This started out as just a "paint over", but I decided to sit with "She's Been Here" for a while and let her talk to me. What an experience! I painted the "self portrait" almost a year ago, to the date--didn't realize that until I sat to write. It was during a very hard personal time for time--a time of disappointment and "death" (death of a family, a dream, an idea). It was good therapy painting it, and today was good therapy letting it go--painting "rich black soil" over the seeds and now waiting for something new to come. I feel clean, freshly scrubbed, and very rich. Something new is coming forth. For all of us involved in the 'before' picture. I feel it. I know it. I can hear Spirit saying, "Behold, I make all things new!"

One last word on Hildegard...

On Saturday, March 6, 13 women gathered in St. Timothy’s Parish Hall, to learn a little about the life of Hildegard of Bingen. One of the projects of the day was a community “paint-by-number” rendition of Hildegard’s vision of Ecclesia, Mother Church. We decided to paint her more like Hildegard’s vision, with her multi-colored skirt and purple cumberband. In our rendition of the vision, she holds the women who came together that day. Here we are, being held in the heart of Mother Church.


ECCLESIA, MOTHER CHURCH, as Hildegard saw her,was presented to Hildegard as “the bride, a queen clothed in many colors, each hue representing a different order within the Church. Ecclesia’s head gleams with a snowy, crystalline whiteness, (the priesthood); her bosom glows like the dawn (virginity), her waist is girded with royal purple (monasticism); and…she shines like a brilliant cloud (marriage). To illustrate the vision, the Rupertsberg artist departed more than usual from the text, but still represented Hildegard’s vision clearly…From her virginal breasts flames of love surge up to the heavens…she…stands with outstretched arms to welcome all who come to her.” (from Sister of Wisdom, by Barbara Newman)

I had so much fun preparing this day of prayer. I'm currently reading Matthew Fox's Creativity, Where the Divine and the Human Meet. He's a prolific writer and he comments in this book, "Peolple ask me: 'Why do you write so much? Are you addicted to seeing your name in print?' Hardly. I write because I am driven to know, and writing for me is a wonderful way to learn. I also write because the discipline it takes is good for my mind; it keeps it in shape and youthful and alive. I believe in exercising the virtue of curiosity. I write because of the joy involved in giving birth. Writing and the reading and study that accompany it are joyful experiences for me. The Spirit comes to me when I write and learn."

That's how I felt preparing for this day of prayer, as well as preparing for the Mandala Saturday Art Special. I loved the preparation time as much as the actual teaching time. I learned so much, and I felt Spirit's nearness as I listened and read and painted and learned myself. I love learning, and teaching someone else is a wonderful way to make sure the learning process continues!

COMMUNITY

They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet...a sabbath's journey away. Acts 1:9...

They returned, together...they moved as a single unit from Olivet, the place of pressing the olives to get the oil. Olivet wss only mentioned twice in the Hebrew Scriptures, and both times it was mentioned in the context of defeat and destruction. In the Gospels, it's mentioned in the context of Jesus's own pressing as well as his words to his small community about their own future pressing.

The picture I have this morning is of those early believers moving as a single unit from the place of pressing, defeat, and seeming destruction to Jerusalem. In my studies this morning, I discovered that "salem" means "to lay a foundation". Wikipedia defines Jerusalem as "disambuiguation". That's interesting...ambigous means vague, unclear, cloudy, obsurec, indefinite...so I suppose DISambuation means to make clear, definite, from an unsteady, unsure place, to a place of secure and steady foundation, a place of peace.

This small band of fearful, shaken, pressed human beings moved as a single unit to a place of peace, with a sure foundation. That takes time. It takes a history together, intimacy. It implies suffering together and becoming whole together.

And if one doesn't get there, no one does.

I've been made so aware of community over the past few months. For a long time, most of my life it seems, it was about Jesus and me, but for a while now, I've become more and more aware of my personal communities. This morning I drew my concentric circles again: Jim, Mother and me at the center, my Lilies community, my TAEHS ladies, my 3rd Act community, and my larger community of St. Timothy's.

Yesterday I read a friend's blog on community, and was impressed by her thoughts of community being about connection and intimacy. Both of those take time and sharing of each others life and space, of each others aches and pains, of those "pressing" times, the times spent in the blacksmith's fire being shaped and molded. Connection anbd intimacy don't happen overnight, except by grace.

Mostly this is a jumble of thoughts...but my mind keeps rolling these thoughts around and around, including a video called Trading Schools.

Somehow, we walk together even in our larger human commnity--either we all get there, or none of us get there. Either we all reach Jerusalem, or none of us do. That's how "single" we really are. We may look like individuals, but we were created for community. A single cell doesn't make a body that functions well. We are part of a greater whole. Our concern isn't just for ourselves, but for the whole.

So, what's my part? I don't know, except to pray even as Jesus prayed, that we might all become AWARE of our "oneness". We ARE one...we just don't know it yet. If we did, we would care for the Earth, our home. The disparity in health care, education, daily living provisions--that would really matter to us if we only could relize our "oneness". It would matter to us that "those people over there" have the same privileges I have over here. We would finally get it that we are part of a single unit, and I won't make it without you. You won't make it without me. Our children won't make it without us, nor we without them. The world has gotten so much smaller. The circles keep expanding to include...