus says, “You say I am.” Pilate can’t fault him for those words. But the people accuse Jesus of instigating an uprising. We know Jesus prayed to God in the garden, asking for his life to be saved. 

As we all know, sometimes what we ask for in prayer doesn’t come to us the way we think it ought to or how we hoped it would. Romans 8:24-25 says: For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. And Hebrews 11:1 says: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 

This is what I think: it takes courage to have hope—the kind of hope Daniel, Darius and Jesus had. In our lives it’s easy to lose the thread of hope; to lose patience with having hope because hope is for that which we cannot see. It really seems impossible.  

Today I brought a visual way for us to pray, and to envision hope in our own lives. I live near some really big redwood trees and when I take my dog Pearl out for walks, their beautifully curved branches litter the ground. For me, they are irresistible and I usually come home with a small handful for projects of some kind. Often I release them back into the wild when time passes and I still haven’t done anything with them. But last week I was praying and thinking of you all. And I had a great idea! 

My idea is for each of you to choose a piece of cloth/string and as you tie it to this beautiful, curved branch, pray for hope in your life. If you’d like, take a second one and pray for hope in the lives of others. Since this is the first Sunday of Advent, Hope is our special focus. Next week, there will be a different focus–love. The next time I speak in two weeks, our focus will be joy and I plan to bring something for us to add in this display to represent joy. The fourth week of Advent will be peace.  

Let’s be like Daniel, Darius and Jesus in our HOPE this week. Let’s pray even if it feels like we can hear the hungry lions. Let’s pray even if we feel as if the hill is too steep. If we pray together, the lions’ mouths will be shut fast and step-by-step the top of the hill will be achievable. It’s only alone that those seem impossible. With God—it is possible. 

Joy!

When I was young, Christmas was a time for ‘dressing up’ in my family. We wore our ‘good’ clothes to church and to special Christmas events. I loved the feeling of joy that surrounded these opportunities. My mom created a sense of joy in our home by decorating and inviting my sisters and I to help in the decorating. I have fond memories of getting the boxes out of the attic, unpacking them, and then spreading the garlands, bows and tinsel all around the house. We had a few different nativity scenes to put in different rooms too. Once we had the tree up, unpacking all the beloved ornaments was an activity all its own. Still today, as I talk about this, I feel the joy of the season coming through me.

I grew up on a beef feedlot just a few miles from here, on Eicher Road. By this time of year, my parents were finalizing plans for creating more than 100 ‘meat packages’ to distribute to friends and neighbors. This meant that my sisters, brothers, and I would gather around the kitchen table, wrapping sausage and chipped beef in freezer paper, then in red cellophane. We would add a bow, and place some of each type of meat into a basket. These special packages would be loaded into the car and off we’d go to deliver them over the next handful of days leading up to Christmas.

It was a special thing to grow up this way—with a sense of generosity and abundance to be shared with others. I loved being part of this joyful sharing. Some neighbors on Eicher Road have lived there more than 50 years and I know they received that many Eicher Christmas Meat packages. The most beautiful part of this is what happened next—neighbors would appear at our house with packages of all kinds of treats! Cookies of every sort, including Donna Rietz’s famous chocolate covered peanut butter balls! Our kitchen counter held plates and baskets of homemade treats!

I bring all of this into this message for the third week of Advent because we celebrate the Joy of Jesus’ birth, and the Joy of Jesus’ life and message: Share with others, help each other, ALL ARE WELCOME. In the scripture reading from Isaiah we hear the words, “The year of the Lord’s favor” which might ring a bell for some of you. It’s a reference to the ‘year of jubilee’.

Jubilee was historically a time when everything was set back to its starting place and I think there is something so beautiful about this idea. It seems like a relief to know that things can return to they way they started, rather than just getting worse and worse, or more and more confusing.

I am a nanny for a little boy named Nathaniel, who is 3 years old. He loves to play with his wooden train tracks and we often build entire worlds when we are together. It’s always different. He usually doesn’t want to put the wooden train set away, to preserve this world he built. But his mom has taught him that at the end of each day, the house will be ‘re-set’ to it’s ‘put-away’ state, and tomorrow everything will start afresh. Nathaniel has learned that this is a helpful way to go about building his train worlds because with each new day, he remembers how to build the parts he really liked about his previous world but can forget about the parts he didn’t care for, or that weren’t as he wanted them to be. In this way, he is exponentially growing and learning.

Another personal connection to this idea is from my one-day lesson in welding from a master welder. There is more to this story, but the part I bring to share today is this: As I learned to hold the tool and create a ‘bead’ of weld along the joint line, this teacher told me that if I got too shaky or the line got too wobbly, I should stop (rather than keep going). In other words, take a moment to pause and refocus my attention to creating a clean line. That lesson has proven so helpful in my non-welding life.

Two weeks ago Rob in maintenance here at MV told me a wonderful story that I want to pass on to you. I wanted to bring it into the first week of Advent as a story about Hope, but I think it fits during this week of Advent just as well, and it resonates with this idea of ‘year of jubilee’. On a walk near his property, Rob heard an interesting sound coming from a pipe near the ground. After further inspection, he found it came from a tiny kitten deep inside the pipe and even after urging the kitten to come out, it resisted and was scared. Rob spent 20 minutes trying to coax it out and made a tiny lasso which he finally managed to hook around the tiny kitten’s arm. Gently he pulled the kitten out. Covered in oily sludge, Rob wrapped it up and brought it home. And found a great home for him, where he lives and plays with a big German Shepherd dog friend. Imagine the joy!

These stories illustrate, at least to me (and I hope to you), that there is restoration in Christ’s birth and life. There is restoration in righting things in the world that have become out of alignment. The world can be restored to its starting position if we follow Jesus and there is JOY in this because people (and kittens) who don’t have what they need will be given enough; people on the fringes or margins will be included into the mainstream or ‘whole cloth’.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have or haven’t done in your life. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a house/tent/apartment/tiny home/mobile home/or the Mennonite Village. It doesn’t matter whether you experience illness or immobility. It doesn’t matter who you are. ALL ARE WELCOME to be surrounded by the Hope/Peace/Joy of Jesus and welcomed into the house of God.‘The Jesus way is to come together with those who are on the fringes, the marginalized, who are present within and outside of our community.’ As followers of Jesus we can seek out those who are marginalized, or on the fringes of our society. We can light the way for others by sharing joy.

AND, as followers of Jesus, when we are not experiencing this joy, we can join with others who are. We can soak up the joy of others around us, and in this way ‘water the seeds of joy’ in us. Sometimes, if you are like me, you can feel guilty for not resonating with the joy of the season. Remember, ALL ARE WELCOME. Joy is here for all of us whenever we are ready for it.

Cultivate Simplicity, No. 6

I have always walked through this world as if afraid to touch anything in this china shop of life–afraid that my sudden movements may knock somethings off of their shelves.

And then? Then something might break open and I’d have to pay for it. My pockets are empty so I tiptoe, hoping that by the time I manage to safely reach the exit, I’ll have found that which is meant for me.

I have learned though–there are more durable and resilient beauties here than I first thought, which sends a tiny crack of regret through my body.

“You mean,” I say to myself, “I could have moved less cautiously all along? I could have danced and shaken the floor with both joy and sorrow without consequence?”

I vow to myself, now that I’ve seen more than half of the entire ‘china cabinet’ of life, to “let everything happen to me, beauty and terror,” as Rilke wrote; to tell others what my mind thinks and my body feels.

Hopefully all the beauties lining my path as I continue will resonate and sing along with my joy and lament. When I finally reach the exit, the kindly china shop owner will say, with a twinkle in both eyes, “I hope you moved around enough to loosen the dust in this place. . . or even to knock some things off their shelves. That’s the only way things change around here.”

Cultivate Simplicity, No. 5

Last week I enjoyed teaching Neurographic art at the Albany Public Library, where the summer theme is, “Catch the Reading Bug”.

Our art reflected some conversations about favorite bugs, what can be technically called a ‘bug’, and the most dangerous bugs we’d ever encountered fist hand.

The 12 participants and two library employees enjoyed the peaceful class in the Garden Room. We had access to books about insects for design inspiration. Each person left with some original art, knowledge about how to maintain a Neurographic habit and some new art friends.

Two mothers of young children took some art time for themselves while their families spent time in the library. Some retired folks participated for the sheer joy of learning something new. It was a lovely mix of generations and experience.

What I love about teaching these art classes is seeing everyone’s approach to abstract art. Participants demonstrate over and over that this form of art will not get old–everyone who tries a hand at it will make something only they can make because it’s directly connected to what’s inside them.

And each time I teach this class, I’m reminded that the process is the most important part (not the product). If I let it, this could help me stay grounded in the present in all areas of my life.

Things That Need Water

Faucet, pump, irrigation line

Twin fawns, born late July

Wood floor boards after foot traffic

Dahlias in full bloom

Sweet Pea seedlings in Grandma’s enamelware pot

Native seeds littering forest floors

Travel-weary salmon

The child, returning home from school

My dog, who drinks most before going outside

Visiting Monarch butterflies

Dry ground

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.” Vaclav Havel,

Things That Need Water

Are also things that could use a prayer,

That is to say–most everything needs water.

Prayer is like water.

The dry ground in late summer

The person exhausted by a life of never enough

The child striving to look like others; to ‘fit’

The one who feels so lonely.

All these need water, which is prayer.

Like water, prayer changes things,

Provides hope,

Which is not to say with certainty

That things will turn out well,

But that certainly a thing is

worth striving toward no matter how it turns out.

Cultivate Simplicity, No. 4

Do you know the feeling of letting go of all inhibitions? Like you trust the process of LIFE and you are happy to just wake up and go? That’s how our marbles felt at the art class I taught at 2Towns Ciderhouse in Corvallis (thank you Hannah and Matt @2Towns). We let those wee scamps run wild and our art showed this freedom.

I taught the process of creating art on a large piece of watercolor paper using marbles rolled in intense watercolors, then set free by spraying the lines with water to let them ‘bloom’. When the art was dry, we each created a book by folding and making three cuts (then folding into the book form).

This process is probably my favorite activity of the entire summer. There’s something to it that feels wild and a little reckless; a little ‘outside of the box’. It’s exhilarating and definitely carefree–feelings I’d love to carry with me into the rest of my week/month/year.

Supplies Used:

Heavy watercolor paper (we used 9 x 16″ pieces, any size will do but it’s important to know the folded book will be roughly 1/4 the size of the original piece)

Glass marbles, Bone Folder, Scissors, Spray Bottle for water

Dr. PH Martin watercolors, calligraphy ink

PVA Glue, Cloth Tape, Packaging Tape, Fabric Strips

Iridescent Watercolor Powder, Craftsmart Premium Wax Finish Gold/Silver

Heat Gun to speed drying

Coming Opportunities:

Neurographic Art class at Albany Public Library on August 6 at 5:30pm.

Book a private art party!

Commission a pet portrait!