The Big Picture: On Motherhood and Being and Artist

I’ve been inspired to start writing more from my own experiences, and sharing about my walk with the Lord through various seasons he leads me through, so here begins a series of more personal blogs!

I’m in the thick of motherhood now - a 2 year old and 5 month old. They bring me absolute joy and absolute opportunity for growth in virtue.

I’ve always felt called to stay home with our children, despite being a dreamer with big goals and vision for my creative calling, which has been a thread throughout my life and displayed itself in different ways during different seasons.

Up until nearly a year ago I was balancing a work-from-home part-time admin missionary job while staying home with our oldest daughter. But when we were pregnant with our 2nd I knew I’d need something with more flexible hours, and that would flow from my primary role as wife and mother, not compete with it for time.

I sensed it was time to step back into creating more. But at the same time I knew the arrival of a newborn wasn’t going to make that easy.

I spent a few months before her arrival getting the business side of things prepped - getting my website updated and functional, attempting to hone my brand and discern my audience and approach, learning about business and marketing strategies.

And I remember the grasping anticipation I felt leading up to her birth - how would I make time for art? Where would I find the space? How would it look? Would I do it with the kids around? Would I need to work during the night?

I spent a few hours one afternoon googling these questions - how to balance motherhood and being an artist. BAD IDEA. Though I’m sure there are great resources on this topic, I didn’t find them. What I found instead were articles and blogs from the covid days when kids were home from school and mothers resentfully found themselves needing to cut back their art time to take care of their kids and school them, bemoaning the hold on their careers, and setting their gaze on hopefully better days ahead when they would have their stolen time back. I found articles on mothers simply putting a hold on art altogether when kids were young.

I certainly ended up more discouraged than inspired. There had to be a better mindset out there. I believe in fully in embracing your season of life - if we’re finding ourselves simply waiting for better days, we’ll be missing out on the grace of the present. I was excited to parent my young children, and at the same time I felt called to step into creativity. So I resigned to patient waiting - I knew the grace would only be found in the present, not the time leading up to it.

And what can I say now that I’m here?

I think the single biggest lesson I’ve (begun!) to learn is to have a mind for the big picture. I’m in it for the long game. I’ve realized I need to discern and stay faithful to the process. God leads one step at a time, he doesn’t typically plop all the answers in your lap. You are inspired in an area, and you stick to it, through the thicks and thins of challenges that pop up or moments of discouragement or dryness.

To be completely honest I’ve never had more discouragement surrounding my art than this season of trying to press into it wholeheartedly. My husband’s encouraged me that that’s probably a sign that I’m doing something right, because its the important things in our lives that are met with the most resistance.

And I know its true because I’m learning so much about myself and my walk with God in the midst of it, if nothing else I know he’s at work in me, and that knowledge is enough to keep pressing in.

So what do I do?

I make space for the important things - I take care of my children and consider what they need for their health and holiness - I shape our day to allow space for their formation. The two year old needs to experience basic prayer, work, play and leisure, discipline. We’re structuring our days to be a foundation through which God will work in her life through the circumstances of her day. She might have a crabby day and throw a whining fit every five minutes. Well, God’s will for me in that moment is to be a channel of his own patient love for her, gently correct and redirect her. It may not look like the perfect day on the outside, but its a day of what she apparently needed, (and I need those days once and a while too, it keeps me from making an idol out of a day that went ‘smoothly’.)

I try to make space to do art because God’s asked me to. (He’s not asked me to succeed - an important distinguisher!) But I try to be faithful to applying myself, and I experiment with different approaches. One day, around when the baby was 2 months and just starting to get into a nap routine, I’d had a couple days in a row where both the babe’s naps lined up for an hour and a half. So today, I thought, I’ll get out the paints and work during that time slot. The time of day arrived, I got them both napping. I took out the paints and starting mixing colors. (Now I work in acrylics. I use mediums to extend the drying times, but even so they dry within an hour, so if I don’t use them then and there its a waste of paint.) The moment of truth - the colors were mixed. Then, ‘whaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!’, our baby is a shreiker, there’s no mistaking that she’s awake, and awake for a while. Ugh! This moment and many other’s where my plans are overturned have sent me into temporary spirals - Why do I try? Maybe I’ve hear God wrong and I’m not supposed to be doing art. Will I ever have predictability in my life again?

I’ve realized I will encounter these spirals because I’m human. But I’ve also realized they will pass, and in the moment I can simply counter them with what I know - God’s not asking me to be successful, he’s asking me to be faithful. This is a particular season of unpredictability, but that will pass with time.

And so I adjust - for the time being, still not attempting to paint during nap time anymore. I only do the computer side of business during those times since I can drop it in an instant. I choose 2 evenings a week where I’ll paint after the kids are in bed. (Sometimes the baby cries for hours and I don’t get the work in, but in the long game over the course of several weeks, art gets made!). Recently my mom so kindly offered to watch them for a 4 hour chunk once a week so I can paint during the daytime (a gamechanger - the daylight brings out such subtlety of colors you simply can’t see at night.)

Since having a newborn, I’ve completed 5 originals (one for every month of her life), and am beginning to find more time in a given day since routines are beginning to show signs of life again. I consider that a win - the fruit of faithfulness in the long run.

I’m waiting for breakthrough in other areas, and I catch myself often entering into a striving mentality. I’m not meeting my sales goals, I must be doing something wrong. Maybe I haven’t found my ideal client, maybe I need to completely change the approach of my brand. Maybe I need to invest in a different marketing strategy.

When I enter that mentality, I make decisions quickly and change them often. Time is wasted. I don’t ever realize the fruits of my efforts because I didn’t stick it out long enough. I recently heard someone say that successful people make decisions slowly and rarely change them. There is much emotionalism connected to perceived success in your work. My theory is that it’s rooted in pride and fear. I want to be perceived as successful, and I want to know I’m doing the right thing (because I can see it working). I begin striving and trying new things sporadically because I fear God’s abandoned me in whatever area I thought I discerned, and I try to take control and get a quick perceivable fix.

But when all things pass and we stand in eternity - what will be the measure of our success? Will it be the success we perceived on earth? I believe it will be much deeper. We are the final work of art that will shine as a mirror of the glory of God. Our character, the extent to which our lives were grafted to Christ’s and we became like him, will be the living witness of our level of faithfulness.

And so I must stay faithful to the little things, cut the crap out of my life, get focused on what matters and press into the moment. Keep my gaze on Christ and do it for love of him and love of others. The success will multiply because that’s what God’s grace does - I can expect that in faith. It may or may not be perceivable on this side of life, but I’ll know it all one day.

My encouragement to you - stay faithful and press into what you discern in prayer, God’s leading you on a journey. You won’t be perfect and that’s ok, in his great love he shepherds us through all our weaknesses, leading us to where we rely on him most fully.

The Longing in our Hearts, Reflected in All the World

What would it physically look like to visually express the deepest longings and desires of our hearts?

The yearning, grasping after more, after infinity. Never satisfied.

Head rearing back as we let out a deep sighing breath, facing the sky, but with eyes closed, imaging something beyond even the visible starry heavens.

That feeling that words fail to capture - an inner ache, a stirring within, an itch for greatness, a frenzied eyes-wide-open search.

If I had to draw it out, it would be abstract but yet so familiar - the shape of my inner yearning laid out before me. It would have direction, it would stretch towards the heavens. It would also be heavy, carrying the weight, that gravity felt upon the heart. At the same time it would be weightless, rising up. It would be crooked and frenzied - displaying desperation, and yet it would be straight, cutting, piercing like a cry.

All this and more I find in nature - in foliage, branches, trees, grasses.

Rising up, some straight cutting branches, others bent and crookedly seeking direction. Leaves and small seeds abundant, both weighing the branches down, but also displaying order, life, catching radiant life. The bows of the pines drooped and sagging with weight and darkness, while the entire form juts up like a sharp arrow, carrying it all in a prayer heaven-wards. Sometimes bare-bones in the wintertime, the shape and lines of dark branches stark against the gray ground and sky.

Wild tall grasses: frenzied, innumerable, slicing the air, curling and bending in the wind.

It’s all a prayer, inexpressible longing, encapsulated in the fiber of the world, displayed by all creation.

All the world is on pilgrimage, waiting to be whole, gazing heavenward, placing its hope in the promises of the fulfillment that is yet to come.

What a beautiful passage written by St. Paul, capturing the heart of this longing:

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Rom. 8:18-25).

“Beauty will Save the World”: Examining a Life Well-lived

“Beauty will save the world” (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

I think its a somewhat overly-quoted phrase, but if you don’t believe it with your whole heart and live it out you need to hear it again!

I was re-reading a section of Roger Scruton's “The Soul of the World” the other day. In it, he discusses the ornamentation of ancient temples:

"A temple is not simply a work of load-bearing stone. The column is carved, fluted, adorned with plinth and capital, crowned by a frieze or an arch, or joined in heavenly vaults where stone achieves the lightness of the sky, through moldings and decorative details the stone is filled with shadow, acquires a translucent appearance, as the face is translucent to the spirit within." (P. 124)

That translucency, that showing forth-a spark of the spirit within, points to the deeper reality behind the ordinary. These are no mere stones. It begs the question why? Why would humans go to the vast extent they did to create such an otherworldly structure? In doing so, they celebrate what is of value to them. They mark what is of importance by the time spent, the effort made, the attention to detail, the dignity bestowed upon the otherwise ordinary stone by the crown of beauty. In a world without deeper meaning it would be madness, a waste of time.

The temple's beauty is not just for us! Though it is a gift to us in that it stands as a reminder of what is of value, its beauty is also worship. It glorifies that one for who's or what's purpose it was made.

We, who were made to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) within the temple of our bodies (1 Cor. 6:19), have the opportunity to 'adorn' what is of value to us, bringing order and beauty to our lives. Where do we place our time and attention? Everything within our sphere of influence can be made an offering, that is the point of the temple, to make a sacrifice of praise.

Are we caring for our sphere of influence?

Keeping our spaces clean and beautiful, our cars oiled, our dog groomed, our bodies filled with nourishment and well-rested, our people loved and cared-for?

-> Taking care of things, big and small, demonstrates our appreciation for the gift that they are.

-> Expending our effort to make them beautiful in their own way 1) brings glory to God, because it reflects the beauty of God when things live/operate as he made them able. 2) Makes them something you can share: Your clean house is a space you can welcome others and give them the gift of a restful domain. Your taken-care-of dog will live longer and bless more people with his enjoyable-ness. Your oiled car will take your more places where you can do good to the world. Your well-rested self is more of a gift to others than your tired grumpy self, and your well-nourished health radiates the beauty that befits the dignity of a son or daughter of God. Hopefully loving and caring for people is self-explanatory. :)

-> Do we have so much we can’t take care of everything well? The root of this could be multiple things- maybe we literally have too much and need to purge- keep what is most important and get rid of what you don’t need, let it be a blessing to someone else. Maybe its too many things that take our time. Too many commitments. I used to have a huge problem with this. What finally opened my eyes to the issue was hearing someone say that overcommitment is a form of pride. It’s trying to operate out of your own strength in spheres of influence that God did not ask you to take on. Do you have extra things because they are fun/exciting? See how these things take time from you living the priorities in your life to the fullest. Do you have a hard time saying no/think something needs you or won’t be able to thrive if you leave? That’s pride speaking - you want to be a people-pleaser, or you think you’re so important you’re irreplaceable. It may well be from a well-intentioned place, such as not wanting to leave a volunteer work or a bible-study where you’re a key voice. But if you’re filling a spot you’re not meant to be in, your preventing the person who is actually called to that from taking that role on, and your neglecting the work God’s asked you to accomplish well. Whatever the reason, a cluttered home, a cluttered calendar, mis-ordered priorities, these things prevent us stepping into the order God invites us to, and in fact demands of us when he asks for a complete offering of our lives.

How does beautiful living save the world?

I once heard the Kansas City director of Vocations say something along the lines of “if everyone found and lived out their vocation, the hungry would be fed, the sick would be cared for, every need would be met with love”. I’ve probably completely changed the quote since this was over 8 years ago and I didn’t write it down, but that’s the essence of the message that’s stuck with me all these years. I believe he’s talking here about the Universal call to holiness, the invitation to sainthood, to glorify God by the offering of our whole lives.

Pope Benedict XVI once said ‘Art and the Saints are the greatest apologetic for our faith.’ And its so true! The beauty of a life intentionally lived in union with God radiates the good promises of God. And beauty is the emblem that shines on all that is true.

So it works in all ways! The beautiful offering of our entire lives, all that we are and do:

->Invites us into worship, that for which we are made.

->Showers the world with the life of God; his blessings pour forth from the faithful who become his vessels to love the world. Priorities are attended to with care, nothing slips through the cracks.

->Stands as a beacon of light, showing forth the goodness of the eternal hidden within the ordinary. This gives hope and intense meaning to the simplest of things.

Healing the Eyes of the Heart: Developing Sacramental Vision

‘We Do Not See Rightly’

My all-time favorite movie is a somewhat obscure Netflix original kid’s movie, ‘The Little Prince’, based off the kid’s book written in 1943 in French by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In such simple, poetic words and imagery it conveys profound truths; every time I watch it I’m struck by new layers of meaning.

One of the lines reads “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Although knowledge of Saint-Exupéry’s personal devotion or adherence to a specific faith is somewhat vague, his line is pretty spot on with a Catholic understanding of spiritual theology and sacramentality.

The Theology of the Body Institute recently published a book, God is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art, by Karol Wojtyla. It recovers an original retreat for artists given by Wojtyla before he became Pope John Paul II, coupled with reflections and commentary on the connections between the themes of beauty and the Theology of the Body.

In it, Christopher West expounds on the teachings expressed by Wojtyla: that due to original sin, we do not see rightly. We are blinded to the divine plan for human life. (God is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art, Karol Wojtyla, P. 75)

The Eyes of the Heart

Our blindness comes from a certain disconnect between what we perceive in our minds and the core of our being, our ‘heart’, wherein God dwells as a result of baptism. Instead of hearing the voice of God in our hearts, we hear what we perceive on a surface level. Instead of seeing and understanding with the eyes of faith, we see from whatever framework has formed in our minds due to our circumstances. Channels of the brain are formed in accordance with what we see, hear, and repeat as true to ourselves. We build up a system of beliefs based on our ‘vision’ of how the world is. Habitually we will return to these patterns of thought even though we may intellectually understand our faulty thinking. For example I may understand on a knowledge level that God is with me in all things, yet in a moment of hardship I return to a pattern of thinking “God isn’t with me and I must find my own way out of my circumstance.”

To this the scriptures say “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). And this renewal must take place from the inside out, not by our own strength, not by willing ourselves to see rightly. It must be by a humble return to God, a vulnerability before him, allowing him to broaden and deepen our vision as he illumines the truth in the midst of our circumstances.

Channels of Grace

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives this definition of grace: “Grace is a participation in the life of God” (CCC. 1997).

This means that avenues of grace are places we actually experience the life of God: Prayer, the Sacraments, and sacramentals. These are given to us as sure places we can encounter him, and EXPERIENCE his life. And what does this encounter really do? Well, in a word, everything! An encounter with God is an encounter with truth itself, beauty itself, goodness itself. In beholding God we behold a true vision, we ‘see rightly’. And the more continually we return to this true vision, the more our minds are aligned to it, our sight is healed, and we are free to operate from our core wherein God dwells without our brain’s patterns holding us captive. This is when outward transformation happens (over time of course, and by the grace of God)- a person takes on the life of Christ and becomes a living icon. The person’s will becomes one with Christ’s will and the Father’s will. He becomes Christ’s vessel of grace, a new living witness, a sacramental, a ‘sign’ of what the life of God looks like. This is the calling for each of us, an invitation to sanctity, total transformation from the inside out.

I could ramble about this for a while, I mean it’s just jaw-dropping when you stop and think about it, nothing less than the point of our existence! But in the interest of succinct-ness I’ll save the rambles for other blogs and move to one last point:

Surrounding ourselves in truth, beauty, goodness

In this journey of transformation, what is there to do but surround ourselves by grace?! Christ is the Good Shephard who will lead us by the hand, for he knows our hearts better than we know ourselves. He will unfold the layers over our hearts steadily and in perfect timing, with just the right circumstances tailored to our needs. We must simply turn to him, seek him. He is always there, always waiting, knocking, ready for that encounter.

And how shall we turn to him? RUN to sources of grace. Even when we don’t see the results we want immediately we can always trust God is at work in us, and isn’t it enough to be in his presence? The clearest sources of grace are prayer and the sacraments. Pray with infallible truth, sit with the scriptures, read and learn about the traditions of the Church.

Secondly there are millions of channels of grace all around us in ‘sacramentals’. All things bearing truth, beauty, and goodness - signs of the eternal all around us, stamped into creation. If we really want to cooperate with the truth that grace presents to us, we must actively counter the unhelpful patterns of thinking in our minds - the direct result of the information we feed ourselves through our senses. If we’re surrounded by negativity, ugliness, lies or even partial-truths, these will feed into our thought patterns and become the tools of the enemy in a war over our perception of reality. Naturally, surrounding ourselves with good things provides access points for God to reach us, and through the discipline of what we allow to enter our minds we will develop what Christopher West refers to as ‘sacramental vision’ (God is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art, Karol Wojtyla, P. 190), where by God’s grace we begin to perceive his presence all around us. He “Opens the eyes of the blind!” (Psalm 146:8).