Alongside my pleasure in maintaining an outwardly more ordered life has been a growing feeling of disorientation and disconnection from God and a nagging, guilty sense of neglecting some unknown but crucial spiritual duty. My regular Christian practices of simple, trustful prayer, scripture meditation and church participation have seemed shriveled and inadequate next to the grandiose phantasm of a great, unknown thing that I'm somehow supposed to be doing to relate to God. But God kindly spoke to me about it, I believe, suddenly, unexpectedly and clearly in my mind--not in words but in a rapid series of concepts and images. The phantasm was dismissed and explained. I saw that it was what Christians call a temptation. I saw quite vividly that my small, imperfect prayers and devotion are welcomed. I felt simply and directly that true thing: I am loved by God.
Below are some botanical studies by Leonardo da Vinci. These drawings are some of my very favorite pieces of art in the whole world.
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Love those line drawings of botanicals by daVinci. I have a feeling that you could do a good line drawing of the last of summer/first of fall botanical too.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Janice. I would like to fit such drawing into my life soon!
DeleteWhat a lovely post. It occurred to me that God values our small, imperfect prayers the same way that you value the crayon scribbles that your kids made when learning to draw.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Though I hope God values my prayers more than I do some of those scribbles, most of which I don't save. (How could I?) I think its more like the way I value snuggling and talking with them. I just want them to be who they are with me.
DeleteI like this, because it fits some things I've struggled with, too. It makes sense. I also read in Messies Manual that we can become addicted to the adrenal rush of chaos. Then, when we order our personal lives, the result can feel, well, for lack of a better word, EMPTY. So, the temptation to rush in and create some spiritual chaos. but the result of such temptation creates spiritual chaos because if we act on the temptation, become grandiose or do something that causes problems, we have a bigger issue on our hands. I love that, "I am loved." Simple solution, "remain in my love" in Jesus MB
ReplyDeleteI've read that, too, about the adrenal rush. I don't know if that's true for me. My big problem is letting the cleaning/ordering thing take up too much of my brain and heart space, which creates a vacuum in my soul, my inner life, and my creative life. I don't think I like to create chaos or am addicted to it, physically or spiritually. I like to create order, but I always have approached it in a way that doesn't work in my real world. Instead of doing little bits at a time, and having small orderly habits (such as the Fly Lady encourages people to develop), I lam inclined to do it in larger projects which I can conceive in my mind as a beautifully ordered concept--a piece of performance art, maybe. But who really has time for that? Investing time in that way brings order in one area, but increases disorder in other areas, as they are neglected so there is no net increase in order. My spiritual temptation was more along those lines. Not a helpful way to live. I hate the adrenaline rush of being late and looking for stuff. I really do. I feel empty not when that is missing, but when I feel like I have to always be on and outwardly focussed on physical things, on getting my house in order and forget to rest and do the things that nourish me as a complete human. When that balance is in place, I feel full and joyful.
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