A friend of mine offers reflective mosaic classes. She is an artist and has found that often when people are given the freedom to be creative and at the same time are given space to meditate, pray and reflect, God does beautiful things. She begins the class by showing a Nooma DVD. She then allows each person to choose from a selection of plates, bowls, mugs. Each person is then given a marker and given the opportunity to find a spot in her garden to pray and/or meditate. Anything that comes up can be written on the selected item. After this time that plate or bowl is then taken into her small reflective area where it is smashed with a hammer at the foot of a cross. The pieces are then collected and used as part of a mosaic in the shape of a cross.
Since she began the classes I have wanted to join one, but somehow something always got in the way, until 27 August 2011.
That morning, she told us that she felt prompted to change the DVD she usually showed from the Nooma called "Rain" to one called "Shells". In it Rob Bell discusses saying "no" to certain things in order to say "yes" to the few things we need to say "Yes" to.
For the few months preceding the class I had been struggling against a sense of having "given up". What became clear is that this was linked to a few things in my life such as my own perfectionism (I had given up because I wanted to reach my own perfect standards and when l felt I couldn't meet them it seemed like a waste of energy even to try). Likewise I had given up on other things because it seemed impossible to meet the (real or imagined) expectations of others.
As we stood in front of the crockery items I was handed a plate by one of the others there (a black plate with a complicated yellow and white floral design). I took it and went into the garden to listen. As I sat there I realised that I had taken that plate not because I particularly wanted it (I had in fact been feeling drawn to a different one) but because I did not wish to hurt her feelings. I began to see how symptomatic that was of so many choices I have made in my life. On it I wrote the word "no" and these things:
- Perfectionism
- Sense of inadequacy
- Expectations of self and others
- Worthlessness
- Drive to be significant
- Inability to just "be"
- "Lostness"
- Housework (!)
- Idea of God as a task-master
While I was doing this I needed to go back take the other blue plate that had so drawn me initially. I decided I would smash both of the plates, but leave the pieces of the "no" plate and only use the pieces of the blue plate in my mosaic.
On the blue plate I wrote "YES" and the following:
- You [God]
- Writing
- Loving and being loved
- My [God's] house
- Music
- Family
- Kids
- Blind [Shorthand for disability]
- Whole-hearted living
I picked up the blue pieces after placing all the other black and white pieces at the foot of the cross and abandoning them there. I then began work on my own small mosaic cross, trying to choose tile colours and objects as organically and "by feel" as I could - not relying on rationality but rather going by gut instinct. I incorporated shapes and objects that reminded me of the things on my "yes" list (including writing the word "YES" across the middle of my cross).
We completed our crosses and then my friend began to tell us the spiritual significance of different colours. I was STUNNED to discover how the colours I had chosen emphasised what I felt about each of those "yes" areas, and about this part of my life-journey in particular.
The blue of the plate that formed the basis of my design is related to revelation, an open heaven and prophecy.
I chose gold and silver (symbolising purity, wealth, treasure and refinement) for the word "yes" which I embedded in black (which represents a death - in this case to self, and the colour of those those "no"s).
God's house (which I knew referred to something God had spoken to me about regarding Luke 15:31) I had done in cream (healing) and green (rest) with a green (also prosperity) and red (victory) garden.
Both "music" and "kids" were pictured black and white but I'd picked the words out in braille by using purple beads. These three areas (the word "blind" being shorthand for my passion for a world where disability is considered "normal" and is approached as such) are where my deepest and most integral dreams, passions and desires lie. These are my sacrosact, and thus very difficult to talk-about, areas. Purple symbolises (among others things) the promises of God, abundance and divine provision.
Family was represented by a family tree embedded in that blue of release into a calling and related to what God in September 2009 had shown me was my true name/nature: "Mama". The remaining areas to do with love and living I depicted with a cream (healed) heart surrounded by pink beads (pink represents joy, compassion and fellowship).
Even the colour of the grout held significance. I was the only one of 5 of us to choose a grout colour apart from white. Instead I was drawn to brown. I found out that brown represents submission to God. I felt that that in itself was highly meaningful.
I chose gold and silver (symbolising purity, wealth, treasure and refinement) for the word "yes" which I embedded in black (which represents a death - in this case to self, and the colour of those those "no"s).
God's house (which I knew referred to something God had spoken to me about regarding Luke 15:31) I had done in cream (healing) and green (rest) with a green (also prosperity) and red (victory) garden.
Both "music" and "kids" were pictured black and white but I'd picked the words out in braille by using purple beads. These three areas (the word "blind" being shorthand for my passion for a world where disability is considered "normal" and is approached as such) are where my deepest and most integral dreams, passions and desires lie. These are my sacrosact, and thus very difficult to talk-about, areas. Purple symbolises (among others things) the promises of God, abundance and divine provision.
Family was represented by a family tree embedded in that blue of release into a calling and related to what God in September 2009 had shown me was my true name/nature: "Mama". The remaining areas to do with love and living I depicted with a cream (healed) heart surrounded by pink beads (pink represents joy, compassion and fellowship).
Even the colour of the grout held significance. I was the only one of 5 of us to choose a grout colour apart from white. Instead I was drawn to brown. I found out that brown represents submission to God. I felt that that in itself was highly meaningful.
This felt like such a pivotal experience in my life. Although I am often super-rational and intellectual, God in his wisdom decided to kick-start a new phase in my journey with Him using something outside of my usual area of comfort - something arty, creative and gut-guided. Inside me, though, the truth of His message to me sits solid. I rest in His wisdom as I take my not-yet-sure-footed first steps on this path of my 9 yeses.
No comments:
Post a Comment