Prayer is bigger than our uttered words to God.  Prayer is our living, breathing spirituality.  It is wider in vision than our own lives, looking toward the whole of creation.  As Bruce Epperly notes, “Whereas once spirituality was seen as an escape from the world, often taking us away from embodiment and the hardscrabble world of politics and economics, today many people see the spiritual journey as holistic in nature, embracing body, mind, spirit, relationships, and the planet. We are all, as Thomas Merton notes, guilty bystanders who are called by God to immerse ourselves in global transformation as part of our spiritual journeys (Praying with Process Theology, 69.  This is a bigger way to think about prayer than I understood in my earlier years, when I thought of it as much more individually oriented, for my personal obedience to God – not thinking a lot about world loyalty.  My soul needed growing.

     In a daily reading entitled, How Big Is Your Soul? Epperly describes what kind of spirituality we need in our world: “Today, we need persons of stature, extravagant spirited persons who can embrace political, economic, ethnic, and racial diversity in our increasingly polarizing age. We need to have the largeness of soul to treat our opponents with the same care as we give to those for whom we advocate. We need to commit ourselves to constantly enlarging our spirits, so that no person is foreign and every place is our spiritual home” (Praying with Process Theology, 75).  Yet for most of us, life distracts us from such an expansive faith.

     The Prophet Elijah had just finished a showdown with the prophets of Baal.  God won. The prophets of Baal were wiped out.  It was an incredible story depicting the tremendous power of God.  Immediately following the throwdown, Elijah learns that the wicked Queen Jezebel intended to have him killed for wiping out the prophets.  Instead of standing firm in faith, Elijah ran for his life – eventually all the way to the famed Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments.  Some people will travel great lengths to get close to God!  What happened next is a scene for the ages:

     “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the LORD told him. And as Elijah stood there, the LORD passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13 NLT)

     Elijah was indeed a human being.  He learned that it is in the sound of silence that we hear the voice of God.  No longer directed by his fear, he learned that he was not alone, and that there was another chapter about to unfold that would extend beyond his time as prophet. He was part of a larger story and God was inviting him to help that chapter unfold.  God’s question, “What are you doing here?” is always for us as well, a reminder that we have choice in the lives we live with the decisions we make.  We are always invited by the spirit of God toward maturity and beauty.  Patricia Ann Farmer hopes that we will have fat souls: “A beautiful soul is a large soul, one that can overcome the smallness and pettiness of our human condition. A really fat soul can welcome diverse people, ideas, and ways of being in the world without feeling threatened. A fat soul experiences the intensity of life in its fullness, even the painful side of life, and knows there is something still bigger” (Fat Soul Fridays, 12-13).

     How do we fatten up our souls?  Spirituality is the key. “By spirituality,” notes Jay McDaniel, “I mean openness to God’s Breathing, dad by day, moment by moment, relative to the circumstances at hand. Understood in this way, spirituality is not supernatural or extraordinary but deeply natural and wholly ordinary. It can be embodied at home and at the workplace, while alone and with others, amid dishwashing and diaper changing, laughing and crying, living and dying” (Living from the Center, 3).  Every activity can become a prayerful one, every moment holy, because – if we’ll have it – everything is spiritual.

     Last week after church Lynne and I stopped in to see the art of Carlye Jesch as part of Napa’s annual Open Studios art festival, where you can visit local artists where they do their work.  Carlye walked around with us, telling us about her art – what materials she used, her creative process, etc.  Since I am terrible with this art form, I had/have tremendous respect for Carlye, and I had lots of questions, which she was happy to answer.  I ended up really appreciating a painting named “Jordan”.  Many of the titles of her paintings come from book characters, including this one.  It is a sunset scene on the sea, with magnificent colors playing with the clouds above, and three sailboats drifting by.  I liked the painting all by itself, but I love the painting because of its relationship to other subsequent paintings.  “Jordan” was the first of her sailboats at sea paintings, created at the time when she picked up the brush after having put it down for a long time.  We had seen the later paintings earlier in our tour – “Jordan” wasn’t placed near them, yet the similarities were evident to me.  She later wondered herself how Jordan was a precursor that she hadn’t recognized before.  The later paintings are part of what she calls her Reepicheep series, based on the same-named character from the book, The Dawn Treader, part of C.S. Lewis’ series of books, The Chronicles of Narnia.  Carlye notes:

     In C.S. Lewis’ series, “The Chronicles of Narnia,” Reepicheep is a mouse, petite in size, yet bounding with courage and faithfulness.  His whole life he dreams of Aslan’s country, “Where sky and water meet,” and carries with him the hope he will see it one day. I have often connected with the character of Reepicheep, feeling small, yet driven to continue on.  I have consistently been emotionally moved by the moment when he first realizes that he has in fact, arrived.

     When I created the first piece in this series, I was not thinking of this small creature, but simply playing with the idea of a colorful clouded sky and moving ocean water, enjoying the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure myself where one ended and the other began.  Once I realized this was reminiscent of Reepicheep’s story, I chose his name as the title for the series I wanted to create. Each of the newer pieces includes at least one metallic ship. The ships allude to the theme of journey, while the metallic coloring gives a hint of something richer, something beyond.

     I love the adventure inherent in sailing.  The ups and downs of the swells, the interaction with the wind, the spray of water on your face from time to time.  I have only sailed a handful of times, but I know enough to appreciate its wildness and the requirement to participate meaningfully if you hope to get anywhere.  I also loved hearing about Carlye’s artistic process – the Reepicheep vision – but also the nuts and bolts of how she goes about creating her pieces.  Layers.  Textures.  Sometimes tape being lifted to reveal a different line beneath. She noted that when she paints, it is in some way a dialogue, as if the painting is calling to her in particular ways.  She responds and responds and responds until she feels that it is complete.  She has her story about the painting, her experience of it, and then she offers it to the world.

     Those who then interact with her painting become part of that dialogue, too, as questions are asked, insights offered, and new storylines emerge, even for the artist.  Part of why I wanted the painting for myself is because it represents the beginning of something.  It is the genesis of what would lead to the beautiful, inspirational Reepicheep series depicting that space where heaven touches the sea, and you cannot tell them apart.  Beautiful.  Jordan certain has elements of that image.  I love it because that represents part of Carlye’s life journey as she picked up the brush after years of a struggle with OCD.  That takes courage.

     Beyond what her intentions were, I love the names she chose for my painting and the subsequent others (two more are in process – Reepicheep 1 and Reepicheep 2).  But the three book characters that were ascribed to the paintings, in order, were Jordan, Jonah, and Henry.  My painting is a seascape, while the Jordan is a river in Israel of great significance.  My mind goes beyond the river to the people who crossed it.  The Hebrews were the Jewish people of old.  Most people associate the word Hebrews with the region of Hebron where they settled.  Yet there is another rendering that I find more compelling.  Hebrew can be translated as “cross over”.  The Hebrews were people who crossed over. The Red Sea in the famous Exodus story.  And the Jordan River as they crossed over to the Promised Land.  In the waters of the Jordan a foreign military leader, Naaman, was healed of Leprosy after bathing in it seven times at the direction of Elijah’s predecessor, Elisha – a crossing over from a death sentence to new life.  John the Baptist baptized throngs of people – their expression of their crossing over to faithful readiness for what God wanted to do in their time and place.  Jesus himself was among those baptized – his baptism was a crossing over from little-known carpenter to itinerant healer and teacher.  A painting depicting three sailboats at dusk – a crossing over from one time and place to another.  An artist who was doing the same.

  The next painting, “Jonah”, depicts three ships sort of going away from the golden space associated with Reepicheep’s vision of Aslan’s sea.  Fitting title, given the biblical Jonah chose to flee instead of going where God instructed.  That’s the human experience.  We sometimes have the vista right in front of us and choose to turn and go in another direction, which we have the freedom to do.

     Finally, Henry, the clearest of the examples of Reepicheep’s vision where there is not a clear line on the horizon.  Carlye mentioned that this painting is of particular importance for her:

     Henry is extra important to me because the character is from the book I was reading when my Grandpa Fred was passing. It's also important because foster care was another thing that "called to me before I heard it." I had been wanting to name a painting after Henry for a long time (a fictional child placed in foster care from the book, “Chicken Boy”), but my OCD wouldn't let me... the book was "contaminated" in my mind because of a joke another character made about selling his soul to the devil by joining an HOA. Anyways, the moment I had the strength to name a painting Henry was meaningful for me in my journey, and it was afterwards that the painting made me think of Reepicheep.

     While Jordan and Jonah made me raise my eyebrows, when I heard the title of the third painting, Henry, it didn’t mean anything to me.  There aren’t any Henry’s or Hanks in the Bible.  Or so I thought.  It turns out the English name, Henry, is a play-off of the French name, Henri, which comes from the German name, Heimeric, which translates as the “ruler of the house.”  The most concise English translation of the name, Henry, is “lord.”  The painting she was working on and dialoguing with as her beloved grandfather was fading was named Lord. She was interacting with the Lord while he drew closer and closer to death. She was painting the scene he was headed for.  The name of the painting that empowered her to take a big step in her battle with OCD was literally the name of the Lord. She called on the name of the Lord – Henry – and experienced a degree of salvation, of healing.

     And three ships in each of the three paintings – and the two more to come? Carlye made the choice for aesthetics – one or two seemed too few, four seemed too many, three seemed just right.  Fair enough, and who am I to question an artist’s eye?  And yet, three ships make me think of the Trinity – God depicted as the moving dance between three characters or modes of being – Creator/Father, Redeemer/Incarnate/Son, and Sustainer/Spirit.  I think of the Christmas Carol, I Saw Three Ships.  What were they carrying? Christ.

     In a postmodern world where such dialogue between artists, architects, writers, etc. and their audience allows for meaning to grow beyond original intent, I am free to muse here.  Equipped with an Open and Relational Theology where God is constantly wooing us whether we know it or not, I am simply offering that Carlye, given all the scenes available to her to paint, may have been wooed to choose such a seascape where the earth and sky meld as one, lured to choose names from fiction that carried deep meaning, including the presence of three ships that symbolize the ongoing interaction between God and all of creation.  The more I think about the art, the more I think I got a steal on this treasure.

     Bernard Loomer offers insight into the phenomena I believe was unfolding in Carlye’s art (and life): “Every important revelation, every important incarnation, carries with itself the principle of transcendence. Every revelation exists to be surpassed and therefore every revelation contains within itself a pointing beyond itself” (“S-I-Z-E is the measure,” Cargas and Lee, Religious Experience and Process Theology, 75).   Carlye’s every move was met with God’s every woo, resulting in my meaningful acquisition. So it is with us.

     May we have the faith and heart to join Bruce Epperly in his prayer: “Creative Wisdom, move me to action that heals the Earth. Help me see your calling in my daily tasks and my responsibilities as a citizen. Give me faith to move the mountain of apathy and passivity. Help me find the peace that calms and empowers and trusts your loving power in all things. Amen. (Praying with Process Theology, 84)

I breathe the spirit deeply in

And blow it gratefully out again.