Synesthesia & Synchronicity

Oh my goodness, 7's really are golden yellow, and R's are red.  Mondays are blue, and Wednesdays are black.  I have always known this and tried to describe it to a few people, but no one ever got it.  I thought it was overactive imagination or extreme love of color (I joined the Episcopal Church, in part, because it is color coded).  Instead it was synesthesia all along - a neurological overlapping of senses so that one associates color with letters, numbers, words or music or perhaps tastes or smells sounds.  It is nice to have a word to apply to a lifelong reality I never found another person to understand.

Synchronicity happens to me often, and many people do get that.  It is the "God winks" concept; I like to refer to it as "Ask and the door will open; seek and you will find" concept.  Then again, I pray for synchronicity because it feels very much like the hand of God showing up in my tiny, unimportant world.  It is not at all unusual for me to find what I am looking for or wanted to know by what would appear to be happenstance.  Or I will say something riding down the road and hear the very concept repeated in some group setting a few days later (odd stuff, like 'yellow is NOT mellow" and, boom, someone says something like yellow is not a relaxing color after all when you got together to discuss English literature).  I also have lots of books on the most unbelievable range of topics through which I flit haphazerdly, depending on my mood.  It really is an altogether wonderful way to live, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in creativity and spirituality. 

Recently I had a bad day brought on by some deliberate cruelty I would just as soon not describe.  On that day I ran across synesthesia and realized what a wonderful little gift God gave me.  Several days later I picked up a book I flip occasionally and opened it at one of the three marked spots.  I had not read this before; do not know why the blue bookmark was there; suspect it was there from several years ago marking a section I had read.  I glaced down and immediately picked up the word synesthesia.    I didn't know that was there.  I was surprised and delighted.  A theme runs through my pain.  What is God telling me?  Why is this concept appearing in multiple places?  Can I smell concepts like fear, truth, lies?  I suspect to some extent many people can.  Can I see my own prayer?  Can I wait in the dark until the colors appear? 

Last Year This Time

When I repeat seasonal projects the same time each year I get into this interesting rhythm that reveals the changes that have occurred to me and my art in a year.  Last year this time I was preparing a Lent postcard for my church.  I was in the mood.  This year I am not.  I would be happy to skip Lent and move on to Easter. 

I have this funny love/hate relationship with Lent.  It is a mass of contradictions for me, and it lasts too long.  I find the veiling of crosses with violet silk to be an humbling and grounding experience year after year.  The crosses are beautiful, and this expression is one of the most striking forms of symbolism in the church to me.  It says "this is who we are" because it starkly reveals us as a people who never forget and somehow connects me to the communion of saints who came before me.  [In that way being Christian and Southern is somewhat similar.] But I do not like the overt public display of personal piety, the talk about what people plan to give up for Lent.  That's very much like wishing on a star and assuring the wish won't come true by telling what you wished.  It reminds me of a kindness negated by making its existence public.  For God's sake, go in a closet to pray and do good deeds. 

The time around Lent has been turbulent for me over the last several years.  I have turned it into a joke that I plan to give up church for Lent.  It's a joke that puts a look of horror on the face of a priest, but it has been a joke lived out for a  couple of years by a withdrawal from community during Lent.  While I veiled the crosses, I didn't even go to the Shrove Tuesday pancake dinner last year to celebrate the last moments of festivity before Ash Wednesday.  I didn't go to Ash Wednesday either because the thought of the priest who would administer the ashes even so much as touching me induced nausea.  That made me sad then.  It is not a problem this year, so I'll have to come up with some other reason to avoid the solemnity.

I do love Good Friday.  It's one of my favorite services all year, and I totally get into the intensely solemn observation.  But it doesn't last long, and by Saturday we are hauling flowers into the nave to celebrate the resurrection.  I wouldn't miss Good Friday unless I just had to.  I feel particularly close to my patron saint, Mary Magdalene, and I grieve from the heart for the passion of Christ, and it is good for my soul.  But much of the rest of season just wears me out.

So last year I couldn't/wouldn't participate even though I was up for it.  This year I can/might, but I'm not up for it.  Last year I was into iconic images of deep meaning.  This year I want to paint white flowers with light.  I have nothing to give.  I am ready to take.  

America's Bad Mood

OK, we are all talking about the rudeness we encounter daily, the ill-tempered people who don't listen, talk over us, step on our toes, blast our ears with noise pollution and cut us off in traffic.  It has become quite fashionable to discuss how rude everyone is - everyone but me, that is - so I will join the discussion here and get in with the in crowd. 

While I do find people less gracious than in times past, the most profound change I have noticed is the moodiness of people and the incredible rarity of finding someone not on some kind of mood altering drug.  Have you noticed that?  I have a news flash for the psychiatric community...the drugs are not working!  Give them cigarettes. 

Recently I had a white light experience I will not share to protect the guilty and the innocent.  I became acutely aware of the fact that an (at the moment) bossy, self-righteous, ill-tempered person had quit smoking and was suffering the agony of withdrawal.  I understand these things as a recovering alcoholic.  I used to throw clothes hangers in the morning when they got tangled.

Don't get me wrong.  I am all in favor of and respect people who tackle their addictions, but I am reminded of the words of Jesus:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Hmmmmm.....

The Dog Whisperer

I love the Dog Whisperer.  The insights are just amazing.  One of my favorite cases involved a little dog named Sugar who had trained the husband and wife owners in a most ill manner.  She was attached to the husband and was so possessive of him and hostile to the wife, the couple had quit sleeping together!  Sugar would bite the woman when she got in the bed and act in all manner of hostility toward her. 

I didn't think one had to be the Dog Whisperer to comprehend that the husband and wife were the culprits.  The wife was a well defined victim, and the husband was a jerk.  The husband made no effort to get this dog under control - why?- because he enjoyed having the dog's attention and being someone's favorite.  Eventually the man revealed that he had always had to share a pet, and he was enjoying having a pet that was his alone.  He and the dog would walk together an hour every day and had bonded in healthy ways, but they had likewise bonded in totally neurotic ways that excluded the wife as part of the pack.  The wife was a victim because she did not demand that the dog be removed from the room, from her bed, for Pete's sake.  Simple solutions were not even on the radar screen for people so caught up in such neurotic needs that they defy logic.       

Humans aren't always bright, or their brightness is dimmed by emotional need.

One of the actions taken by The Dog Whisperer in dealing with Sugar involved his getting on the bed on his knees, towering over the dog and advancing.  Not a word or sound was uttered.  Eventually Sugar started backing up, jumped off the bed and ran to hide under the bed.  He smelled no fear; he was not given hands on a platter to bite as someone tried to pet and calm him down; he felt an advance he could not stop by having a biting, barking fit; he gave up. 

There's something there to be learned about dealing not only with dogs, but humans as well.

Candlemas

Candlemas is a celebration of the Christian Church first recorded to exist in Jeruselem in  approximately the year 390.  The pilgrim nun, Egeria (aka Aetheria), recorded that the event began with a solemn morning procession followed by a sermon on the Gospel text of the day followed by Mass.  In fact this pilgrim's diary provides much of our earliest recorded history of the church. 

This observance marks the presentation of Jesus in the temple 40 days following his birth and the purification of Mary, required by Jewish law following childbirth.  Luckily Jesus was a boy requiring Mary to be excluded from the temple for only 40 days; had she bore a female, her impurity would have doubled, requiring exclusion for 80 days. [Sidenote:  and we wonder why today's world finds it hard to stomach a religion growing out of such barbaric customs - alas, thoughts for another time]. 

Since we now celebrate Christ's birth on December 25, Candlemas is observed on February 2, but in earlier times the birth of Christ was celebrated on January 6 (now the Epiphany), and what later came to be known as Candlemas was observed on February 14 .  

The custom developed into a tradition to celebrate the words of Simeon, a man who held the baby Jesus in the temple, and exclaimed to God that now he could die having seen the saviour (Luke 2).  From whence comes our Evening Prayer Song of Simeon/Nunc Dimittis.  What an incredibly beautiful sentiment our dear friend, Simeon, proclaimed.  I wonder at the joy he and all the Saints felt seeing Jesus enter heaven after the Ascension. 

In the West Candlemas was first recorded in the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries in the 7th and 8th Centuries and was the time when the church prepared for the coming light of Spring and priests blessed the church candles to be used during the year. 

  Because the procession was instituted as a penitentiary rite with prayers imploring God's mercy, the historical liturgical color for Candlemas is violet .  Some have suggested that this celebration is another of the "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em" celebrations in which the church sought to make the spring light festivals into a Christian event.

My parish is planning a Candlemas celebration this year, and, to my knowledge, it is the first time Candlemas will have ever been celebrated at Emmanuel.  What a lovely celebration I imagine it will be.

Technology & Religion

This image is a digital collage I recently made for my church's web site.  It is a screen shot of the Book of Common Prayer, Morning Prayer, with an open prayer book, and ipod and Palm loaded with the BCP.  It is an effort to communicate that there are many different ways to seek the word of God and the biblical promise that everyone (not just some) who asks receives. 

I am astounded at times by the church's lack of interest in the information age and what a waste of the use of avenues to display the wonder of the Gospel.  I know that is not the case in some places, but where I live, we seem to be hopelessly lost in blinders when it comes to these issues.  I hope to remedy that with the new design of our web site, and I hope it communicates that the journey is more important than the destination. 

Seek first the kingdom requires active participation; the verb there is seek by whatever means.  I hate to sound like a prick, but I am awfully tired of the mentality of people telling me that I am somehow inferior because I prefer Rite II to the Elizabethan language of Rite I.  I am bored stiff with people who think they have all the answers.  I am tired of the "because we said so" and "because we've always done it that way" mentality, and I am amazed that so many older people don't care if a church even exists after they are gone.  I love tradition, but progression makes my blood flow.  Oh dear, I think this anglo-catholic is leaning toward the emergent church.         

Unto Us A Child Is Born

The Advent/Christmas exhibition for Episcopal Church & Visual Art (ECVA), For Unto Us A Child Is Born, is now online, and it is a beauty.  Curated by photographer, The Rev. Wilfredo Benitez-Rivera, the exhibition is a collection of images inspired by the incarnation. 

Filled with divergent views of the holy mother and child's power, joy and vulnerability, this exhibition is as rich in color and  expression as those of us in the Episcopal Church have grown accustomed to for the Advent/Christmas exhibition.  Fr. Wilfredo describes the content:

"Looking at these works, taking them in with a contemplative eye and heart, one begins to cross the boundary between this world and the world of spirit.  It is from this world of spirit and devotion that these works of art originate.  There is no limit to the styles or media presented here:  there are paintings, drawings, woodblocks, photographs, sculptures, vestments, etc.  Yet all reflect the creative imagination of souls seeking and embracing the mystery of God coming to dwell in our midst, Emmanuel!" 

Fr. Wilfredo likens the diversity of artistic expression found in this exhibition to the divergent views held by church members on many issues, yet all celebrating God's descent into the world as one of us.  At a time when the Episcopal Church is experiencing such painful p0larization this exhibition is a refreshing reminder that it is "time to rejoice, for soon the light of the world will be upon us.  Rejoice, Rejoice!!!

Yes, it is time to rejoice over what unites.  

Give Me Five

The State of Alabama stood still today as we always do for the Auburn/Alabama game, a yearly state-wide holiday, carnival, festival.  And it was a good day because Auburn won 22 - 15 and for the fifth year straight, the first time that has happened since (I think) the 1950's.  Adding insult to injury for Alabama, Auburn won again in Tuscaloosa where Alabama has never won a home game against Auburn. 

If you aren't from Alabama, you probably won't get it.  You may think why, in God's name, is this important or come on, it's just a football game, not life and death.  

It isn't life and death, as a general rule, and that's what is good about football or any game.  For awhile one can get lost in the game and forget that death, illness, pain hovers over life like the atmosphere.  Games let us forget and have fun.

And, as games go, the Auburn-Alabama thing is a game, an in-state college football rivalry and a whole lot more.  Some claim that it is the most intense college rivalry in the country.  I don't know, but I would not doubt it.  I'm a believer because I have lived it since the age of 3.  In a way I witnessed it even prior to the age of 3 because my father was already a gigantic fan of Bear Bryant, U of A legendary coach (now dead, though you have to keep reminding Alabama people), prior to my birth and prior to our move from Georgia to Alabama when I was 3 .   Some 15 years later, to my father's horror, I went to Auburn.  To my horror, about 15 years later, my nephew went to Alabama.   Sadly, my father did not live to see that happen because it would have made him very happy. 

These things happen in families down here, and it's much more than minor split loyalties for Alabamians.  It's presents larger obstacles than figuring out how to have a good Thanksgiving less than a week after the game when someone won and someone lost.  Least you think us to be a shallow group of people, I will share with you why this rivalry means so much.

It's all about pride, attitudes one carries for life and retention or loss of beloved family traditions.  There's even a political element in the mix.  Historically Alabama is where professionals sent their children.  Auburn is where farmers sent their children.  It was a class thing.  Alabama was snotty; Auburn was a cow college.  People sent their children to Alabama to become lawyers and politicians; People sent their children to Auburn to become farmers, veterinarians, engineers.   Alabama groomed the ruling class; Auburn shaped the working class.  From infancy one is indoctrinated into one camp or the other.  Families declare for their children where their loyalties will lie (kind of like infant Baptism), but, alas, kids sometimes do not follow through with Confirmation, and the next thing you know, you are part of a mixed family. 

Some mixed families handle it better than others.  Mine handles it well because we love each other more than football.  Nothing like the brothers who got into it after the Auburn-Alabama game some years back and one ended up killing the other.  Yes, really.  The definition of mixed marriage in Alabama is not black-white marriages.  It means Auburn-Alabama marriages, those difficult unions where all kind of deals are struck in order to cope with those emotionally charged days of late November.   And children born of those marriages are no doubt more confused than children born of polar religions. 

So the Auburn or Alabama graduate experiences a sadness to see someone he or she loves break loyalty to all the values he or she holds dear - the traditions, belief systems, life approaches -  and go to the other school.  It's like losing a loved one on some level forever; the rivalry is more bitter, but the tongue is more cautious. 

And the politics surrounding Auburn-Alabama are pretty complicated, too.  To begin to understand why this is more than a football rivalry, go to Wikipedia to see the entry entitled Iron Bowl. 

The schools first squared off in Birmingham in 1893.  Then they got in a disagreement and suspended the competition in 1907.  I have read different issues as the source of conflict - from tickets to expenses paid to players to the home location of officials for the game.  Whatever the case, Auburn and Alabama did not play again until 1948 after the state legislature even got involved.  They resumed play in Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama, because the stadium there could hold the largest number of fans.  Birmingham was traditionally a production center for iron and steel, it's skyline adorned by a statue of Vulcan, so the game held there became known as the Iron Bowl. 

From the Auburn perspective, this arrangement presented a problem because Birmingham had always been a more pro-Alabama city (my home, Montgomery, pro-Auburn), and Alabama played about half of its home games there every year.  So  it was something of a home game for Alabama every year depite the alternating designation of "home" team for ticket distribution purposes. 

After a tremendous amount of political wrangling, a deal was finally struck to bring the game to the respective campuses beginning in 1989, though Alabama continued to bow to Birmingham for another five years or so for tourism purposes (evidence that Alabama was tight with Birmingham).  Each school had expanded its facilities in anticipation of such an event, and the time had arrived. 

The first time the game was played in Auburn (referred to as "The First Time Ever Game") was, no doubt, one of the most memorable days of my life.  It was played on December 2, 1989, and Auburn, with its 10 - 2 season beat the previously undefeated Alabama by a score of 30 - 20.  The game was ours, and as we filed out of the stadium headed to Toomer's Corner to celebrate I'll never forget the "It's Great To Be An Auburn Tiger" chant.  I wonder how far it could be heard.   

In this state one can lose every game of the season and feel like it was a successful season if the in-state rival was defeated.  And miraculous things do happen in these games.  This is why, no matter what record either brings to the game, we always say, "You never can tell with Auburn and Alabama..."  Because that is true.  The game is about spirit, will and desire to win, even against all odds.   Anything is possible (check out the Punt, Bama, Punt game - Google it & you'll see).  And we all need a little bit of that in our lives.  We all need to feel part of some community larger than ourselves whose spirit can change things. 

Have you seen the commercial of people on vacation who spot another group of Auburn fans, and in another, a guy in an airport spots another Auburn person?  They walk up to each other and say "War Eagle" and it's like finding family out there.  It really rings true. 

So whether you understand or not, we will continue getting all worked up down here in Alabama at the end of November, and those of us who are not insane will function in mixed families, and, all in all, have a great deal of fun.           

It is astounding to think that this is the second group of Alabama seniors who never knew what it felt like to beat Auburn.  If it wasn't Alabama I would feel sorry for them. 

My 10 year old nephew, Joseph (unfortunately being raised as an Alabama fan), was five when Alabama last won; my nine year old niece, Claudia, was four; and my seven year old nephew, Robert, was two.   I wonder if they remember. 

On the other hand my goddaughter, Catherine Claire (Catie Claire), born November 4, is being raised right.  She has a little mobil of Aubie, Auburn's Tiger mascot, that circles overhead, and lots of cute Auburn outfits (I'm a Little Tiger, etc...).  Her grandmother from Atlanta doesn't understand why Catie Claire's mother got the mobil since the orange and blue doesn't match the colors of the baby room.  She doesn't get it.  But Catie Claire will.  

October Falls

I recently completed "October Falls" (aka  "Ode to Fall" as I like to think of it).  I hoped to capture the energy of Fall as the wind gently propels  the leaves of the ghinko downward to a golden mass on the ground.  There is an energy to Fall that is especially beloved in the deep South after six months or so of temperatures 90+ degrees and humidity thick enough to cut with a knife. 

It amazes me that Autumn's feast of color foretells death.   I doubt that a person who never witnessed the cycles of the year would see the gold leaves glittering in the sun and  envision the bleakness that lies ahead.  I cling to Autumn every year because I hate Winter and ache for Spring the minute Christmas is over.  

I hope that this painting makes you feel the surprising chilly wind blasting out of no where and showering your head with tiny gold leaves.  I hope it makes you remember nature's toys celebrated with rolling in the leaves.     

Happy Are The Painters

Lately I have come across several references to Winston Churchill as an artist, and I find the subject fascinating.  A speech given by his daughter, The Lady Soames, in 1992 entitled "Happy Are The Painters For They Shall Not Be Lonely"  can be read at  The Churchill Centre.  What a lovely piece titled after Churchill's epitaph in Painting as a Pastime, a book that grew from a 1921 essay he wrote for The Strand Magazine.  

"Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day."

According to his daughter, Churchill said that audacity is the only necessity in starting out to paint.  "Just pick up a brush and paint. Have a joyride in a paint-box."

Imagine this fascinating sight:  In 1916 Churchill was with his battalion at the Laurence Farm in the village of Ploegsteert, Flanders, known by English tommies as "Plug Street." A few miles from the front lines, to the amazement of his junior officers, Churchill sat painting in a broken-down chair in the wreckage of an old Flanders farm, shells exploding nearby, "entirely absorbed by the problems of perspective and colour." ["Laurence Farm, Plug Street," 1916].

Living proof that "happy are the painters."