Advent

This is an advent, an anglicized version of the Latin word adventus, meaning "coming" of more thoughts and ideas of what prayer and contemplation have to do with art. This blog has been silent for too long and the ideas are starting to flow again. Wikkipedia's definition of writer's block as "a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work...It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at handIn the sweet shadow of Thanksgiving I am giving forgiveness to everyone I thought had ill treated me. I want to enter the Christmas month with a clean slate. I want to think that everyone I know can enter the last month of this year free of any ill will between us. Let us all go into December 2012 free, giving and expecting the good thing.At the other extreme, some "blocked" writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers" gives a thoughtful account of anyone involved in a creative process,writing notwithstanding. So it is with other creative endeavors, the visual arts, music, theatre, dance, the culinary and homemaking arts,and so on. A number of years ago a friend and I attended a retreat entitled Art as Prayer. During one of the solitary prayer times witting with a paper and box of crayons I heard God's audible voice call softly to me asking" who told you you couldn't do Art?" In my mind flashed the portion of the sistine Ceiling painted by Michaelangelo where Adam and Eve discover they are naked and try to hide. The art making, creative process is a process of laying bare and not everyone can bear being that exposed. It's all about shame. Who shamed you? who made you feel small unworthy, unable, unwhole, useless, and as one shamed, who have you shamed? Maya Angelou recently entered this thought on her wall on Facebook, it has become my prayer: "In the sweet shadow of Thanksgiving I am giving forgiveness to everyone I thought had ill treated me. I want to enter the Christmas month with a clean slate. I want to think that everyone I know can enter the last month of this year free of any ill will between us. Let us all go into December 2012 free, giving and expecting the good thing."