Saint Lydia’s Book Club is thrilled to announce that the “Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists” series is moving to Orthodox Christian Network!
During my very blessed Nativity season, I met OCN Executive Director Chris Metropulos during a visit to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After a wonderful conversation that lasted across several days and several thousand miles, I became the new blog chief for “The Sounding,” the multi-author site blog at OCN.
This is my dream job. I recruit and support writers, oversee content publishing, and contribute to promotion and to the blog’s interface with other OCN efforts. I love working with people who share my wild enthusiasm for the Orthodox creative world, and I love the opportunity to support what I care about on such a large scale. The possibilities feel endless.
When Fr. Chris invited me to bring the OWRA series to OCN, I gave it serious thought. My decision to move the series reflects my original purpose in creating it. I wanted to support Orthodox writers and artists by creating a place where they could explore their experiences and share their work. I hoped to raise awareness about our creative community. Moving us to OCN is a great opportunity to do all of these things! OCN is a gathering place for Orthodox people around the world. I feel certain that this opportunity is a door opening in front of us.
With the consent of my upcoming guest posters, we are going to step through this door. The series makes its first appearance on “The Sounding” today, with guest Jan Bear writing on “Nine Ways to Spread Your Message Using Internet Tools.” And you’ll recognize some other OWRA guests among the new contributing writers on “The Sounding.”
Please come join us at our new location, where we will be happy to welcome you!
Jonathan’s initial reflections on his subject appeared in a guest post on this blog in September. To read the first post, click here.
As a photographer,painter, and poet who happens to be an Orthodox Christian, I find that my overt attempts at expressing something about my faith tend to be more wooden than if I simply try to let my artwork be a faithful reflection of the beauty I experience in the world. To some extent, I suppose, this is a reflection of my amateur status. I have not yet practiced the technologies of my camera, or brushes, or language well enough for my intent to be expertly woven into my work. It is when I am doing my best to be transparent that I get out of the way enough to let God speak through me.
I have been writing poetry the longest, since I was in middle school. As I have grown older, I am writing less. Not only do I have less time to write, I find that I am not as often inclined to write. I think this might have something to do with having a more-or-less stable and happy life; much of my younger poetry was angst-inspired. I have begun writing again more recently, though it is hard to say if this is because I am feeling more angsty (which might be true) or if I’m finding more depth in feelings as I get older and need an appropriate outlet. I have written a handful of poems since converting to the Orthodox Christian faith eight years ago, but only two of them, Become As A Little Child and Exile, deal at all with issues of faith.
Melinda Johnson, in inviting me to write this post, wondered about Wordsworth’s concept of poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquility,” and whether or not that “tranquility helps or hinders the poet’s…chance at transcendence.” Given my experience of being a more prolific writer during turbulent periods of my life, I have some doubt that tranquility would elicit the same emotion. I concede, however, that the added perspective one might gain by recollecting strong emotion after having achieved some peace might allow the writer to produce a more nuanced and evocative product. And, after all, I’m no Wordsworth.
Much of my photography has been since my conversion. While I do not make particular attempts to photograph Orthodox subjects (except when recording a particular parish event), I do find that the faith-inspired awe I have of nature and the Christian imperative of seeing Christ–and therefore the beauty–in every person permeates my approach to subjects. I am particularly fond of taking portraits and still-life compositions.
My good friend, J. Vincent Scarpace, with whom I was privileged to lead a group of university students in contemplating the idea of transcendence in art, explained to me once why he got started painting fish. He had worked closely with Koi fish and when he went to school was told that he needed to have a subject matter he knew well. I used this insight when I began painting with J. Vincent; though I am not a candle expert, I often find myself staring at the candles lit in prayer during worship.
As I have practiced more painting candles, I try to think about the reasons we Orthodox Christians light candles in prayer and set them in front of icons. I also try to think about what my life looks like, and this swirling darkness, the confusion, disorder and distraction I feel serves as the chaotic background to the candles I paint. My hope is that a person viewing my paintings finds a measure of comfort in the juxtaposition of the candles and the chaos, even if they do not apprehend my particular intent in locating that peace in Christian tradition.
I have had the privilege of sharing my love of art by engaging students in the process of creating art. While J. Vincent did the technical instruction, I took the lead in discussing the idea of art as a means of transcendence with our students. As an Orthodox Christian, transcendence has a very particular meaning for me. I did not foreground my own perspective, but I did get to share a bit about the theology of icons and juxtapose that to other ideas of transcendence. In particular, I was happy that on a field trip to Houston, I got to take my students first to the Houston Byzantine Fresco Chapel and then to the Rothko Chapel. Our conversation about the experience, while somewhat superficial, did suggest that the students came away with an appreciation of the difference between the particular transcendence in the former and the diffuse transcendence of the latter.
I think, finally, that the success of a piece of art, whether poetry, photograph, or painting, depends on an interaction of the art, artist and audience: the rhetorical triangle. The particular genius of Orthodoxy in emphasizing the personal nature of our interaction with God gives a new flavor to art that reveals grace in our experience. Like the reverse perspective in Byzantine iconography, the art is not complete until the audience is participating, until there is someone to receive that grace.
Jonathan Kotinek is a convert to Orthodoxy, father of two, and constantly in awe of his veterinarian wife. An educator, amateur artist, and writer who likes to ponder the intersection of faith, social issues, and education, Jonathan blogs occasionally at http://jkotinek.blogspot.com.
Promoting books, mine and other people's, at the OCA All American Conference
I’m breaking in on the “Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists” series to say hello and tell you how it’s going. When I first visualized the series, I thought I’d have one guest each month. After some preliminary research, I thought maybe I’d have two. Shortly after the series launched, I realized I should abandon this measured approach and just stuff guests in wherever they fit.
My guest list is growing like a slinky rolling downstairs. You can meet someone new on this blog every week between now and next summer. Or perhaps fall. Or winter.
In my adventures searching for creative Orthodox people, I have confirmed my suspicion that there are many of us, that we would love to be connected to each other, and that we all hope to see a robust support system in the Orthodox writing world equivalent to what is available to secular writers.
So far, it seems to me that Orthodox artists are slightly better off. Iconographers, for example, seem more likely to be featured in local newspapers. Iconography is an art form known by the secular world. It may be valued only as art, but people know what it is.
No such luck for Orthodox writers, it seems. Why is this? Why is an icon accessible to the general public, but an Orthodox book is likely to be read only by the Orthodox? Perhaps looking is not as demanding as reading. Or (allowing my less cynical self some air time) the spiritual content of an icon has the power to attract people.
Orthodox illustrators seem to fall somewhere in the middle, perhaps because their artistic skills can be used for secular or sacred purposes. In their Orthodox lives, however, they share many experiences with Orthodox writers.
To date, this series has been enormously fun for me. I love finding new writers and artists, I love learning about what they do, and I love talking to other people about it. Much of the networking I did at the OCA conference a few weeks ago centered on this blog series. It was such a high to move from one end of the conference hall to the other, talking to people about my guest posters and how great they are. Way better than champagne. As good as chocolate. As good as having the whole box of Godiva TO YOURSELF.
I’m currently working on some new features for the blog, and continuing to ponder ways to water our Orthodox creative world and admire its blossoms. I look forward to being in touch with you as this project grows.
“Beauty will save the world,” wrote Dostoevsky in The Idiot, first published serially in 1868-1869.
Many Orthodox writers and thinkers have since used the phrase. I encountered it about 25 years ago in a book by Paul Evdokimov, and it never left me. At the time, I was just discovering Orthodoxy; but I had been exposed to art for many years and was doing a bit of drawing and painting myself.
After two world wars, numerous ecological disasters, and ugly terrorist acts all over our planet, we may be tempted to despair. But I believe “beauty will save the world.”
To attract your attention, whether on paper, on the little screen or on your monitor, the media focus almost exclusively on ugliness and catastrophes. But beauty will save the world.
Now an official member of the Orthodox Church, I believe in the saving beauty of Christ’s redeeming death and Resurrection.
I also believe that following Christ means participating in His redeeming work, at many levels. I will only speak here about one level. As an Orthodox believer, I feel particularly called to spread beauty in our world. And I strive to do it through my artwork and my writing.
Born from French parents gifted with talents for drawing and painting, I started painting in grade school; I even remember nailing old sheets on a piece of wood to make my own “canvas.” I was not 10 at the time.
A few years later, an art teacher introduced me to the fascinating world of colors, and I attended weekly art classes until university. After some low years in art production, I discovered rock painting. I have now been painting almost exclusively on rocks for 10 years. I paint things I find beautiful and believe will introduce beauty in the life of others. Seeing the joy of my customers when they discover my rocks brings me a lot of hope, as they have a glimpse that everything may not be rotten and in our world.
Beauty will save the world.
I paint birds, flowers, landscapes, etc, memorial rocks for deceased pets, from pictures taken by the pet owner, and icons and Orthodox stain-glass style designs.
Beauty will save the world.
God’s saving Beauty was made visible in the flesh: “The Word was made flesh.” John 1:14. We have access to this multi-faceted beauty in our daily contact with the Word in the Scriptures.
I believe we can find and propagate beauty not only through visual arts, but also through The Word and words. I have loved words since I was about 4, when I started reading by myself. Since then, I have grown into a passionate lover of words and books.
It is not only fascinating to read, but also to share with others the beauty I find in books, whether they are fiction or non-fiction works. I started a book blog a year ago, and it has been a deep experience to interact with others on the beauty and depth of words. I entitled my blog Words And Peace, to convey the idea that you can reach some peaceful depth in yourself through reading and sharing, and of course I could not miss the opportunity of introducing a pun, on War And Peace, as you would all have guessed. My blog’s address is: http://wordsandpeace.wordpress.com. The last Orthodox book I reviewed was:
I write a lot every month through my translation work of articles and books, mostly from English to French, and occasionally from French to English. The world of translation is absolutely fascinating. I deeply believe we still need bridges in our global world. The image of the world as a village is still a myth, not exactly yet part of our daily reality: we still need help communicating with each other on our planet, and that is the beautiful role of translators, among others. The more we understand each other, the easier we will be at peace. I believe part of my mission as an Orthodox believer is to be a “beauty and peace maker,” by helping people understand each other.
I believe I contribute to this bridge building also through my online French classes, geared to students of all levels, from total beginners to Ph. D. students and proficient learners who just want to keep up with their French conversation skills.
Beauty will save the world.
More creatively, I have given lots of conferences focused mainly on monastic spirituality, both for Western and Eastern Christians. Some of these conferences I have published as articles. The most relevant to our topic here is my article on Gregory Palamas. Discovering that few Western Christians knew about him, I tried to write an accessible presentation of his life and works. I initially wrote and published it in French, then in English and Spanish. The English version is available in the Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37:3 (2002): 303-333 .
Who better than Gregory Palamas wrote about the beauty and depth of our faith? I discovered Gregory through the mystery of the Transfiguration back in the late 80s, and since then I have striven to propagate this beauty.
And last but not least, I published a book a few years ago focused on light. Early on, I discovered that as much as Eastern Fathers and Mothers, writers pertaining to the Western Christian tradition focused a lot on the topic of light. I decided then to publish an anthology of short spiritual texts related to the theme of light in Cistercian Fathers and Mothers:
Some of our contemporaries may think beauty, whether in art or in words, is something totally irrelevant to our busy and efficient modern world, where the main goal seems sometimes to make money and buy things. Just as we need our daily bread, I believe that more than ever, we need our daily portion of beauty to survive and thrive.
To paraphrase a passage by Nina Sankovitch in her latest book Tolstoy and The Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading (Harper: 2011), I wish for all of us that beauty may become “an escape, not from, but into living.”
_______________________
Note: I am referring to this passage:
“Cyril Connolly, twentieth-century writer and critic, wrote that ‘words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.’ That was how I wanted to use books: as an escape back to life. I wanted to engulf myself in books and come up whole again.” p.20
Emma Cazabonne is a French tutor, an English-French translator, and a rockpainter. She was born in France and has been living in the US for 10 years. After 20 years as a Trappistine nun, she converted to Orthodoxy. With her husband, a clinical counselor combining Orthodox spiritual elements and psychological principles in his practice, she attends a small ROCOR parish in the Chicagoland.
My mother tells me that one of the real benefits that I offered to a weary parent (I was the last of four children) was that if you put me in a room with a pencil and paper, I could amuse myself for hours and could even be heard laughing at what I had created.
I can appreciate what a boon that must’ve been, even though as an adult, I’ve got some reservations (Um, just how long were we leaving little Gracie in a room by herself? Couldn’t we have spent just a little of that time working on her social skills?).
But I can see that the signs were there that I was going to be one of those oddballs that the world sometimes celebrates and sometimes frets over. I was going to be someone who beheld a wonderful world full of airplanes, bumblebees, ice cream, cuckoo clocks and other delights and then felt an irrepressible urge to capture it, futile though that was. My heart would nearly burst with it: How do you draw sunshine? How do you spell the sound a hummingbird’s wings make? What notes sound like a day in October?
And, more importantly, how did everything fit together — what was the Story? What was the point of Life and what were the rules? As you grow, you get some tantalizing clues, and you get to see other people’s answers on the subject. And you encounter the engine of all our guesswork — our culture — and that can be a wonderful and terrible thing in its storytelling. I had no reason to believe that I had any really vital part of the story to relate, but there’s nothing for it, for the ones whose hearts lead them that way. I wanted to re-tell that Great Narrative, or at least as much of it as my life expressed. I still do.
Great expectations
I wish I could say my creative life as an adult was one big happy story, but it’s been rather bittersweet. At the same time that I converted to Orthodoxy and began one of the best times of my spiritual life, I started a series of frustrating attempts to find the creative outlet that would give me work to do that was close to my heart. I appreciate my years as a graphic artist, and I hope that I’ve helped others tell their stories, but it hasn’t helped me tell mine.
About 15 years ago, I got bitten by the bug to create a comic strip. After a couple lukewarm attempts, I got an idea out of the blue that put me on one of those roller coaster rides that every prospective artist and writer knows too well. Initial interest from a major syndicate made me think I was on my way to a life that seemed like a dream come true. But the syndicate dropped me, and after a year of self-syndicating (for the princely sum of $6 a week), I had to admit defeat. I think I still grieve sometimes for what I thought it would lead to, though I can see a lot of reasons why it might have been better in the long run that I failed.
I could skip this unhappy episode, but I think there’s value in expressing the part of being both creatively-inclined and Orthodox that we like the least– that is to say, the reality of wanting what is difficult (arguably impossible) to acquire. Failure is a distinct possibility and success can be very elusive. Struggling makes for a good narrative if victory is assured, but the Church has known its share of sorrows, and each of us has our own to reflect upon as well. I would’ve liked easy success in both my creative and spiritual labors; instead, I have to deal with reality … and I struggle.
Creativity 2.0
Not that I’ve given up on writing and drawing. Blogging doesn’t pay, of course, but it does allow me to work on some skills with words and images. I get some design assignments from time to time that indulge my sense of whimsy (as with a superhero potato character I’m doing right now for a storage facility) (don’t ask). And all the while, my church life has kept me grounded and helped me to break out of the confines of my five senses, my narrow aesthetics and my enslavement to the realms of imagination.
As for my next trick, who knows? I start to wonder if, as Melinda says, I’ll find that the next project is more of a joint endeavor. It would seem to reflect more about who I am now if it was less of a one-woman show and more of a team effort.
I’m interested in a lot more of our popular culture than I used to be, and I see a lot of opportunity for Orthodoxy to find expression there. Cultural offerings have certainly gotten more vulgar and secular in my lifetime, but suddenly the opportunities to create mini-cultures have exploded. I would like to see a flowering of Orthodox themes in self-publication (as Barbara Shukin did), and also in videocasts, CD recordings, graphic novels, computer games–who can say? Technology is increasing the number of people who get to tell a story, and Orthodox have a voice in the Christian narrative that has been sorely lacking. We’re more earthy, but still attached to the sacred. We’re less sentimental, less rationalistic, more scientific and fully invested in the mystery of the Church. I’d love to hear more stories offered from an Orthodox-informed perspective.
But I haven’t won the lottery this week, so I suppose I can’t be a patron of all the change I’d like to see. I’ll have to dust off whatever skills I have and see where I can start.
Where did I leave those crayons? And does anyone have an extra blue one?
Grace Brooks is a freelance graphic artist and cartoonist living in Phoenix, Arizona, with her gracious husband Greg and a coonhound named Clementine. She has a BA in Fine Arts from UC Irvine, and has been a graphic artist for 28 years. She hosts a blog at www.this-side-of-glory.com
Admittedly, when Melinda first contacted me about writing a piece for her blog, I was a little hesitant. After all, I didn’t major in writing. Rather, I went to school for illustration, to learn to bring stories to life via pictures, not words. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I can do this. While a writing degree may not be in my background, the subject matter of this piece is something I am very familiar with–my artwork.
This summer I was fortunate enough to work with Conciliar Press illustrating a new children’s book, written by Kelly Lardin, being released early next year. The book, entitled Josiah and Julia Go to Church: A Young Child’s Guide to Church Etiquette, is a playful story for children teaching them what they should (and shouldn’t) do in church.
Obviously, with the book being set in a church, I needed to draw a church. Rather than create a fictitious one, a concept that came immediately to mind was to depict the church I grew up in, Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church, where I spent many a childhood day. For a number of the images, I drew from memory, having spent many hours over the course of my life studying every visual detail of the church–the pattern of the floor, the pews, the intricate wood carvings decorating the iconostasis, the decorative and very colorful garments worn by the priest and altar boys, the parishioners, the beautiful icons, the different candles burning, and once they were finished, the very large icons adorning almost every wall in the church. These in particular fascinated me as
a child and continue to do so as an adult, with all the detail and care with which they were painted, as well as how each tells a different story. For someone with a passion for anything visual, the church is a feast for the eyes.
The priest in the story is again my priest from childhood, Fr. Daniel Ressetar. Up until the last couple of years when he retired, Fr. Dan was the priest at Christ the Saviour. That is to say, he “officially” retired; if you go on Sunday, you’re very likely to see him helping out with the current priest, Fr. Stephen. Fr. Dan was then, and continues to be, an influential part of my life. Many times when I go home to visit family, I have some news clipping or other compliments of Fr. Dan, be it an article he thought of interest to me, news about Orthodoxy, Church Bulletins, and occasionally, a book that he thought I might like. He was there for many big events in my life, church-related and non-church related alike–my baptism, first communion (and many communions after that), first confession, high school graduation, the release of my first children’s book and subsequent one, and would have attended the most recent if not for a previous engagement. Including him in the story was my way of paying tribute, of saying thank you, to Fr. Dan for everything he has done and continues to do for me.
Over the course of my life, many people have said, “You have a gift from God,” or “You have been truly blessed with artistic talent.” I am very grateful to have this gift and pray that I am able to continue to utilize my talent for a very long time.
Sheena Hisiro has been drawing since she could hold a pencil. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY where she is still drawing and loving every minute of it. Sheena is currently illustrating children’s books, designing greeting cards, and drawing cupcakes.
When Melinda asked me if I would be interested in writing a blog post about writing, I thought, “Well, I am an author, I self-publish my books… Oh! Sure. I’d be glad to contribute.” But then it occurred to me, “Oh, she wants writers: people who ‘write.’ But, I don’t really ‘write.”’
You see, my background is in art. I have a Master’s degree in sculpture, and furthermore, my experience lies along the lines of conceptual art. After all, I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago during the ‘80’s. That’s what we did there and then. I have ideas.I make things. Making art and teaching is what I am “qualified” for. But, regardless, the truth is, over the past 10 years I have found myself doing quite a lot of writing.
What got me into this position, where I needed to express myself this way, is that I had an idea for a series of history notebooks: the History Portfolio books. These are books which the children build by adding written work and images according to the provided outline, and in the end function as a record of their history studies and a keepsake. Part of this original vision included publishing books for Orthodox Christian children as well, and so several years ago, I published a book called Journaling Throughout the Liturgical Year, which is a notebook as well. You see the theme? Making things. The initial idea and the production of the Portfolios didn’t require much writing, just the original vision, tons of research, and artistic decisions. Concepts, researching, making. These were areas I was familiar and comfortable with. But what happened next was that I needed to explain how to use the books, write introductions, web content, etc. And, further down the line, I wrote Teacher’s Guides for each of the books. So, it’s snowballed.
But, “how did I get here” is not what I want to write about today. I want to write about “here I am,” and how to make the best of it. One of the first things that came to mind when gathering my thoughts about this blog post was sharing a couple of revelations I’ve had about “here I am.” About 11 years ago, I became very involved with a consuming project with our church. With the blessing of our Bishop, our group had just purchased a temple which needed to be remodeled. At this time, I had just my two oldest children. Nearly every day from May – September, for some part of the day, we went to work on the church. I remember, one day, sitting in the church in the mess of lumber and dust and half-painted projects, and the letters of St. Theophan the Recluse came to mind. In this book, The Spiritual Life: And How to Be Attuned to It, St. Theophan replies to a young woman’s recent letter.
“What has happened to you? What kinds of questions are these? ‘I do not know what to do with my life. Should I be doing something in particular? Should I define some particular purpose for myself?’ I read this and I was dumbfounded; where could such odd thoughts have come from?” (87)
The chapter continues, and he makes it clear that she is not to waste time on these questions, but to do the work which God has put before her! This resonated with me because at this time I was personally a little conflicted because I had left other projects at home. But I looked around and thought, I did not look for this, I did not choose it, but it was put before me. And, I was so thankful for the work which had been put before me, and thankful that I didn’t have to choose between projects or be the navigator.
Earlier this year, I had another experience which reminds me of the experience I just described. I was listening to the radio, while alone in the car. As a homeschool mom, let me tell you, this occurrence is rare! But, I heard the story of a man involved in some charitable organization, who was working in a faraway land bringing roads and, as I remember, communication capabilities. I thought, “Oh, I’d love to do something like that! It’s so meaningful!” For just a moment or two I contemplated this. But, I quickly turned my mind to something more constructive and thought, “Well, what would I do, if I could?” And, I thought, envisioning a faraway land, “I would like to teach… to work with children… to somehow touch their lives with books, good books…” and as I narrowed it down, I realized… “That’s what I do! I’m doing it! I am living my dream!” It was a very delightful surprise. And, again, I was so thankful for the work which has been put before me.
Sometimes, I clearly have jobs before me, and the work is rich and full of challenges. But, there are plenty of times that I flounder in my work. I recently heard a Russian proverb, “Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore.” In the lull between projects, or in the middle of a project which seems to be feebly coming along, I feel the need to gather some kindling to get the fire going. Back in my art school days, we had a guest visit by a curator of a gallery, and she gave some advice which I think is applicable here. She said, “Everyday, you need to be with your art, working and thinking to some degree. Some days will not be as productive or creative, and on those days you need to at least be in your studio cleaning your brushes or preparing your work space.” With my writing, I may not have the same tools of the trade as a painter or sculptor, but I do find that the more I stay away from my craft, the more distant I feel from it, a chasm opens up, and the less inclined I am to plunge in as soon as an idea strikes me.
To keep moving along, or stoke the fire, it has proven to be a good thing for me to take up small projects which are just above my comfort level. This forces me to keep learning new things. Many of these projects are teaching opportunities, giving me the reason, and deadline, to create new activities along the lines of the Portfolio and the Liturgical Year Journal. Speaking or presenting workshops has been an area which has given me the opportunity to collect my thoughts, and write. Definitely outside my comfort zone, but good for me. Deadlines and accountability can be good. I just take each opportunity as a challenge to develop.
To really keep a good fire burning, I have found that, for me, a good length of time for a big project is about 5 or 6 months. I love to really live in a project for a while, immersing myself as much as I can, and then gaining that sense of completeness when it is done. Once I get some distance on a finished project, I find that if I can look back at my year and know I’ve finished something, it seems to provide a semblance of order, and satisfaction. Of course, completing a project… raising the curtain on the show, presenting myself and my work as if saying “this is the best I can do,” has its own problems. It can be hair-raising at worst, and humbling at best. I have repeatedly watched myself delay the end of a project, not wanting that creative fire to end. Apparently, my thinking was, “It was safe working on this project. I have a job to do, I have a clear direction, I know what I’m doing. And… when this project is over, what am I going to do?! Oh no, I’ll have to come up with something all over again, and it’s going to be messy!”
Mess or not, writing or building, it can’t be helped. It’s what I do. I make things.
Barbara Shukin is an Orthodox Christian mother of five children from ages 21 down to 4, and has homeschooled since the beginning. After receiving her MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she taught for several years at the college level, and was concurrently the director of a college art gallery. She continues to teach through local homeschool co-ops, and by offering art classes for homeschoolers. Barbara is the author and publisher of the History Portfolio Series, the Nature Portfolio, and Journaling Throughout the Liturgical Year, offering a notebooking approach to the study of history, nature study, and the Orthodox faith.
Writers are not like eggs in a carton, each one identical and interchangeable, the same inside and out. They are more like snowflakes in the sky, no two of them the same. We are each one of us very different from the other.
Take for example Melinda, the author of this blog. Reading on her blog about her writing life, she seems to be a Watcher, someone who stares with a child’s wonder at the wide world around her, watching every raised eyebrow, every subtle gesture, every misapplied make-up stroke, and then strives to make artistic sense of it all. (As a child of the sixties, I think she would make a great spy: Melinda Johnson, the Writer from U.N.C.L.E.) I, however, am not as keen an observer of God’s world. I am not so much a Watcher as a Preacher. Don’t get me wrong. I like watching people (with the exception of daytime television). But ever since my conversion to Christ through the Jesus People movement, I have been seized (some would say “afflicted”) with a desire to preach.
Early on in that movement, I learned about the power of God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, and this has left its mark on me. (I could’ve learned it from the Orthodox Church back then too, I suppose, but it kept itself pretty invisible, as if as well as wearing a phelon, each priest also wore Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility.) And being marked by the Holy Scriptures, I needed to keep delving deeper into them. It was like an addiction, except that it led to freedom, not bondage, and I had no desire to recover. I still suffer from the addiction, so that every year at Orthodox Writers Week in Rockaway Beach, Oregon, I drag down there a suitcase full of Bible commentaries and Greek and Hebrew interlinears, and spend the week reading, chewing, pondering, and then putting the results into the margins of my Bible. It means that each evening I have nothing to share with the assembled group, but I have fun, and they are very understanding. Such addictions are not totally fruitless however. Conciliar Press has published ten of my New Testament commentaries so far, the so-called “Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series”. (Note: this is a plug.)
Writing then, for me, is like preaching, except that I use my keyboard, not my voice. (It also means that I can polish it up some, and erase and redo any verbal missteps, which luxury I am not allowed in a homily.) My experience of producing words feels like what is described in Jer. 20:9: “If I say I will not speak any more in His Name, there is in my heart a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in.” For me, reading the Word produces this fire in my bones, and the result has to come forth from my mouth—or my keyboard. The challenge as a writer or preacher is to reproduce in others the same excitement I experience when reading the Scriptures; my goal, to be a clear conduit for the power of the Word. People don’t need to hear from Fr.
Lawrence (they can get their podvigs elsewhere)—they need to hear from God. Like Jeremiah and every preacher throughout the centuries, my task is simply faithful transmission of what I have heard.
It is not automatic, or easy, and sometimes I mess it up, so that people hear more of Fr. Lawrence and less of God than I would like them to. This is where the so-called “creative writing process” comes in. For me, this involves seeking God, usually while taking a long walk. Having absorbed the Scriptures, I start a process of pondering and chewing, a kind of inner groping after what God would have me say, rather like feeling your way in your own home in the middle of the night when the lights are out. When I have found it, that’s when I hit the keyboard.
C.S. Lewis once described the process of writing as being “in book” (i.e., like being in labour), and compared book-writing to childbirth. I appreciate the comparison. Finishing a written piece, or a sermon, brings a certain relief. But the preacher’s addiction to the Word is a strong one, and soon enough I find myself back at it again.
On a recent Saturday morning, I was riding through dusty-brown rural Texas with the priest from a neighboring Orthodox parish; we were on our way to look at a piece of land to see if it might be a good spot for an Orthodox eco-village (it turned out not to be). We shared small bits of news with each other along the way: new members, new catechumens, new visitors. He told me about a young man, an avowed athiest, who had started attending Divine Liturgy intermittently. The reason the young man gave was that he loved the beauty of our prayers.
I was quiet for a moment, captured by the simple and powerful testimony of this man I did not know. I responded, halfway meaning the comment as a prayer, that given our cultural milieu in 21st-century America, perhaps that love of the Liturgy would prove to be somehow salvific. Reflecting on the conversation later, I realized that I was drawing on a few key perspectives to inform my hope:
The content of our prayers in the Eastern Orthodox tradition gives direct insight to our theology; we pray what we believe.
The certainty expressed by Dostoyevsky in his bold statement, “Beauty will save the world.”
St. Seraphim of Sarov’s saying that if we acquire peace, thousands around us will be saved.
I was reminded, too, of a statement given by Met. Kallistos Ware in Sobornost and quoted in Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art: “…an abstract composition by Kandinsky or Van Gogh’s landscape of the cornfield with birds…is a real instance of divine transfiguration, in which we see matter rendered spiritual and entering into the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God.’ This remains true, even when the artist does not personally believe in God. Provided he is an artist of integrity, he is a genuine servant of the glory which he does not recognize, and unknown to himself there is ‘something divine’ about his work. We may rest confident that at the last judgment the angels will produce his works of art as testimony on his behalf.”
A link on Facebook last week led me to read Melinda Johnson’s post “Poets and artists…” at St. Lydia’s Book Club, where I found a similar quote from St. Barsanuphius: “Poets and artists who are satisfied only by the delights experienced through art are like people who arrive at the doors of the Royal Palace, but do not go into the bridal feast, although they are invited to do so.”
I wrote to Melinda, thanking her for the post and inviting her to read a blog post I had written recently about my experience working with a group of university students who were exploring the idea of transcendence in art. That interaction led to Melinda’s invitation for this guest blog.
Before anyone else has the opportunity to do so, I should accuse myself of being a dilettante. I have not given enough time or effort to be considered an artist, though I enjoy photography, painting, and singing. Perhaps the athiest asthete mentioned earlier felt a little like I do in engaging these things: that I might apprehend some truth serendipitously by doing what little I can.
As an adult convert to the Eastern Orthodox faith, I’ve discovered that I want a faith perspective that provides a robust and coherent explanatory framework for my subjective experience. The Orthodox emphasis on the coherence of the faith, of engaging all the senses in experiential worship and understanding that theology is something lived, not just contemplated, underscores for me that the feeling of belonging and completeness I feel when moved by a particularly well-written piece of literature or well-composed piece of art may just be part of the Divine plan.
The genius of art, I think, is that it distills a particular person’s perspective and renders it in language accessible to and resonant with others. Following Met. Kallistos and St. Barnasuphius, when this art points toward the source of all beauty it becomes a vector for grace. I think this is true for secular art in the same way (though perhaps not in the same intensity) as it is for icons of Christ and the Saints. These icons which intentionally represent a spiritual and physical reality simultaneously give us some insight to all of our sacraments by demonstrating “matter rendered spiritual.” In this sense, we who have the privilege of worshipping in the Eastern Orthodox tradition are not only surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses when we sing the Divine Liturgy, we are also immersed in a spiritual treasure trove.
I wonder if I don’t sometimes become so habituated to the beauty of Christian worship that I fail to see the treasure in front of me. I read a story recently about the discovery of a $22 billion treasure in a temple vault in India. There are 500 million people living in poverty in India, many of them passing right by this temple, or even adding to the treasure through their offerings. There is some talk of accounting for the treasure, but no apparent plans to use it to alleviate the poverty outside the walls of the temple. Clearly, proximity is not enough for treasure to have an affect. Likewise, the treasure of our faith will not enliven me through osmosis. Every Sunday I have the opportunity (and the obligation) to approach the chalice with fear and trembling, having prepared myself for the most mind-boggling of all transcendent events: the soul-quickening, evil-vanquishing, illuminating, healing, sanctifying entrance of the body and blood of Christ into my person. And I fail, every time.
Christ told Martha, “One thing is needful.” If I took this to heart I would arrange my whole life around this weekly judgment. I would live a coherently Christian faith. I would order my thoughts, my actions, my interactions with others so that I would prepare prayerfully and fully, instead of distractedly and in haste. God, in His grace, grants me to grow a little in this manner every week, every month, every year. The Church is not only a spiritual hospital, it is also a school of repentance. I am learning how to want and need that one thing: communion with God.
I determined last year that I have been working in education too long when I decided I needed learning objectives for parenting my two boys, now aged four and two. I decided that I would feel successful as a parent if they learned to love, to trust, and to wonder. The first, love, seems to me to be the groundwork for all of Christian living: seeing and loving Christ in the face of every person we see. Trust is an exercise of faith: trusting that God will bless that love with a protecting hand. The last, wonder, is an act of living gratitude: as the Psalmist says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” In this endeavor, I am hoping to establish for my whole family a coherence between the life we live and the faith we profess, despite the daily distractions of television, toys, and video games.
I am an early-adopter of technology and I fear that my boys will have to struggle past their genetics in this respect. I am fond of Arthur C. Clarke’s statement that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” However wonderful technology might be, though, I hope that my children are more often in awe of their direct experience of God’s creation. I hope, too, that they will find ways to share that wonder by developing talents to distill their experience through a lens, or a paintbrush, or a pen and let the love, trust, and wonder they cultivate in church permeate their whole lives.
Jonathan Kotinek is a convert to Orthodoxy, father of two, and constantly in awe of his veterinarian wife. An educator, amateur artist, and writer who likes to ponder the intersection of faith, social issues, and education, Jonathan blogs occasionally at http://jkotinek.blogspot.com.
Years ago, as a teenager, I became disillusioned with the Orthodox Church and decided to stop attending. When certain events led me back to the church as a young mother, I was hungry to learn more about the faith I took for granted. I devoured as many books as I could find. One of them was Father Arseny.
Part of the reason I left the Church was because I couldn’t find that personal connection of what Orthodoxy meant to me. I wanted to do more than just show up on Sunday and go through the motions. I needed something more, and somehow I just wasn’t finding it.
When I came back to the Church, Father Arseny was a comfort to me. Added to the icons and the hymns and sacraments of the Church, the book gave me a sense of the life and sufferings and amazing selflessness of a not-yet-canonized saint. I read in awe about a highly educated man who became a priest and was imprisoned in the Russian labor camps during the Communist regime under Stalin. Somehow, Father Arseny managed to stay alive by the grace of God while dodging starvation, bitter cold temperatures, regular beatings, and an inhuman workload designed to kill prisoners. In the midst of all this, he often gave up his food rations to other prisoners, cared for the sick, and never stopped praying and glorifying God.
Crossing myself openly in church, or anywhere for that matter, took on new meaning. Kissing the icons hanging throughout my house brought me a new sense of gratitude. I didn’t have to worry about Communist prison guards beating me, or about being turned in by someone who I thought was a friend. Instead of skimming a collection of short paragraphs on saints, I was reading about real-life accounts of an amazing man who turned to God under the worst circumstances, and blessed and touched countless other lives. Suddenly, I felt so much more aware of how blessed I was to pray and live freely as an Orthodox Christian in this country.
Reading Father Arseny was a part of my journey back to Orthodoxy. It made everything so much more meaningful for me. Recently, though it had been many years since I had read it, I found myself referring to it often when talking with my children about spiritual miracles. One day, I picked it up off the shelf and started reading it to my thirteen-year-old daughter. Soon, the stories started coming back to me. The hardship, the struggles, and the amazing Christ-like love that Father Arseny shared with so many.
Now, when I go upstairs to kiss my daughter goodnight, she gives me that familiar inquisitive look and asks, “Father Arseny?” which means she wants to read another chapter. And so I read one chapter, and then I find myself turning to the next page and saying, “OK, just one more chapter.”
Christy Pessemier is an award-winning freelance writer who has written numerous articles for South Sound Home | Garden | Life magazine. She also worked as a reporter for the Eatonville Dispatch Newspaper, and continues to work as a copywriter for local businesses as well as 425 Magazine. Christy lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, two daughters, and their Beagle-Basset, Scout.
