September 26, 2016 Evening Review of The Maker's Space

PENCIL DRAWING

Our intention is to slow down, using art as a tool, to rediscover our creative self.  We were all created to be creative.  Sometimes it gets lost in the demands and busyness of our world.  By making time in your schedules, you are slowing down and intentionally trying to find a more joyful way to go through life....creatively.

In order to make any change in behavior, you need to slow down your reaction so that you can become intentional in your thought-life and consequent actions.  One way we discussed is a system known as OODA-LOOP...OBSERVE, ORIENTATE, DECIDE, ACT, repeat.....or loop it around.

On 9/26, we started with OBSERVATION.  Observe your situation.  Observe your surroundings.  Observe your outer self.  Observe your inner self.

We are using the books A Space for God by Don Postema and the Creative Live by Alice Bass.
Both can be found on Amazon and are intended for self-study.  We are using some of the material for group exercises in order to slow down and discover our creative selves.

Here are our notes and exercises from the evening..........

Observe
Lily, The Girl Who Could See by Sally Oxley [Children’s book on Lillias Trotter]

Spiritual Maturity
Do you want to be mature?  You can ignore it, and then be a one year old your whole life, or you can be intentional and try to grow in the spiritual aspect of your life.
Physical, mental growth almost just happen by eating well and going to school.
Emotional and Spiritual you need to seek out, and who knows you better than God for Wisdom in this area.
So, we are concentrating on pointing you in the right direction on how to attain spiritual and emotional maturity by giving some attention to the inner life.

 Our first word of our theme is OBSERVE.  How do you learn about God and about yourself?  You observe how He made you.  You observe what He made in the world around you and then you observe Him working in the world around you and you can decide whether to join Him in that work depending upon the passions and interests that He gave you.

The World
“One of the most important and most neglected elements in the beginnings of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality…to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor that is all around us in the creatures of God.” A Thomas Merton Reader pg. 386-7

Beginning to see beneath the surface of things to the Source and Creator of it all—our almighty, creative, artistic God.  God, the artist who painted the painted desert, the shades of the sea which change with each day, the pastels of the sunset, the black of a stormy night, the silver of a clearly seen Milky Way, the red of blood, the green of the earth, the yellow of grain in ripe fields, the blue of a French Impressionist sky.
{Space for God pg. 19}  We’ re God’s best work of art,  Eph. 2:10  We are being created and recreated by the saving touch of Christ, who Van Gogh said is “more of an artist than the artists, who working in living flesh and living spirit, made living people, instead of statues.

Observe and draw a leaf.  [We drew an aster flower.  We then drew an arranged fall still-life in the center of the room using pencil]  When you think about God while you are doing something, it is Worship.  Art slows us down to wonder, and ponder why He made this just this way?  Every vein and and every shade of color has a reason and is beautiful and is trying to tell us something about God.

“I wrestle with nature long enough for her to tell me her secret….
I do not invent the whole picture, on the contrary.  I find it all ready in nature, only it must be disentangled. “ Vincent Van Gogh

Inward Observation
What if using our imagination is a way to hear from Him?  What if He made us, with an imagination, our imaginations are a gift from Him?  What if it is a way of communicating with Him, that He built into us, unique to each of us, since each of us is unique?  What if our imaginations are a way to restore the divine connection that Adam and Eve had when they walked with God in the Garden?  When you focus on God’s Word, your creative blocks are removed, and your imagination can be connected to the source of creativity.  This is not just a mental exercise, it also requires expression.  So, we are going to imagine and then draw what we saw.

“Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”  Revelation 3:20

After you hear this verse from Revelation, close your eyes, relax into your chair and take a deep breath.  As you breathe in, feel that breath going into your shoulders and arms, allowing tension to be released   Breathe in again, and think on the Revelation verse.  Imagine that the door is the door to the room of your heart.  Now picture your heart’s door.  What does it look like?  Is it made of wood, and does it have a latch.  Is it a screen porch door?  Or a stone door with a peephole?
What does it feel like to the touch?  What would it feel like to approach the door from the outside?
Now, open the door and describe the room.  What are the colors and textures in the room?  Is Jesus there?  If so, is he comfortable?  How has he made himself at home?  Has he rearranged the room at all?  Take a good look around, walk around the room and look at everything so that you can remember it.

Now, draw what you saw.  Draw the door of your heart and the room of your heart.

Share.  What surprised you about what you saw and drew?