Choose carefully....

One of the lovely things about this icon retreat is that from the moment you arrive you realize it is about so much more than just painting an icon. When you walk into the studio (which in it's other life is St. John's Chapel at Kanuga) there are two long, long rows of tables, all covered in craft brown paper. At each spot there is a package, wrapped in white paper.

This is your icon board. All wrapped up. Just like a gift.

The truth is, it really is a gift.

The first step (other than setting up your light and your jars for water,your brushes and your little white plastic paint palette (the experienced iconographers in the room have graduated to their own ceramic palette) is to unwrap your board.

Icon boards are not inexpensive. They have to be wood that has been carefully cut and dried so that the board will not warp. The boards we use also have the gesso already applied.and are sanded as smooth as marble. You can do this yourself but it takes a lot of work (a whole lot of work) and we don't have the time to do that in a one week retreat.

Each person unwraps their board. Some do it slowly and prayerfully. Others open theirs excitedly, as if  it is Christmas morning. The papers are off and we each realize we are starting with an identical empty space.

Here is my white board sitting on my white towel. The shadow on the board is my hands holding my iPhone to take the photo.

The boards are unwrapped and then we spend time in prayer and meditation, looking at this completely white and empty board. Our clean slate. Everything seems possible. Anything seems possible. The board is completely empty. What happens in this space is between each person and God.

In this season of Lent, I find I am profoundly aware of the need for space, for emptiness, for room. My days are too often too full, too busy. I am not alone--everyone I know seems overly busy these days.

This empty white icon board says, "Slow down. Make some space. Choose carefully what will fill your days, your life."

We sit and gaze and pray.

Choose carefully.

Iconography Workshop February 2013

THREE MARYS

There won't be a sermon post this week as I am at Kanuga for Suzanne Schleck's iconography class--THE GOSPEL IN LINE AND COLOR. This is the third class I have taken with Suzanne. I wrote my first icon at this Kanuga workshop inFebruary 2012 and then went to Richmond, Virginia to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in August 2012 for another class--also taught by Suzanne.

The creative aspect of these classes is certainly one of the gifts I receive, but the other gifts are those of silence and prayer. Suzanne sets a quiet, contemplative tone for the workshops and I find myself drawn into a space of prayer and closeness with God. The work of iconography does not come easily for me and I find that it requires my full focus--allowing me to push away the "things left undone" list and be present in the moment with God. I need that right now--partially because it is Lent and partially because my life has been very busy recently.

I am one of five final candidates for Bishop of Southwestern Virginia (the election is March 9th) and this discernment process has been rich and full and continues to fill me with hope for the Church. But all this has been added to an already rich and full life as a parish priest. These days here at Kanuga are true gift-- to be able to step away from (or perhaps step more closely toward) pondering what God is stirring up in my life. I am not here this week to achieve; I am here this week to be.

There was a wonderful meditation by Joe Chambers on the CREDO Lenten website this week. Part of his reflection is this:

What lies in the open space between you and the moment of decision? Is it faith? Is it hopeful anticipation? Self-doubt? Pessimism and angst?

A bishop candidate was once asked how he made it through the process unscathed; his reply was that nothing really mattered at all--except for the fact that he was deeply loved by God. That was all he needed, all he needed to know.

Will you put your whole trust in God's grace and love?

Perhaps that is the true gift of taking time away, especially during a very busy time: to create an open space so one might consciously remember how deeply we are loved by God and to have our hearts open fully to God's grace. 

As the Benedictines say, Always we begin again...

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PS--I am grateful to the Rev. Jane Smith for supplying at St. John's this weekend. She is truly beloved by that congregation and she has helped me in more ways than one can ask or imagine. Her generosity makes it possible for me to be here. Thank you, Jane, and thank you to all clergy who do supply work! 

Let go and trust

The icon you see here is by Suzanne Schleck who will be the instructor of the workshop I am off to attend this week at Kanuga.

I am heading into this week overwhelmed by gratitude. I am so grateful for my friend and colleague Jane Smith who will take care of priestly and pastoral responsibilities while I am away. I am grateful to a congregation that shares my joy in being able to have a week away to pursue an activity to feed my mind and my soul--especially wonderful and needed as Lent is fast approaching--and people who so capably handles all the parish details (they do this all the time--I just don't always say thank you). Everything--attending to office activities, prayer groups, worship services--will go on without me. This is good and joyful. I am grateful to friends who gave me a "scholarship" so that I could attend this workshop. I am grateful to Kanuga for attending to my food allergy. I am grateful to my friend and artist Verle Lynn Cox who showed up this week with a beautiful cloth she made for me to cover my icon and to Lynn McLure who showed up to share an exquisite iconography calendar she got while in Amsterdam. I am so grateful to my friend Margaret Joffrion who has been the bright star leading me to this workshop. I am grateful to all the icon writers who have gone before me throughout the centuries. (Now is this point where I thank my parents, my sweet husband and children and the Academy?)

So yes! I am grateful. Can you also tell I am seriously excited about the week ahead? I go as a complete and total novice. I think it is essential that we all pursue things, at least occasionally, where we are beginners. It always opens my mind and my heart to lose myself in something where I have no expertise at all. This will be such a week.

We'll be using traditional materials of egg tempera and gold leaf and have been told that the process has less to do with one's ability to paint than with "a willingness to let go and trust".

Let go and trust. So simple to say, to write and so difficult to really do. That's why I need practice in doing just this--which is one reason I am heading to Kanuga for this workshop this week.

Let go and trust. My mantra for the week.

Lent is just around the corner. How will you practice letting go and trusting?