Art as Prayer
Only in our doing can we grasp you.
Only with our hands can we illumine you.
The mind is but a visitor:
it thinks us out of our world.Each mind fabricates itself.
We sense its limits, for we have made them.
And just when we would flee them, you come
and make of yourself an offering.I don’t want to think a place for you.
Speak to me from everywhere.
Your Gospel can be comprehended
without looking for its source.When I go toward you
it is with my whole life.~Rainer Maria Rilke, Love Poems to God
Translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
We have all experienced the insufficiency of words to explain some deep reality or event, and we have all witnessed another as they tried to find words themselves. Bumping up against the hard limits of language is a universal frustration, but words alone– processing with our thinking minds, as Rilke suggested in his poem– was never meant to be the sole way we enter into spiritual growth and transformation.
But why art?
“We are meant to be real and to see and recognize the real.
We are all more than we know, and that wondrous reality, that wholeness, holiness,
is there for all of us, not the qualified only.” ~Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water
What is unique about this modality in exploring the depths of the spiritual life, the depths of Mystery, the depths of ourselves? There are plenty of philosophical, psychological and even scientific reasons why art is healing, but this is not the place to explore them. Instead I want to share with you the three ways creative practice has been transformative in my life, and why it is a key element in my retreat and spiritual companionship practice.
creative practices invite:
Art and other creative practices offer us a thin place to meet with Divine Presence and our Truest Self. In a unique way, color and line and image set a holy table for us to meet with God below the surface of our circumstances, where words cannot reach. Often in my own journaling or prayer, when I need a vehicle for understanding or revelation, or some knowing is just out of my reach, I will begin creating without words and the path will open. The process can be incredibly simple– sketchy lines and a swipe of a crayon, for example; or a couple of torn elements of collage from a magazine– and something deep and sacred opens within me.
creative practices inform:
Do you ever just know that you know something but can’t quite touch it at the conscious level? Do you ever have a sense that something is important, just beyond your awareness, and find the process of trying to grasp it frustrating? New thoughts emerge and intersections happen all the time during non-verbal creative processes. We are informed by our own subconscious and Divine Presence helping to loosen our grip on submerged experiences and inner knowings, when we go beyond words. I personally can look back on all of my visual processing during difficult (and not-so-difficult) seasons of life and see so much wisdom I might not have accessed any other way.
creative practices integrate:
The process of creativity can bring so much healing. We can integrate feelings, events, experiences, timelines, memories, with color and line and texture. Madeleine L’Engle writes, “In prayer, in the creative process, these two parts of ourselves, the mind and the heart, the conscious and the subconscious, stop fighting each other and collaborate.” These practices bypass ego and offer a fuller experience by offering an intersection between head, heart, and body. In that overlap, in the meeting of the parts of ourselves that often feel at odds, is great healing and movement toward freedom. On so many occasions I will be drawn to an image, color, form, or shape and if I choose to allow it to speak into the quiet it connects dots for me that had been elusive.
an invitation:
What would it be like to find a few simple materials and simply begin? What would it be like to allow what is beneath to rise up? What would it be like to RSVP to the invitation that creative materials offer on behalf of the Spirit of God?
Using simple and cheap oil pastels in a journal, on loose-leaf paper, or even on a torn scrap from a paper bag, choose a color and shape that feels like your insides right now. With a relaxed hand and arm move the color into the shape, varying the pressure to make thick, dense lines, and wispy, messy ones. Choose another color that feels like a prayer in response to your insides. Don’t think about it, just move and pray.
Tear a page from a novel you will never read (really!) and cut the text into strips- line by line. Then clip words and phrases from the strips that have resonance for you. I find that prepositional phrases especially draw me in. Let a few words and phrases come together to speak into your current experience, and glue them into your journal.
Doodle a shape that has meaning for you right now. Circles, stars, spirals, tiny lines, even scribbles, can loosen our thinking selves and allow a deeper wisdom some room to show up.
Flip through a magazine (I usually stay away from fashion or gossip magazines that might be triggering) and without much thought, simply cut or tear out images, colors, words, and textures that have resonance for you. There is no need to know why. Also consider cutting out those things that repel you in some way, as they might have powerful things to teach. Choose a central image, word, or color, and create a simple collage around it. Spend time in pray or meditation with the collage to let the Divine speak.
Some questions for reflection:
How do you feel invited to be with this image (color, shape, etc.)?
Where in your body are you responding to this creative practice, this awareness?
Why do you think ___________ appeared when it did?
What resistance am I sensing within this practice and what might it want to say to me?
Artistic practices that are free of performance or evaluation are near miraculous in their ability to connect us with God and Self. I’d love to hear how you use art in prayer, or if you use any of these practices. Please contact me with any questions or to explore further in spiritual direction.