Thursday, February 26, 2009

always start with a warmed teapot




My relationship to time has been all out of whack for a while. A constant sense of time passing makes it hard for me to settle down to really enjoy things, pray, be with people (in the moment, mindful...that sort of thing).
I have been trying to get better about this. Sometimes the trying only makes things worse. I love the times when I forget myself and find myself just doing things. Drawing has been a part of this. I see it as a way of giving thanks. A form of prayer. There have been occasions when I have forgotten that time was passing.
This happens with spoken prayer as well - but more rarely (for me at least).
I did not really take time to wonder if there was a lenten discipline that I should follow but have decided to steal an exercise from Jim Gordon, a Scottish Baptist, that I will at least try and follow throughout lent. The different ways of seeing that come for me in prayer and art only seem to seep into the rest of life for moments at a time. I want a whole huge change at once but, as I have been learning and forgetting and learning again for a long time, the change comes in regular practice and incremental progress.

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