By June Mears Driedger
“O God, come to my assistance,
Make haste to help me!” (Ps. 70:1)
Loving God, Compassionate God~
I need help. I’m stuck on a freezing river of inertia and unable to create.
I’m spinning my wheels, unable to gain traction to follow-through with my ideas, dreams, and projects.
So, please help me. Please come to my assistance.
Please send someone to give me a push, or put chains on my tires, or spread salt or sand, or whatever it takes to give my wheels a grip and to get moving.
Help me to not be afraid of the ice but learn to navigate myself without doing harm to myself or to my creativity.
And, please remind me that ice does melt, eventually. And that the spinning of my creative wheels may be just a season, and like the ice, the season will change.
Thank you God for coming to my assistance (I’m praying with confidence that you will respond to my prayer). AMEN.
body{font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:#ffffff;color:black;}p{margin:0px;}Thank you, June. Lovely presentation, including the gorgeous quilt piece. If this prayer is expressing your current state of being, I join you inasking God to gently, lovingly and firmly lead you forth, igniting your inner spark which will free your creative vision, motivation and expression.Love,Carol
Thank you dear Carol! Since I wrote this prayer a few weeks I have experienced sparks of creativity again–my “wheels” moving forward. I suspect some of my malaise was fatigue, as I shared with you and Penny, and now energy is returning. Thanks again!
Three poems for you! May you find a thread that guides your heart and hand.
Written: 2/17/2012, rev 2/23/2012
Style: Lectio Divina Poustinia
Title: Inviting the Divine Surprise
Sometimes, I cease the task at hand whenever the sunbeam inside stretches languidly
and summons me with lacy, whispered words or images.
At other times, I petulantly shift my position upon the sofa or press my feet beneath the covers,
and resist the invitation to a time of creative expression.
I do not want to wrest myself from my repose,
nor miss a vicarious adventure with Househunters International on HGTV
or, most especially, this week’s installment of Downton Abbey.
Sometimes, when sloth or lethargy holds me tightly in his grip
and weighs down my ailing spirit,
I protest that I am not feeling well,
and therefore, I have no energy cannot be not receptacle.
Sometimes, I yield and draw up close beside,
or interrupt mindless preoccupation to locate and pick up pen and paper
and invite my guide to dictate, word by word, my creative or poetic expression.
I surrender my pen, colored pencil or oil pastel and release control of my mind and hand.
The sunbeam comes and alights upon my hand and upon my tongue
and the empty page is full
I welcome such Divine collaboration
I wait for the illumination.
I pause for inspiration, bow to instruction.
In studio or pew,
in classroom or doctor’s waiting room
or seated upon folding metal chair
in the transitory homeless shelter awash with weathered, unshaven faces and world-weary eyes
the forgotten and disenfranchised
with complexions decades in the making
where we await the time of the evening’s prayer
I must clear the clutter of my days
leave behind the thoughts that crowd the mind and heart
to collect a word or imagine I alone cannot conceive.
I thank and praise him throughout the process
Share my gratitude, my humility to receive these tiny but monumental gifts
I take respite to seek his inspiration.
I meditate on his word to hear his voice
I read and meditate upon his word
I listen for his voice.
I pray his words and allow them to reveal his purposes to me
I take, touch, feel, small, hear, see . . . .
I invite him to make order from busyness, to simplify, prune . . .
I keep a pencil or pen near my bedside for midnight messages he compels me to record.
Second Poem 3/22/2013
Title: Blessings of Habit
Really,
it is the little things.
The pencils and pens gathered
in the watering can
strieed with rust
that sits atop the Empire chest
arm’s length
from my kitchen table seat,
ready for morning’s meditation;
the tiny vase,
a scalloped-edge, glass V
on the bedside table,
embraced,
held aloft
by a pair
of pewter frogs
filled with pens
for a time of evening reading.
Yet, I resist
the recycled shoebox
that mother insists upon
for sequestering
receipts
or spiral notebook
my husband champions
for logging charitable
and medical miles
and opt to record
my dates
and times
and trips
or those I choose to omit
in an old-fashioned
engagement calendar.
Now,
along with paper tide,
I keep Rilke,
a volume of Poetry East,
my calendar celebrating
The Golden Age of Book Design
with illustrations
of “striated skies, striking silhouettes,”
a grove of Italian cypress
and a singular, linear fleur
for the cover of Egypt,
where the heart of each depiction
beats in period late Victorian,
art nouveau rhythm
along with mine.
Satiety.
Last of three poems:
Found Poem Mar9,2013
Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert: An Online Retreat with Hildegard of Bingen
Words and phrases –
cadence – a community for the expressive arts
“Today, a closed portal has been opened.”
veriditas – greening power of God
ariditas – a shriveling into barrenness
tabernacle – sacred container – unity with the divine
indolence – shiftlessness, laziness
sealed
threshold
greater freedom
How am I asleep?
What are the dry places?
Stay awake; not sleep in habits and destructive patterns
notice grace in every moment
grace for the moment
grace
fields of possibility
exploration of the edge, the perimeter
boundaries
shapes, colors, textures, patterns
“I am the essence of God.”
expressive arts
The body is the garment of the soul. The language of the soul is the voice.
Soul gives life to the voice
all arts are for the praise of God
creative longing
“creating art as an act of prayer”
“Entering the unknown/mystery with the hope of being transformed”
“art-making as pilgrimage”
vessel or sacred space – art-making
Linda~ THANK YOU for these poems. They are GIFTS, filled with grace. I am grateful. I will print these out and hang them in my sewing room. Thank you again, Linda.