Wow! eBook
Windows Into the Soul: Art as Spiritual Expression
Author(s): Michael Sullivan (Author)
- Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
- Publication Date: 1 Mar. 2006
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 88 pages
- ISBN-10: 0819221279
- ISBN-13: 9780819221278
Book Description
Working with clay, paint, crayons, or pencils, artists have long known that the act of creating art can help people explore the deepest recesses of their hearts - and bring about real change in their lives. Michael Sullivan discovered the power of art for himself in the midst of grieving the loss of a young parishioner. Ever since, he has been using simple art projects as a form of prayer and a way of helping others explore what God may be saying to them.
Windows into the Soul is a practical, hands-on resource for those who want to explore this means of prayer and contemplation for themselves, approaching the process not as an artist but as a spiritual seeker. Readers will find projects in various media, including clay, charcoal, and acrylic, including not only technical directions, but a gentle guide to the spiritual gold to be mined from the experience.
Editorial Reviews
Review
"In a time of the slamming of doors in religion, it is refreshing to read of the opening of windows. The mystics understood that God is the artist-the poet-of the World. Since we are made in the image of God the artist, each of us is an artist of sorts, each of us is a work of art! The disciplines of our art-silence, attention, compassion, fierce truth-telling and love-help us celebrate the awesome joy and privilege of being human. This eye and heart opening book will help us be whom we are called to be and will show us the way home."
―Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral
"A new approach to prayer that guides us gently through our creativity to new insights and responses to traditional prayer themes. Open your eyes, unfold your hands, but be warned: you may fall in love with God again!"
―Nancy Chinn, artist, author of Spaces for Spirit: Adorning the Church and Wisdom Searches
"Unless you are prepared for your life to change, you probably should not read this book. But if you are willing to set out on a journey with an experienced and faithful guide, let this book become your companion. Michael Sullivan points the way with just the right mixture of insight, holiness, sensuality, and grace."
―The Right Reverend J. Neil Alexander, Bishop of Atlanta
"For those who are willing to try their hand at art, and those who feel comfortable with art as a form of personal expression, this would be a valuable tool―individually, in small groups or for retreats."
―Epiphany
Review
"For those who are willing to try their hand at art, and those who feel comfortable with art as a form of personal expression, this would be a valuable tool―individually, in small groups or for retreats."
―Epiphany
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Windows into the Soul
ART AS SPIRITUAL EXPRESSION
By Michael Sullivan
Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2006 Michael Sullivan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-2127-8
Contents
explorefaith.org books: An IntroductionIntroductionOPENING THE WINDOWS: A Guide for the JourneyWINDOW ONE: Letting God Have ItWINDOW TWO: Unlearning PrayerWINDOW THREE: Creating Holy SpaceWINDOW FOUR: Praying Each DayWINDOW FIVE: Surprised by MiraclesWINDOW SIX: Living in the MomentWINDOW SEVEN: Reconciling the Internal and ExternalWINDOW EIGHT: Seeking ForgivenessWINDOW NINE: Getting to the CrossWINDOW TEN: Finding the Empty TombTHE OPEN WINDOW: The Final MediumAppendixSmall Group StudyPreparing for Individual Confession
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
WINDOW ONE
Letting God Have It
The Lord is near to all who call on him,to all who call on him in truth.
Psalm 145:18
Letting God have it is our beginning prayer. Telling God off may not sound likepraying, and it's probably not the advice you'd expect to hear from a priest.But learning to be honest with God—telling God what you really think, thegood and the bad—is essential to the relationship established in prayer. Ispeak from experience.
Many years ago, as I was going through a transitional time in my life, a belovedpriest suggested I yell at God—and I reacted the same way many people dowhen I give them the same advice in my office today. At thirty, I was gettingready to go to seminary, my parents had just divorced, and my grandmother, whohad been the glue of my childhood and the constant peacemaker in our family,died. I was dealing with addiction in a loved one, winding down my law practice,giving up a sizable salary, packing all our belongings, and asking my wife andeighteen-month-old daughter to head off to a seminary in the middle of nowhere.In the throes of this amazing call to a new vocation, I should have beenecstatic. Instead, life made no sense and I was terrified by all the changesaround me.
I awoke one night horrified by life itself. I remember thinking that I was alonein the world and losing all that was dear to me. For the next several days, Islid into a deep, dark place that I had no idea existed. An abyss had beenbeckoning from within me, a place paradoxically both haunting and alluring. WhatI'd embarked on was my first dark night of the soul. All the transitions pulledand pushed me into a place of pain and suffering. I thought there was somethingso wrong with me that no one could love me, not even God. I didn't love myself.I hated myself and I thought about ending it all.
I didn't realize it at the time, but deep within, I was angry with God for myparents' divorce and for the death of my beloved grandmother. I wanted to yellout my anger but had no idea how to open my soul before God. My heart wasclosed, my desires were a mystery, and my life was a secret pain that only Iknew. Friends and acquaintances suggested various strategies for dealing withthe pain, but nothing worked. Exercise didn't help. Meditation was a farce. Icouldn't eat. And therapy—what a waste of time. I remember thinking, "Howcan I bear my soul to this shrink when I don't know what's going on in me, whenI am losing everything I've had? How can anyone understand?"
I began to do what I'd always done under high stress: I gave myself a pep talk:Hunker down. Bear it. Grit your teeth. Keep walking. Keep working. It will goaway. It will go away.
Thank God I sought the help of my priest. Someone I trusted and who knew mereally well, she made the simplest of suggestions: go to church; yell at God.Like Abraham and Sarah, I laughed out loud at the thought of a God so faithful.God wanted me to yell. Right. God was the soft, gentle, shiny thing up therebehind the altar rail. God was some disinterested divine being who walked in thegarden long, long ago and then left us—left me—here to figure itout. To yell at God implied that God could hear, might actually listen, andmight actually care. And even if God could hear me, as any good Southern boyknew, yelling at God was not allowed. No way. Absolutely no way. Yell atGod—get in trouble. Yell at God—go to hell. It sounded like aninvitation from the devil himself.
But my priest was right. I needed to yell at God. It was important, evennecessary. Without it, I was going to take up residence in the abyss. And so ona hot Sunday afternoon with no one around, I walked into our big, empty church.Standing there all alone, I thought I might be able to do it. I was sure Icould. But in that empty church, looking at that empty cross, I couldn't yell atthe Big Old Man. As much as I tried, my throat clenched like a fist and I stoodspeechless. Speechless. I was in the safest place on earth, before one who lovedme like no other, yet I was scared to death. There was no way I could do it. Itjust wasn't right, not holy, not me.
My priest said to go again. So I did. Five times. And on the sixth trip I beganto talk. Actually, I whispered. I thought I had to be polite. I thought I had touse language God would understand—good, holy, clean language. But aninteresting thing happened. As I whispered, I began to cry, and the tearsliberated me. What started as a cry became a curse, and with a single phraseflowing from my lips, from the depths of my life, I started praying. If you hadbeen a fly on the wall that day, you wouldn't have described my words as prayer.But for the first time in my life, prayer opened up for me like it never had.The words came and I found it easy to talk with God. I poured out my hurt, mydistress that God had not saved me from the pains of divorce, death, andaddiction. I told God all I was feeling, wanting, and hoping. About an hourlater, I was exhausted. I had yelled at God without stopping for sixty goodminutes and I was still alive. I was more alive than ever. God was more alivethan ever.
I had discovered that telling God off was essential in the midst of all thetransitions I was experiencing. Does that make you want to run from the room, orat least put down this book? Usually, people discourage us from telling God howwe really feel. But faced with the grief of our lives, most of us must find aplace to let God have it so we can give up control and begin to pray. Look atthe Psalms. One after another, the psalmists stand before us calling to thisplace. Consider Psalm 58, decrying the wicked and perverse. The psalmist is soangry that he asks God to break the teeth of the wicked in their mouths, to letthem vanish like water that runs off the mountains. Lots of other Psalms take asimilar path: Psalms 31, 38, 39, or 44 for starters. Each of them names theanger of the heart and asks why God doesn't answer.
Few of us enter into the prayer of the psalmists—we'd rather stay incontrol and hold on tightly. But I learned, standing in that empty church, thatI had to fall deeply away from God to fall deeply into God. I had to fall intoall the things I feared—into the horror and pain. By accepting God'sinvitation to tell my Creator off and give up control, my soul began to fillwith...
