Why I Practice Shutdown Sundays

Most Sundays, a tumbleweed blows through my digital life. The Bleeding Heart twitter feed is eerily silent. My Facebook page gathers cobwebs. My email goes (the audacity!) unanswered. 

It’s not because I’m lazy. 

On Sundays, I unplug. And it is good for me.

I don’t unplug because someone told me to. I unplug because my soul is crying out for rest and a slowing down. I unplug, for just one day a week, because I can.

You see, most days, like so many of you, I spend many of my precious moments scrolling through feeds of messages and tweets and photos. Keeping in touch with personal and public news. Painting a pretty picture of myself across the digital canvas. Pixel by pixel, I exert my existence online. 

But, unlike the mere act of breathing that keeps me connected to the real world, this digital breathing takes intention. It takes upkeep. The digital me is constantly selective and ridiculously self-aware.

When I am 'being myself' online, I am not really myself. I am some other, constructed self. And that takes work.

The cycle of propping up my digital persona for the world to see is exhausting friends.

There are benefits to social media, don’t get me wrong. I have made and maintained relationships digitally that would have disappeared any other way. I have discovered great restaurants and festivals. I have heard it through the grape vine. But good as connectivity can be, it is tiring.

Soul-tiring.

I am a firm believer in peak soul.

You’ve heard of peak oil? As I understand it, Peak Oil is a tipping point where we begin to use more oil than we can possibly replace. We begin to deplete our resources, perhaps irrevocably. We begin to be in real trouble. Some say this is a future event. Some say it has already happened.

What if our souls have a peak? What if our bodies can bear more than our souls? 

We know that sometimes, in intense circumstances, it is the spirit that breaks first. Think sensory deprivation or solitary confinement. Think the dark depths of total nihilism. Think loneliness and depression. Think fear. Our bodies may have years left, but our spirits can only stretch so thin. Then they hit peak soul. Then they snap.

"That's how thresholds work:”, writes Bill McKibben in his prophetic book, Enough, "up to a certain point something is good, and past that point there's trouble. One beer is good; two beers may be better; eight beers you're almost certainly going to regret. If you drive your car at 55 miles per hour, you'll get where you're going faster than if you drive it at 20 miles per hour–but if you drive it at 155 miles per hour, odds are you're going to die in a ditch."

What if our bodies–even our brains–can continue to go faster and farther, but we outstrip our souls with speed and distance? What if the constant push for more is simply more than a spirit can bear.

And in a world that is sort of doubtful about souls in the first place, how will we ever notice until it is too late.

Hear my barbaric YOP! 

Before you strap a smart watch to your wrist or see the world through Google-coloured glasses, consider the still and silent soul.

Because we can do more, we assume we should. But should we? Ever and all ways?

And if we think we’ve had enough, how do we turn back the tide? How do we subvert the system, one small choice at a time?

There is one choice that predates social media by millennia. It is Rest. It is Sabbath.

It’s an old story–the very start of the Biblical narrative. God takes a rest after six long days of making every thing. The seventh day, God rests.  

Remember the Sabbath day, we are told. Perhaps we are warned. Perhaps the Maker of our souls knows their edges. Perhaps he knows we are able to handle many fewer relationships than our friend feed can hold. 

This day of rest is one of the 10 Commandments. It is important.

Less and less of us are taking days off, it seems.

I was just in a conversation about overtime being the rule, and not the exception. Workers with two jobs are complaining if they don’t get overtime shifts.  Less of who do take breaks are taking time away from technology. We are mistaking social media as a salve for our weary souls. 

Less of us are taking time to unplug from the virtual landscape and enjoy the landscapes of this Good Earth–time to plug into the touch and feel world of face to face relationships.

When was the last time you sat in silence for more than 5 minutes? 

The answer gets more disturbing when you realize what so often rises up from that quiet and calm inner well. Peace. Courage. Creativity. Vision. Resolve. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Love.

Are these not the very things your soul longs for? They are my own hopes. They are seldom delivered to me by technology.

What is a Shutdown Sunday?

For me, a Shutdown Sunday means I don’t check Twitter, or Facebook, or email. Usually, I don't play video games. Sometimes I don't watch movies or TV.  I will break the email rule of I am expecting something urgent, or have to get in touch with someone right away.

It is hard not to check social media when that red dot displays the number of people with new content for me to devour. I will likely start turning notifications off on Sundays, too.

The exact day is not important. But taking a day, regularly, is.

It is a little push back. A little way to keep in check. A little space to breathe.

I try and notice what changes when I practice this discipline. 

Yesterday, I read a rich book. I organized my mess of Evernote tags. I stained a picnic table. I visited with my mom. I didn’t rush away from church. I didn’t stay up too late. I worked out. I cleaned the house. I watched the K-Day’s Fireworks with my wife. Each one of these things delivered goodness to me that I do not find in technology.

What is Your Own Cyber-Sabbath?

Where does technology snatch up your time? Is it Facebook? Video games? TV? Netflix? 

How is your inner well these days? Are you near peak soul?

Are you full, or empty? Are you growing, or shrinking? Is your soul getting enough green, leafy vegetables?

I am challenging you to disconnect once a week.

The challenge has 3 parts.

1. Turn off for a day. Just 1 day. Every week. 
2. Take 10 minutes to sit in silence on that day. In the morning before the kids wake up. In the evening after everyone is asleep. On a walk to the grocery store. On a drive across town. 
3. Tell me what happens. Comment here. Email me at dave@bleedingheartartspace.com. Tweet, facebook, etc. Hashtag #ShutdownSunday. Just not on your day :)

Now, ssshhhhhh.

Listen close.

I think I hear something.

What could it be?







 

Belonging with Others: Dan Lowe’s Story of Life Done Together

The following is a guest post from Dan Lowe. Want to write for the blog? Send me an email.

“Everyone has a thirst to belong.”

I have always had a desire to belong. I grew up in an upper middle class family in the southern U.S. I attended a primarily white, conservative United Methodist Church where I actively participated in the youth group and other church activities; I was in the high school marching band and participated in the high school poetry club. In university, I participated in various college civic and religious groups, was part of a group of friends and went to numerous parties, yet I rarely felt as though I belonged in any of these settings.

In the Fall of 2004, I moved to Kentucky to attend seminary. During my first year, I wandered, trying to fit broken pieces of my self into some kind of recognizable whole. I’d spent the previous three years giving out parts of myself trying to figure out, with little to no success, where I belonged. I was lost and fractured, and having moved away from everything I knew, rootless.

Finding Communality

During my second year of seminary, I befriended some people from a faith community called Communality. They were a group of people experimenting with what it meant to follow Jesus in the ordinariness of life. Yet, what they were doing and how they were doing life together seemed far from ordinary to me. 

Many of the people in this group of about 50 had chosen to relocate from their comfortable homes in the suburbs of Wilmore and Lexington, KY to the inner city of Lexington. They made a determined effort to live the values, convictions, and faith life of Christianity in the ordinary spaces of a 24 hour 7 day week. 

It was in this community that I found belonging and learned what it meant to both belong and extend belonging. After participating with my friends in Communality for a year, I was invited to co-manage a live-in halfway house for the chronically homeless and narcotics addicts. I lived with three other men. Mark, my roommate, friend, and co-manager; Leo, my 53 year old friend who was a recovering alcoholic struggling with chronic homelessness; and Jason, a 19 year old recovering narcotics addict. The house existed to provide structure for both Leo and Jason as part of their recovery program. The philosophy in the house, though, was that we all struggled with brokenness and fragmentation in some way, and that we needed each other and our friends in our neighborhood and in our faith community in order to both find and experience more of what it mean to be fully human.

I lived in the house for a year. During that year, I learned about belonging. 

Becoming Vulnerable

I learned that belonging requires vulnerability. That healing from whatever breaks us in life requires a risk to (re)open our wounds to trusted others who have, themselves, experienced healing. Growing up, my dad was, more or less, an emotionally absent alcoholic (he has now experienced 5 years of wholeness in his own life), but it took many nights sitting with Leo on our front porch, listening to his stories and allowing them to reopen my wounds, to begin to understand my dad. And Leo experienced wholeness through having roommates and by watching and learning how to follow the daily, structured routine of living in a home, of bathing regularly, of cleaning his room, and of coming home at a set curfew. Lessons not easily learned by a 53 year old man accustomed to living on the streets.

Remaining Faithful

I also learned that belonging requires faithfulness. Faithfulness is a complex practice. I learned this by submitting to a schedule that existed as a rule of life for our house. A rule that required faithfulness if we hoped for our struggling friends to find life and healing. This was not always easy, as I had classes twenty miles away as well as a girlfriend in a different town and numerous friends with whom I was in relationship. 

One of the most important things that I learned about faithfulness in this rhythm of our rule of life and my own life is that is that in order to be faithful to relationships with others, I had to be faithful to my own needs. 

Sometimes, in order to be faithful to my relationships with Mark, Leo, and Jason, I had to practice leaving. Getting away from the tensions, arguments, and anger that come with living with other human beings. But I also had to learn to leave the places of refuge and refreshing in order to offer myself again to those men to whom I had committed my life for a season.

I also learned the importance of celebration and the difficult, though necessary, practice of mourning. 

Celebrating Together

During the year, we developed a practice of celebrating sobriety. For Leo, this included celebrating 3, 6, and 9 months of living in a house (though there were a few nights when he chose to sleep on the streets because life just got too difficult). For Jason, it meant celebrating 3 and 6 months of sobriety. These were the easy celebrations because they were the most obvious. Lots of friends from the neighborhood and Communality would come to the house, and we would grill hamburgers, eat cake, and celebrate life lived a little more complete. There were also smaller, less obvious celebrations for those stories that required a little more vulnerability and risk, and these were often marked by tears and loving embraces. 

Mourning Together

And I learned the importance of mourning. In human relationships, people sometimes leave. Sometimes vulnerability and risk are too much on which to follow through. Sometimes someone finds that giving and receiving in the process of belonging requires too much. And often, this is experienced as loss.

Jason never made it through the program. He began relapsing, then manipulating, a little after 6 months of sobriety. We had several sit down meetings with him to try and put together a relapse prevention plan, but in the end he left the house. And those of us who were left experienced loss to some degree or another. In his leaving and the experience of loss, I learned that belonging requires learning how to mourn well because sometimes belonging includes letting go. 

Belonging is not ownership; we do not belong to each other. We belong with each other. And sometimes people choose to no longer belong with other people.

When Jason left, I felt a myriad of emotions. 

Mourning was not the first. Anger, sadness, relief, happiness, betrayal, worry, manipulation, failure, anger again. In order to process through these emotions, my closest friend and mentor, Billy Kenney, one of the founding members of Communality, walked with me through it all and taught me that I had to, as a way of letting go, mourn the loss. And through Jason’s leaving, through the community’s loss, I learned the importance of mourning as a practice of letting go. 

The Thirst to Belong

“In every human being there is such a thirst for communion with another, a cry to be loved and understood – not judged or condemned; there is a yearning to be called as special and unique” (Vanier, 1989). 

Everyone has a thirst to belong. I would go so far as to say that everyone needs to belong. Yet, to belong in such a way that one’s thirst begins to be quenched is not easy; often it is not even simple. 

I have learned that this journey toward wholeness, in belonging, marked by characteristics such as vulnerability, faithfulness, celebration and mourning is worth the risks required to drink deeply with communities who have learned how to offer a taste of life-giving water. 

All That Mother Means

I wanted to share something special for Mother's Day, but also to honour Sabbath and not embark on the toil of creation. It turns out, thanks to the toil of Stephen Berg, I can have it both ways.

Thank you for your excellent-as-always musings, Steve.

http://growmercy.org/2014/05/10/take-the-word-mother/#sthash.tardfdA1.dpbs

For a Minute There I Lost Myself

It is Friday and on self-imposed deadline I am faced with writing yet another blog post. I am to share the things that have inspired me – the treasures I have collected over a week of wandering the web. But this afternoon, alone and cold at my table I do not feel inspired. I do not feel the clarity of mind this task requires. I feel swamped. I feel exhausted. I feel that all I have found this week on the information super-highway are dust and dead ends. I feel overwhelmed by the noise.

Somewhere, in all of this hustle and bustle and muscle, I have lost my self.

So I leave the computer. I step away to clear some dishes and fold two basket-fulls of laundry. I don’t turn on the radio. I think and I pray and I try to hear. I try to clear. I realize that, this Friday, what I really need to find is my self.

I realize that I have fallen prey to that trick of self-importance – I have made myself the sum of what I make. My work has begun to define me. I have begun, again, to forget my true identity. I forgotten, again, to simply be a child of God, and not his worker-bee. He needs nothing from me, after all.

As a creative person, hungry for validation from others – hungry to know I am not alone – it is easy to lose myself in the worst of ways. It is easy to build a false self based on what I am able to accomplish. It is easy to climb a ladder and teeter more dangerously the higher I rise. This afternoon I needed to climb back down to the ground.

And from the ground, I was able to take stock, to reboot, and to find something of value to share here after all.

There are many ways I find my self in these moments. I'd love to share some, and I’d love to hear what works for you.

Here are some ‘finds’ that are helping me find myself today.

The Unspoken:
New Works from Marcie Rohr

Local artist Marcie Rohr’s new paintings take us to imaginary landscapes, and ask us to imagine our own idealized places. As I was wondering where exactly I was this afternoon, Marcie’s paintings became a ‘word in season’ for me – the right thing at the right time. Looking at these images I began to calm and collect and find myself again.

http://www.papercastle.ca/#/47/1

What Would Jesus Say to Artists?:
A Talk from the Grove Centre for Arts and Media

The first implication of this talk is that Jesus does indeed speak to artists – and every type of person – today. For some people this is taken for granted. For others, this is a revolutionary thought that begets a life of listening. I listened to this webcast a couple of weeks ago and was reminded of some good, solid truths about who I am as a child of God. I am loved, first of all. And I am enough. There’s more to this talk, but if you can grasp those things, you’ll be doing well.

http://thegrovecenter.org/what-would-jesus-say-to-artists-today/

The Passion Myth:
Why You May Not Find Yourself By Simply Doing What You Love

This video from 99u.com gave me pause this week. We are often told to follow our dreams and our passions. And that’s all well and good if (a) you know what those are and (b) they happen to be things you are exceptional at. But an awful lot of us will need to do ‘regular jobs’ like accounting or plumbing or graphic design if we want society to succeed. Flying in the face of the American Dream, Cal Newport tells us here that we may find ourself not at the end of chasing our dreams, but on the other side of disciplined effort. Even if you don’t agree, it’s worth a watch.

Where Am I?:
A Poem In the Works

I often process my inner-workings by creating art. Today, it came out as a poem. And then I worked that poem. It’s not yet perfect, but good enough, I think, to share with you today. If nothing I’ve said yet about finding myself has made sense today, perhaps it’s because I should have said it this way all along …

Where am I?
Hacking through a thicket of noise
to reach some clearing within myself
I am lost in a jangled jungle of thoughts

Where am I?
Tossed about in the Facebook maelstrom
Drenched in the hurricane of information
so that I know everything except my self

in the dense and tangled branches of our apple tree
there were birds
just yesterday
redeeming rotten fruit with their pecking
but today the tree is barren
and the apples sag and stink
alone

Where am I?
Having just had coffee with a friend
While we spun dreams like silver webs
across the empty future spaces

Where am I?
Back home and waking to the work of it
the webs don’t spin themselves
and the spaces are so vast and fearsome

In the sink the dirty dishes spill over
as the laundry lies across the floor, unfolded
and there is company
coming tonight
and all of it must be attended to
and all of it calls for my attention,
‘here'!

Where am I?
Inside this body, hands cracked from winter cold
with a growling stomach
In an itching sweater, I am waiting to be found

Where am I?
Only you would know
Can you whisper in my ear?

So, how do you find yourself when you get lost?

Are You a Consumer, Critic or Creator?

‘Criticize by creating’ - Michelangelo

My kids attend an arts core school. This means the arts are woven into all of their learning. It also means they are exposed to a lot of great work.

My kids know far more than I do about art history. My son has told me many stories about Chagal and Van Gogh. As they learn about these artists, they move beyond looking at and talking about their work. They actually create art in response to it.

The instruction, ‘paint like Van Gogh’ is not daunting to elementary school kids. It is liberating. The walls of my back stairwell are a testament to the creativity great works of art can inspire. There have been works in the style of Mondrian and Joan Mirò and Picasso and many others. Just looking at our ‘gallery' this morning I am reminded of the generative power of art.

Great art does something. It leads to action, and often to more great art. It makes our world a bigger, more beautiful place.

Moving us beyond feeling, art can lead us toward three actions. In response to a work of creation, we can consume, we can criticize or we can create something ourselves.

What does a work of art do to you? How do you respond to worthy work?

Are you a consumer? Are you a critic? Are you a creator?

Which response excites you most? Which word elicits a little leap from your soul? Which response will lead us to a better world?

A World of Consumers

Consumption is not a wrong response to art. There are times when we just need to ‘veg’ – to relax and laugh or cry or feel inspired. But consumption tends to leave us where we started, rather than lift us up and out. Consumption of art and media is okay, and perhaps the necessary entry point, but it is not generative. It does not make the world a greater place.

In a consumer culture, the creative impulse must be shaken awake. With our art, as with everything else, we have all too often become mere consumers.

Think of your plans for this evening. Errands done and kids in bed, will you consume, or create? Most of us are happy to be fed the creativity of others, plunked down in front of our TVs. But there was a time, I am told, when we would gather around the family piano and sing the evening away. It’s hard to imagine a time or place where creativity was as prevalent as consumption.

My wife and I are attempting to add an art making night to our rotation of evening activities. It is hard, and has not become a habit yet. Like anything worthwhile, there seems to be an invisible wall of resistance to scale. But the few nights we have sat across the table from each other, working away on our own little projects, have felt so good. Creation does some deeper work in us that consumption cannot reach.

Reading good books could be seen as mere consumption, but I don’t think so. I think the very magic of books is their ability to awaken our own image-making powers and invite our minds to fill in the details. Books calls us into creation as we read. This is why reading a book is less rewarding after seeing the movie. My Frodo is now Peter Jackson’s Frodo. My Aslan now sounds like Liam Neeson.

Of course, any work in any media can lead us to an imaginative space, but the more we are handed, the less spacious the work becomes. The less room we have to create ourselves. To move from consumers to creators takes an act of will.

Unfortunately, we all too often turn our will in another direction, towards finding faults. Everyone is a critic.

A World of Critics

Just like consumption, criticism is far from evil. It is necessary. Critique has its place. It helps others enter into an artwork and at its best it helps artists become stronger.

Excellent criticism is itself creative work, but all too often our criticisms degenerate into shallow and cynical attacks. A quick skim of YouTube video comments will reveal the worst of these. I find little value there.

Michaelango famously invited us to, ‘criticize by creating'. How I would love to see that advice followed.

You do not like the art? Create a better alternative.

You do not like the world? Create a better alternative.

The Bleeding Heart Art Space is not a refuge for cynics and the disenfranchised. At least not a place where we can stay in those shadows safely. This Space is for hope, and hope births the creation of the New. We are not content to pick at what is wrong with everyone else. We are those who create, and risk our hearts in the process.

There are many who can see the problems. There are few who can offer solutions.

A World of Creators

The third response, to create something new, is most exciting to me. It is the only generative response. It is the response that enlarges our world.

create-in-response-2

The Bleeding Heart Manifesto encourages us to ‘create in response to creation’. There is a recognition here that our greatest works are only a ripple from the deep-end-cannonball of God’s creation. To create is to be 'made in the image of God’.

This creative impulse is my favourite reaction to art. I get so inspired by the artist’s gift that I immediately want to create something. My own gift is fanned into flame. As author Lewis Hyde puts it, the gift keeps moving.

As a songwriter, this happens with great music. When I was fifteen, Hayden’s Everything I Long For drove me to record hours of music on a tape-deck four-track recorder in my bedroom, especially when I found out that Hayden recorded that album in a similar way. Last year, when I heard the song Lost In the Light by Bahamas, I finally broke down and bought a Danelectro guitar. I just had to make that sound. Watching the guitar documentary This Might Get Loud, I actually had to stop three quarters through to go and plug my amplifier in and make some noise. My consumption was actually interrupted by creativity. Some impulse was rising up in me – some primal dance to the beat of a great work. Toes tapping, I had to respond.

I may well feel this way at the Royal Bison Craft & Art Fair this weekend, where local creatives are experimenting. Some piece will set off sparks for my own experimentation when I get home. Last time this happened I ended up buying a screen printing kit. Perhaps great art is dangerous for my wallet.

Great creations are hospitable. They do not put up walls to remind us how inferior we are to their makers. They invite us in to play.

There is something in creativity that takes us back to the deep childhood well of possibility. There was a time we would see something great and think to ourselves, however foolishly, “I can do that!” Now, most times, we don’t even have the luxury of squashing those thoughts under the weight of fear and disillusionment. They simply do not come to mind.

But sometimes, when I see a painting or hear a song or read a poem, I still believe in myself. I find permission somewhere to go and make something new.

Creation itself works this way. Genesis tells of a Creator so potent that light and life dripped from his tongue. He simply spoke and the world could not help but explode into being. He speaks still, I believe. And soon in that speaking He invites us to speak as well–to harmonize with his creation melody. To name the animals.

The creative spirit is contagious. It is generous. It begets and begets. A stranger to scarcity, creativity is abundant.

But creativity is hard. Creativity is incredibly vulnerable. It leaves us open to our consumers and our critics. Criticism and consumption are the easier responses. They are most certainly safer.

In a world where problems and faults are clear, my prayer is for creative solutions. My prayer is for a new world – a 'Kingdom come’ of faith, hope and love.

The Creator is singing that new world into being. Let us move beyond mere consumption and criticism to take our rightful place as co-creators.

Let us make something new!

Thinking Back on #JusticeYEG: The Gallery

A call for submissions is always a terrifying leap into the unknown. Especially when the deadline fast approaches. Especially when the theme is difficult or narrow. How would artists respond to issues of justice – especially local justice. What type of work would emerge? Would it be strong work? Would submissions function well as art, inviting us into a hospitable conversation and wrestling, or would they be too didactic and ‘preachy’? With #JusticeYEG: The Gallery I felt afraid for all of those reasons, plus the fact that we, Bleeding Heart Art Space, were pairing up with a brand new event, #JusticeYEG, and we could predict little about who would attend and how it would all turn out.

My fears, as usual, were a waste of energy. #JusticeYEG: The Gallery brought together excellent work from 8 artists. Thanks to the Bleeding Heart Arts Lead, Grace Law, the show was a stellar success. Special walls were brought in to hang the work, and three musicians (Darren Day, Venessa B and Passburg) provided ambiance for our Friday night opening. With well over a hundred conference attendees, the Gallery got a good viewing. In the future, I’d love to see the Gallery space open to the public, so that even more people can experience the work. We’ll see what we can do.

Before I get to the work itself, I have to mention this one little thing, because it makes me giddy. We had real-deal vinyl letters for our Gallery signage! This was a first for The Bleeding Heart, and it made me feel all grown up. It's amazing how little things make a big difference. Thanks again to Grace Law for arranging this – it added an extra level of professionalism to already great work.

Now, about that work.

As you entered the gallery, you were greeted by black and white portraits of Edmonton’s homeless community. These were taken by Pieter de Vos, over a 10 year period in the mid 90’s to mid-2000’s. As photographs, they are excellent pieces. As storytelling, they make strong connections to our own lives. It is obvious de Vos got to know his subjects and was able to present them not as some stereotype of ’street people’, but as people with human, touching stories. No sentimentality here, just instants pulled from lifetimes of lived story, stirring curiosity about who these people were, and are, and how we may be like them.

Next was another series of photographs, these part of a larger project called Life Squared that we will be working with next spring. Life Squared pairs seven local photographers with seven parolees, trying to reintegrate into society after a prison sentence. In #JusticeYEG we focussed in on one of these parolees, with beautiful photographs showing that his life is much more than his past. The show can be seen in a special preview this weekend at the Red Ribbon Building. There will also be a discussion panel featuring some of the participants. More info can be found at lifesquared.ca.

On the next wall we encountered another story. Leonard (Lenoose) Martial lived on the street for three decades, and documented life on Edmonton’s streets through a series of photos and short writings. Each pairing of image and text lets us enter that world in a personal, candid way. For our gallery, we had to narrow many pieces down to just nine. An image of a cat emerging from a door sticks out in my mind. In the text, Lenoose reflects how that cat gave him something – someone – to care for. We get the sense that caring for someone else was part of his healing and eventual exit from street life. It’s a powerful image and powerful thought that transcends the street and makes a home in our own lives. You can read a photo-essay from Alberta Views on Lenoose’s work here, on the Boyle Street Community Services website.

Paintings followed the photographs, the first being a painting of the oil sands, in aerial view, by Julie Drew. Next to that was a photograph of multiple crosses by Andrew Bolton, layered dark and deep, washed in the black-earth tones of crude oil. It was interesting to watch these two images speak to one another in the space.

On the next panel was a massive painting of a homeless person, ‘harvesting’ bottles, by Michael Brown. Paired with that image was another painting by Julie Drew, much smaller, of a literal harvest of wheat. A subtext, about our role in harvesting a new kingdom filled with justice, built strong connection between the paintings.

Outside the walls remained two sculptural pieces. At the back was a colourful character, called ’The Wanderer' by Richard ‘Rico’ Reyes, hanging near the wall. This piece offered another reflection on homelessness and its restlessness. At the front was a massive podium by Adam Tenove. Atop a platform covered in what I can only call ‘church carpet’, stood a podium constructed roughly and covered, or fenced off, in metal mesh with barbed wire. At the rear, viewers were invited to step up behind the podium, where a book was permanently carved into its shelf. The corner teased us to ’turn the page’, which was, of course, impossible. The podium is open to many interpretations, but I left with a sense of the rigidity of our Christian positions, and the disconnect between our shouting at others about salvation, and our lack of action in social justice. We often preach from a book, perhaps a Bible, stuck on one page. I think we each have our own favourite pages that ’stick’, blinding us to a fuller understanding of the world, or even our own faith. The fact that the podium was covered in wire surely says something about how our words, delivered from a higher-than-thou position, are often unwelcome.

All in all, the gallery made an impact on me, and my hope is that it got others thinking too. If you have thoughts on any of the pieces, please comment below.

At Bleeding Heart we encourage work that invites us to ‘Stop and listen. Engage. Wrestle.” Work exactly like the pieces presented at #JusticeYEG this past weekend.

Thank you to Grace Law for curating the exhibit, to all of the volunteers who helped bring it to life and for the artists who opened their hearts and made themselves vulnerable in sharing their work with us. Thanks as well to Aaron Vanimere for taking these excellent photos of the exhibit space.

And now on to the next show ...

[gallery ids="376,377,381,378,379,380,382,383,384,385"]

Art Speaks: Learning to See in a Room Full of Eyes

This is the first post in a series exploring The Bleeding Heart Manifesto in depth. Each post will take a sentence from the Manifesto and explore its meaning and implications for a life filled with art, faith, hope and love.

Art speaks. Stop and listen. Open yourself to questions, conversations and connections. Engage. Wrestle.

(featured art by Jessica Culling)

The entire Bleeding Heart Manifesto – in fact the entire Bleeding Heart project – stems from two words; art speaks. The implication is that art matters, that it can mean something and that we ought to listen. Even when the hearing is hard. Even when we need to wrestle. Learning to listen can be transformative. Learning to pay attention can awaken us to a world behind the world.

But art is often quiet. Sometimes art is nearly invisible as wallpaper, hiding out on the walls of your favourite coffee shop or behind the admission prices of a large public gallery. Art can be obtuse, or even resistant to interpretation. Some contemporary art seems to speak a foreign language, if it is speaking at all. Or perhaps it is a language we have forgotten.

Some art is loud. Performance art often begs to be seen or heard. Rock music certainly makes a noise. But amid the bang and clash, is anything really heard? If we could learn to listen even through this jangle, would we hear anything that matters?

There is much to be heard for those who have ears to hear. Listening is a journey. I am learning the language of art and it is worth the effort. I am grateful to my teachers.

I first learned to see in a room full of eyes.

Several years ago, I was invited to a small gallery by local artist and curator Edward Van Vliet. I arrived at Profiles Gallery in St.Albert, where Edward was working, to find a space smaller than expected. I took in all of the work in about 3 minutes. There were not many pieces, and the art was contemporary in a way that defied easy interpretation. It was easy to breeze by and let the work’s whispers drift over my head. But I’d driven a half hour to come here at the invitation of a friend. This friend was watching and waiting, eager to discuss my response. Edward had something to show me and I wanted to be sure I saw it.

I sat down on a black leather bench in the middle of an installation. I was willing to wrestle. I was surrounded on all sides by drawings of eyes, cut out and hung on string from the ceiling. There must have been hundreds of eyes, hanging like hand made mobiles over a crib. My initial reaction was surface level. Cool. This piece was cool. But meaning? There were eyes. So what?

Edward sat beside me and began to help me listen and see. He did not offer explanations, but questions. What do you see? Eyes. What are they looking at? Me. How does that make you feel? How does it feel to be watched? Are you confident? Are you afraid? What does that say about you?

These questions are likely a blurring of Edward Van Vliet’s words and my own inner dialogue. They opened me up not only to the installation of eyes, but to the world of art in general. Art like this, that seemed obtuse and beyond my comprehension, could be unlocked. It could unfold and bloom like the petals of a rose, to reveal a greater depth and beauty. Art could become a mirror, reflecting hidden parts of me back at myself. There was beauty waiting if I would only stop, look and listen.

Since those eyes looked into me, I have been learning to look myself. I am trying to pay attention at the leading of artists and thinkers like Edward Van Vliet and Jeffery Overstreet, whose mantra is 'Looking Closer’. There is much to be gained, I have found, by looking closer.

Our noisy world can numb us. The barrage of babel can stop our hearing. Art is asking us, everywhere, to wake up. Wake Up! Of course it is difficult to hear on first listen, as we are so often asleep. We are numb to our consumer culture. We are willing captives to our technology. We are numb to our own apathy. We are numb to our self deceptions.

As you go about your living today, so many voices will grab at your ears. With the internet in every pocket, information has become nearly as ubiquitous as air. It has also become as invisible. Like air, we breathe all of this information in and out, without noticing. We can barely distinguish particle from particle, fact from fact. It has all become noise.

And yet, in a sacred small voice, art speaks.

How do we break through to hear our voice? We must assume a posture of listening. CS Lewis prescribes an approach of surrender;

“The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)” ― C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

The Bleeding Heart Art Space seeks to discover and share work with something to say. We are drawn to art that whispers under and through the noise and numb.

The gallery needn’t be the only example. We can hear these voices in a movie theatre, or calling from the stage. We resonate with late night radio. A story can pull is into an old book’s dusty pages and show us something about ourselves. Art has this power to connect, beyond time and space. Art speaks.

Listening does not happen in isolation. We can help one another see and hear, as Edward Van Vliet helped me amidst the eyes. Discernment is best in community, which is why each week we are hosting Arty Tuesday on this site. You are invited to share art that has spoken to you in the last seven days, and to comment on the sharing of others. You can join last week’s conversation here.

I also invite you to share your thoughts on today’s post below. Here are some questions to get us started.

What moments you have had, surrendering to the speech of art? Have you ever heard a piece of art call out? Has it ever aligned with something in your own heart, causing an inner voice to rise up and whisper, or shout, some truth in your ear?

As an artist, have you had the joy of knowing your work has spoken, either to you or a listener/view/reader?

Are there dangers involved in opening yourself up to a work?

Glen Workshop Part Four: I Am a Poet

As I began my reflections on the Glen West Workshop, I shared two questions I had packed alongside my shorts and sandals. One of those questions was so basic it's embarrassing. Going into my first poetry workshop, I was wondering, 'Am I a poet'? This question, perhaps better posed as 'am I a real poet?' might come in many forms. Am I a real painter? Am I a real novelist? Am I a real dancer? Am I any good at this? Am I legit, or am I a fraud? Do I belong here, among professional peers?

The question reveals deep, life-long insecurities and fears. This tiny question can become an unscalable wall.

I shared earlier that the Poetry track was not my first choice. I had chosen songwriting, a path that felt safer as I've walked it much longer. When that door closed I had to walk through another, less comfortable door. It felt like a doggie-door that I had to crawl through on hands and knees. I felt humbled, small and unprepared.

Most of this fear, like most of all fear, can be blamed on faulty thinking. I had wrong ideas about poetry. I had caricatures of poets in my head. It seemed poetry was far more serious and intellectual than me. Poetry was for English majors and professional philosophers. There was a chasm of comprehension I could not cross.

But there was some poetry that I loved. There were even some poets I knew personally, defying my false perceptions.

Why are lies often louder than truths? Why did I choose to believe the frightening parts of my own story and doubt its comforts and encouragements. Why do I always?

Monday morning, I walked into my poetry workshop to meet 15 other poets, including our workshop leader, Amy Newman. I had read their work through plane rides and airport waiting, and had no idea which writing belonged to which real-life person now sitting around the table with me. My secret guesses were often wrong.

Over the week we talked about each poet's work for an hour. Because we went alphabetically, I was plunged back into grade school line up nightmares, forced to wait until the near end before my work was read. My question would linger until Friday morning.

But even before we arrived at my work, I learned much about poetry. I learned that I understand and appreciate poetry much more than I'd given myself credit for. I could contribute to the conversation. People appreciated my feedback. I was treated as a peer. I thought to myself how wonderful it was to be in a room full of poets, marinating in wonderful words. I discovered how precious good poetry can be. And then I realized how rare it is. This is not the time in history for poetry. It is not in fashion.

I learned, I think, what poetry is for. Or can be for, at its best. A poem can dive deep into a moment to discover the kaleidoscope of creatures beneath the water's silent surface. A poem can slow down time and draw attention to a bygone instant, because that instant was full of riches that should be savoured. A poem can hold a magnifying glass to the lawn and honour an ant's noble work – seeing the sacred in the small.

Poetry is about naming things because they are worthy of names. It is about memorials. To all of us sleepwalking, poetry is a wake up call into life.

Poetry is paying attention, and there are such riches to be unearthed by that digging. I heard a poem explore a moment when a group of girls shot guns into a lake in the American south. I heard a poem reveal a railroad spike's dreams. These poems stand out for taking something small and making it large enough to walk around in. I am grateful for them.

By the time I read my own work, I had shed much of my fear. And yes, it was confirmed, I had written poetry. These pieces I had submitted were, in fact, poems. And all of that could only mean one thing. Yes, I am a poet.

Those simple affirmations from a group of 'real life poets' meant the world to me. As I reflected on my week at the Glen Workshop, now winding down, those affirmations spurred me on to write my best poem, and perhaps my first poem as a 'real life poet'. This poem came from a bolder place. It is a poem with a little less fear in it.

So I will close this series with a poem that for me marked a new beginning. This is a poem about poetry, an 'Ars Poetica'. And it is, of course, about more than that.

Ars Poetica (On Leaving)

Poetry If your special magic is to pluck a single star From the vast night sky of time And pull that star apart into A universe Then do

The clock wanes And I will see only one more New Mexico moon Stars are shy where I come from I have to dig for them Beneath the rush and noise Of traffic-life

Twenty four short hours from now I board the airport shuttle In broad daylight The stars slipping Out of my naive net

Of course I cannot keep this I am no astronaut Stepping in slow motion On this moon rock There is no gravity here, to hold me No children No wife No friends with earth-bound histories

I would lose my tether and Pirouette into the galaxy Revolving endlessly round A center of myself Lost To space madness

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This post is part three of a four part series. Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four