Beauty At The Table: Our First Arts Potluck in Review

Just one week ago, we held our first Arts Potluck. It will not be our last. The invitation was simple. Bring some art and bring some snacks. In my living room, propped up on every chair we could find, 15 of us shared, listened and saw wonder-full art.

I began the night by sharing its inspiration – an event held during the Glen Workshop called The Thomas Parker Society (at least, I'm fairly certain that was the name). A few dozen people had crammed into a rented suite on the college campus where the Glen Workshop was held. We read stories, essays and poetry long into the night. It was beautiful, intimate, moving, and sometimes hysterically funny. It left me hungry for more.

Of course, we have plenty of creative folks right here in our city. Heck, right here in my neighbourhood. We could do this. In our own version, The Bleeding Heart Arts Potluck, the evening expanded to encompass any art form.

Here's how it worked for us.

TJ McLachlan shared first, with a bit of an extended time and focus, seeing as he was with us all the way from Vancouver's and Emily Carr University. Having worked with TJ McLachlan on some pre-Carr projects, it was inspiring to see how far he's come, how his ideas about what art is and what art does have evolved, and what his grand hopes for future projects are. TJ talked about large-scale sculpture, installed in nature, outside the culturally loaded context of the "white box gallery". He spoke about work that is not a metaphor for something, like 'tension' for instance, but is tension itself, showing us an example of a sculpture whose very materials are in tension. There were some big ideas (should art convey meaning and how?) and some great conversation. We even talked a bit about what it means to be pretentious, or not, and how those of us who label others as such may be the most pretentious of all.

More than all of that, our time with TJ and his very artistic wife Cora was a visit with friends. Community was perhaps the most beautiful thing on display all evening.

What followed – the work you all shared – was a kaleidoscope of creativity. Almost everyone brought something (in one case it was samosas wrapped in swiss chard – some very creative food). There were poetry readings. We heard an excellent concert review of The Replacements. An original song. Ink sketches of the Canadian North. A capella vocal performance. Paintings. Art made in collaboration with children in India. Lego and collage by my two kids.

But here is what sticks out for me.

It's the last piece before my kids – up too late – have to go to bed. Aaron and April Au are with us. Aaron, a part-time player with the ESO, pulls out his violin, stands just outside the circle, and plays Bach. Intricate, incredibly full Bach on a single violin. The sound is perfect. No one moves. We barely breathe. Except my kids. Jack is play conducting and they stifle nervous laughter. But they are listening. I survey the room. We are all listening. We are all realizing, at this moment, just how incredible this is.

It hits me all at once. I've been with hundreds of creative people for an intensive week, hundreds of miles away, at The Glen Workshop. But I don't need to travel at all to experience art, faith and community. I am blessed. I live here, on the fringe of Alberta Ave. Blocks away from this violin virtuoso. So close that here, in my living room, my kids get to experience something I never did. A house blessing. I choke back a few good tears.

Moments like this are why we do Bleeding Heart Arts Potlucks – why The Bleeding Heart does anything at all.

If you were not with us, and now, having read this, wish you were, I have succeeded.

What will you bring next time?

All the Art of Summer

As summer waves her slow goodbye, I need to take a moment and give thanks for all of the art I've experienced these past two months. I have seen and heard beauty that will fuel my creativity and passion this coming year. My work with The Bleeding Heart Art Space will be stronger for the art this summer has brought. Perhaps you'll enjoy some of it, too. Our tour begins in Sandpoint, Idaho, then moves west across the arid Washington desert into Portland, Oregon. After a brief break, we board a plane to Santa Fe, New Mexico and finally, drive west to settle oceanside, in Vancouver, BC.

Sandpoint, Idaho

Sandpoint, a mere stopover on the long family drive to Portland, became the shining surprise of this summer. A small lake town, it is full of happy hippies, organic veggies, antique and thrift shops, tasty, cheap restaurants, and a fair amount of art. And, for some reason, Subaru Outbacks. It was here that we first witnessed the overuse of the word 'Artisan' this summer, but perhaps it belonged here most. One man sold artisanal cheese at the farmers market where every vegetable stall was arranged like a floral bouquet.

The same farmer's market had a pottery stall, and this is where I fell in love with my mug.

I'd been looking for a good, handmade mug to replace my crumbling Krispy Kreme standby. I found it from Whiskey Jack Pottery in Sandpoint. A bright turquoise rim to accent the red-brown base. A perfectly shaped handle. I'm sipping coffee from it now, and have most days since my return. I'm very thankful that a true artisan took the time to make a coffee mug so beautiful – to make it art. Perhaps art is best this way, freed from the walls?

Portland, Oregon

I'd say the real art of Portland is to be eaten. From crazy Voodoo Doughnut to hundreds of food carts lining entire city blocks, there is beauty to be savoured in Portland. It was inspiring to see the love each chef put into their creations. I could taste the art in a cup of Barista coffee. What could be more creative than blue cheese and pear, or strawberry and basil ice cream from Salt and Straw (actual flavours may stray from my shoddy memory)? Slappy Cakes let us be the artists, with a giant pancake griddle in the middle of our table and bottles of batter in hand.

There were more traditional art forms to see as well – the kind you'd hang on your wall. Alberta Street (strikingly close to Alberta Ave) was the most colourful and creative neighbourhood we visited. Blocks and blocks of boutiques and galleries made wandering aimlessly a joy.

If you visit PDX, be sure you get to Alberta Street.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

My trip to Santa Fe for the Glen Workshop, a week of 'art, faith and mystery', requires a post of its own (and mark my words, it will get one). I attended this workshop, put on by Image Journal, as a poet (a decision informed by circumstances I'll save for that other post). I spent my mornings with 14 other poets, and each day got to hear their wonder-full words. I was introduced to the poetry of Amy Newman, my workshop leader. I bought her book, Fall, made up of dozens of poems reflecting on the myriad meanings of the word 'fall' found in the dictionary.

I came to love poetry at the Glen – and even to understand it a little bit more.

On our day off, I walked Santa Fe's Canyon Road – a mere mile-long stretch housing a hundred galleries! I've never seen anything like the quantity and quality of the work there. One stand out were the bronze sculptures of Kevin Box, made to look light weightless origami. You need to see his work. Go ahead and look. I'll wait. http://outsidetheboxstudio.com.

The Chuck Jones Gallery (and Centre for Creativity) was showing paintings and sculptures by Dr.Suess alongside animation stills and work by Jones himself (creator of Bugs Bunny).

Even the buildings are art in Santa Fe – smooth adobe structures the colour of tanned sunburn, accented in various shades of teal trim.

To mention only these things, and not the overflow of beauty that poured from every Glen Workshop participant I encountered, feels unjust. But for time, we head for the coast.

Vancouver, British Columbia

My family and I finished our journeys in Vancouver for a longer stretch – to relax. For us, relaxing means shopping without buying, except for an 'artisan' coffee or treat along the way.

Our suite was equipped with a full kitchen, so I flexed my own creative muscle there, armed with the rare treat of 'artisanal' ingredients from the local organic (read: expensive) market. It's still cheaper than eating out, I assured my conscience.

Granville Island didn't disappoint with it's explosion of arts and eats. We had enough days to visit twice and take it all in. It was there, at OPUS Art supplies, that I spent my birthday money on a screen printing kit, dreaming of future projects.

On our last day, we finally bought some art. Nothing large – just prints – but the perfect set of animals-dressed-as-people drawings by Vancouver artist Andrea Hooge. We were first drawn to her market booth because my wife said a picture of a cat looked just like me. I'm not sure how to take that, but you should definitely check out her work online. Or next time you are over at our place.

And finally home

As wonderful as the summer was, it is receding into a sparse handful of memories. We are home, having returned to a city full of its own beauty and creativity. The kids and I have made our first screen prints. I've received a call from the Art Gallery to renew my membership.

Friday night, I got to see shared beauty on display at our first Arts Potluck (read more soon), and after visiting all those wonderful cities I am glad to live here. I am glad to create here, among friends. Really, I am.

If you are not, then do something about it. Seek out Edmonton's arts. Find beauty. Create some of your own.

Visit your own city.

Learning from My Garden: Lessons for Crazy, Creative, Collaborative Projects

For those who don't enjoy gardening metaphors, a caution and an apology. I am about to pack a season's worth into this single post (which will take some pruning).  -----

Over the summer The Bleeding Heart Art Space has taken a break. We've travelled. We've rested. We've reflected and reevaluated. We've dreamed. We've gardened.

As I reflect back on our first year of adventures and experiments, I'm also looking forward to what we will try this year. I've learned some things – many of them from my hours in the garden.

Let's Try This Garden Thing

I wasn't sure a garden would work in our yard. We've failed before with dried up, fruitless plants. This time, I got serious. In June, I moved our fence back 8 feet and built four garden boxes. I shovelled them full of fertile dirt. My wife Christie selected seeds. I planned. The kids and I planted. Then we waited.

I watered daily. I weeded every week, because by some cruel joke, weeds grow best. For a time – nothing. But eventually, the sprouts poked through. And then more, and to my excitement even more. The lettuce was first to show. Then the green beans. Tiny carrot greens, at first hard to tell from the weeds, joined the party. Green onions. Tomatoes bulging on the vine. Peas pulling themselves up the lattice. Finally, the peppers appeared. Just last night was the big harvest.

I am so proud I find myself showing friends pictures of carrots like they were my kids.

I tried something new. It worked.

The joys of gardening are primal. The basic cycle of sowing and reaping is reassuring when you're knee deep in a massive project like The Bleeding Heart Art Space. It turns out the two projects, both attempts to grow good things, have a lot in common.

Let's start with the seeds.

The Seed is Not the Thing, But You Need the Seed

You wouldn't want to eat a carrot seed. Believe me. They are tiny, ugly little things, so small they are tricky to plant (which may explain our erratic spread of carrots). But no seed, no carrot.

At The Bleeding Heart Art Space, we've planted a lot of seeds in our early days. We continue to try a lot of things. Sometimes tiny things, giving little indication of the fruit they may, or may not produce.

Some seeds have been duds. Perhaps others have yet to sprout. A few grew into beautiful, rich gatherings and art shows. There are shoots of community popping up in a few places.

Early on my carrots looked like duds. Most of my onions failed. Duds can be discouraging. But, I think, you'll always have more seeds than plants.

When people asked me how Bleeding Heart was going over the summer, I would cheerfully declare that we've gotten a lot of our failures out of the way. I mean that. We've learned so much from things that haven't worked.

The suite where I stayed during our holidays had a bookshelf, and fortuitously, that bookshelf held Poke The Box, a brief manifesto by Seth Godin on trying new things. Initiating. I read it hungrily. I believe Seth Godin would tell us to plant more seeds. And keep planting.

I'm proud of our Bleeding Heart team because we've continued to plant seeds, and here we are looking at a new season, seeds in hand, ready to plant again.

The Water and The Weeds: Day by Day the Garden Grows

Gardening is little work repeated over much time. You cannot rush it. You cannot decide you feel like gardening one day, so you're going to weed and water double to speed up the process. You go out for 10 minutes one day, five minutes another, half an hour on the weekend, and on it goes. You don't do a ton each visit, but you must visit often. A garden loves a consistent, faithful gardener.

Some days I wish I could push The Bleeding Heart Art Space forward a couple of years. I wish I could force the extra effort and reap the rewards of a beautiful, inspiring, challenging arts community and space today. But today, all I can do is plan a gathering, write an email, or perhaps this blog post.

To believe that these blog posts and events and coffee conversations string together to cultivate something of value over time – that takes faith. I pray I have it. Today I do.

The Sun: Miracles and Mystery

A garden, my friends, is a mystery.

Those weird little seeds – dropped an inch into dirt, of all things – they disappear. And you, a mad fool, water and watch and wait, praying the sun appears to work its alchemy. And it does. And then, one day, from the ground, like a newborn baby's hand reading out for contact, a bean plant bursts through the crust of earth. And it was all true. There is life! And it is mystery. And it is wonder.

And even after all your labor, you did not make this happen. You could not bring the sun. There is mystery. There is holy awe.

These early days of The Bleeding Heart are spent below the crust of earth. The seeds we plant are shifting towards light. Some poke through. We rely on the sun to meet our labours. We surrender to a Mystery. We pray for a harvest.

We pray.

The Harvest: Many Hands Make Joyful Work

Last night, our family harvested our little garden, together.

I won't lie. I did most of the work growing the garden. I weeded, I watered, I planned. I built the boxes. I shovelled the dirt. I pushed and prodded and begged the kids to help me plant the seeds. Then I weeded and watered some more.

But last night, we all harvested. I hope this was as magical for them as for me, pulling those huge, hiding carrots from the unassuming earth. I hope they felt amazed at the three bulging bags of green beans. Sometimes they laughed the way a kid laughs when a bug, thought dead, starts to wriggle with life. Not a funny laugh, but a laugh of wonder.

The little red hen, baking her bread in smarmy, solitary superiority, got something wrong. That bread, eaten alone, would not taste half so good as if eaten among friends, even if they didn't help bake it.

Sure, community gets the work done. Even a small garden is a lot of work, and I'd have been out there for three hours picking last night if it weren't for the family's help. And they did help along the way. But last night was not about getting the work done. Last night was about a shared joy at this miracle of life. Last night was community.

The Bleeding Heart Art Space needs many hands to move forward. It is a project much larger than a garden, and beyond the reach of a single gardener. But here's something I'm learning. The work is not the deepest reason we need you to join us. It's the joy. It's the love. It's the community.

Last night's harvest is the reason I'll plant again next spring. I'll remember my smiling kids yanking carrots from dirt. I'll remember my wife shucking peas on the kitchen table like some pioneer. And I will smile.

A New Season Awaits

As the tomatoes ripen on the vine, my garden's season is almost over. But a new season is about to begin for The Bleeding Heart Art Space.

We've got some new ideas (like the Arts Potluck next week), a handful of seeds ready to plant, and we've learned some things. We've also got some spaces to fill to round out our community of gardeners and make this crazy, creative, collaborative vision a reality.

Will you consider joining us this year as we plan, plant, water and wonder together and what sprouts up?

I cannot promise a huge harvest, but I guarantee the laugh of wonder from time to time, and the fellowship of those who wait on the sun.

If you'd like to get involved, let's chat. Email hello@bleedingheartspace.ca.

The Carousel - The Works Festival

Riding in a shopping cart may be the ultimate childhood experience. You are forced to accompany your parents on the most mundane adult mission - getting provisions for the family. Confined to a small cage, you must rely on your childhood powers - your imagination - to break free. Having grown up and pushed that cart many times now, I can say that the parent is not usually excited by this trip either. But as a child, you can find a way out. You can climb up into this cagey metal chariot and a chore becomes a rise. The dreadful, boring excursion becomes something to look forward to. A simple shopping cart can be transformed. At The Works Art and Design Festival this week, I discovered that a shopping cart can still provide adventure. A group of artists from Quebec called BGL have built a massive installation in Churchill Square called The Carousel. It transforms objects of drudgery and crowd control into a work of whimsical beauty.

You first see The Carousel and wonder what it is. It can look like a pile of scrap metal at first. Then you notice the arrangement of things, organized around a central pole, and then you see the flying shopping carts, suspended on chains like the old Swing of The Century at West Edmonton Mall. Then you see it moving, see a smile on a kid's face and realize that this doesn't just look like a ride. This IS a ride.

I'm not sure I'd have the courage to hop aboard if I didn't have kids with me, but I did, so I rode The Carousel.

There is no motor. The Works volunteers actually grab the handle of a cart and run circles until us riders lift off. Then they do that again. And again.

To see my city this way, dizzying past from the inside of a soaring shopping cart, is a gift.

I love this piece. I walk by it every time I am in the square.

I love it because it is fun. It is silly. It is not pretentious. I love it because of the statements it is making about crowd control and play and subversive childlike joy. We can transform the ugly, oppressive pieces of life through a hopeful, playful perspective. A good sense of humor goes a long way. Perhaps I love this piece most because it communicates all of this and more very clearly, without saying a word, in a public space, to regular people. This piece works outside of a gallery, and it works for people not well versed in the vocabularies of high art. At the end of the day, if you don't 'get it', you likely still have a smile on your face. So you do get it.

The Carousel will be in Churchill Square until July 2, just begging you to take a ride.

Sacred Space, and 2 Poems on Language

Tomorrow night we meet once again to create our next Sacred Space evening together. Perhaps there is no better time to reflect on our last Sacred Space, and share what I consider two absolute gems that came of it–original poems by Stephen Berg on language and inclusion. April 25th's Bleeding Heart Sacred Space was all about inclusion, exclusion, and the role language plays in both. Words have power. Words of hate, or even words misunderstood, can divide and conquer us. Words of hope can bring us together, like the rallying 'I have a dream' of Martin Luther King, Jr.

We got to these thoughts through the four passages from the Lectionary, each one revealing a facet of this theme. Peter receives a vision telling him to eat a variety of animals once forbidden–animals representing cultures outside his own tight religious community. The dream is from God, and it means Peter is to move beyond his safe community and share God's Good News with the waiting world. Every nation, we are told in Revelation, will be singing songs together in the end. Those like us and those very, very different, will have 'hallelujah' on their lips. We will all be singing Psalms, and we will be surprised at some of the voices around us. Jesus has thrown the doors open. Love spills over. Everyone is invited.

Our Sacred Space evenings last an hour, and include communion, prayer and readings. Beyond that they each look quite different. Each has left an treasured image or experience in my mind. This time, it is the words of Stephen Berg that linger. Stephen wrote two poems for our evening together (fitting, as it was Poetry Month). Each poem gave us pictures to ponder and metaphors to tease out. The second gave us a prayer for the night. Stephen has graciously posted those online, and I'm happy to share them with you here.

Stephen Berg's first poem

1. Consider the mechanics: your thought, a lexical chain, turns wheel, pushrod presses diaphragm, air rushes from lungs to trachea, excites larynx, passes over vocal folds, periodic pulses of glottis, fashions phonemes, for post-throat conditioning, and in the roll and yaw of mandible tongue clicks free from its cavity, flings phonemes through caves of mouth and nose, past teeth to lip aperture, and you pray, that this phonetical filament, in resonance of pitch and tone, might bear some similarity to your original thought.

2. If language was used less, it may last longer. But tell that to the tongue.

3. The tongue, impatient, conceives its own path,

no chain of thought threatens its domain. It is too nimble, too quick; jacks up minds, high-jacks hearts.

So heart and mind must take tongue by the hand, to the wilderness, with its slow forms of fingers, feather quills, ink and bark,

to peel and pare, and make tongue fit, for a king indicting a goodly matter. The tongue at last, the pen of a ready writer.

4. I tell my love: words fall through space out of sheer loneliness. Go wild on their own, pine for connective tissue.

Take this noun for instance, huddled against abstraction, vagrant, indigent, dying in isolation even with other nouns.

But should a willing adjective stop by, noun is changed, liberated, coloured, like a scarlet macaw, through coupling.

And see that verb that glances, how it’s struck by the painted preposition enticed into a syntactical ménage à trois to create the tight triadic world of a sentence.

Forging fact or fantasy, able to convey beauty or blight, hate or light, or this singular thought: My love, I adore you.

5. I know a poet who listens to the spaces between words. Narrows the gap of these small cracks through which meaning falls. Resists the temptation to choose the better sounding word rather than the right one. Waits for 20 years until the better sounding word becomes the right one.

6. Language is a river, its headwater unscalable, unseen; gathers lexicon from a great glossal basin of branches, feeders, rills. And dialectic detritus from distant rains.

River winds, flows toward fluent confluences of meaning; meaning shared, then sundered by rocks and rapids; languishes in argot eddies, reconstitutes in quiet currents.

Silt, sediment, alluvial sleep, force lingual bends into overstated arches until banks are breached and the bend cut off, leaving behind an oxbow lake, stagnant as Latin.

Still the river flows.

---

Steven Berg's second poem (a prayer)

Zachariah, Peter and Sly Stone

Soon the Octave of Easter weeks will be swallowed by the flat terrain of ordinary time, left to graze on the greying memories of holy week.

And now I’m wondering: does sacred need profane? Didn’t the eyes of Zechariah burn with a new light? Gazing on those common cooking pots and horse bells seeing ‘holy-to-the-Lord’ blaze itself onto the quotidian, his inventory overturned, unbound, suddenly fluid.

And Peter too—in the shimmering glow of his inclusive act, standing by his new friend, quaking in the greening comprehension— had cried, the dream-in-waiting has arrived, the revelation-revolution is that you, friend, are holy.

He’d seen, at the in-gathering of everyday people the sacredness of all breath and breathless things. How God had sung the buzzing, blooming world, this giant bejewelled chalice, holy.

But how hard it is to transpose this new song. Hard to find our meaning beyond division. Easier to stay safe on the righteous side of a conjured line, call our exacting ability to classify and codify, the gift of discernment.

Easier to be over and above, than to love; easier to breach than to merge; easier to preach than converge, and try create a supple ‘we’ beyond the icy ‘us-and-them.’

And back at the Temple we sweep out the odd and ungainly, the queer and the quirky, all those mismatched colours onto the coarse ground, keeping holy holy, and profane profane.

And now, as I write, Sly and the Family Stone comes pop, funk, soul, rock-ing over these cafe speakers, singing “Everyday People.”

And a girl in a red top sitting in a purple chair starts to sing, “There is a blue one who can’t accept The green one for living with a black one… And so on and so on… Oh sha sha… We gotta live together.”

First band to mix race and gender, Family Stone climbed the stage and danced their kaleido-delic diversity onto the human plain.

But alright, we’re still in our swaddling clothes, needing to designate times, places, things holy, raise to mind and stamp our memory matrices with coordinates through which we can seize and fuse a reality that can be rehearsed, transcribed and coaxed, onto the cosmos entire. And by this, should we be moved to see what we are —we may call it liturgy.

Zachariah, Peter and Sly knew the aim; knew that every day is Easter, knew that all time is ordinary—and kissed holy, that all people are everyday—kissed holy.

--- This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. On this day, millennia ago, God performed a miracle of language. Fresh off the death and resurrection of Jesus, he spoke to an international crowd each in their own language, through ordinary Jewish followers of Jesus. It was the first occurrence of 'speaking in tongues' and it was all about inclusion. God's spirit is still calling us all to the table, in our own language.

The most beautiful thing about Sacred Space is discovering what each participant brings to the table. Stephen Berg brought poems. What might you bring?

We hope you can join us this Thursday night at 7 at St.Faiths (11725 93rd street).

---

Read more from Stephen Berg at growmercy.org.

Snow and Canadian Poets (poem by Stephen Berg)

The snow fell thick and fast yesterday, and it just wouldn't quit. Today we may feel smothered by the blanket of white. If that is you, perhaps some good poetry will help? Here is a poem for the snow, written by Edmonton poet Stephen T. Berg, and gratefully shared here with his permission. I recommend a warm cup of tea on the side.

Snow and Canadian Poets

by Stephen T. Berg

acorn, avison, birney, bringhurst all canadian poets speak of snow livesay, newlove layton, lightfoot it’s as though they were there when the meteors slammed into the earth kicking up clouds of sulfate, shrouding the great plains from sun a solar heat shield for the laurentian plateau cooling, cooling wallace, waddington watching, watching

and kroetsch on the lookout too sees that first atomic crystal crawl out from beneath a chondrite float up into the impact winter seeking comfort in a cold cloud colliding, coalescing determined hexagon fraternal deposition gluing vapour to vapour droplet to droplet spikes, columns, buttresses flesh gathering flight writes it down into his seed catalogue …how do you grow a snow flake? how do you grow a poet? wait, wait, wait then fall high up into the atmosphere

Find more of Stephen T. Berg's writing at growingmercy.org.

Bleeding Heart Epiphany: A Sacred Space Reflection

Picture a Jack-In-The-Box. You know, the kind that plays 'Pop Goes the Weasel' while you turn a crank at uneven speed until, POP!, a character bursts unexpectedly from the closed tin box. A Jack-In-The-Box is now what I see whenever I think of Epiphany. At the Bleeding Heart Sacred Space event on January 31, these boxes became a metaphor for the surprise of Epiphany. The Gospel story was not what people expected it to be 2000 years ago. Jesus was full of surprises. He still is.

He asks us to love surprising people, and often works among those people, rather than among those of us who'd think ourselves 'insiders'. He dances along the surprising fringes of culture. He spends surprisingly little time with people whose main concern is maintaining and protecting their Religion.

These are the truths I was grappling with during our Epiphany Sacred Space event. But enough abstraction. Let me tell you what we did.

The evening took place at The Studio, an art space run by Glen Ronald. It has a warehouse feel, white and grey except for the exuberant splash of colour brought by Ronald's artwork, hung on every available surface. There were tables and easels in the middle of the space, creating a sort of labyrinth to navigate and quiet, solitary pockets of hidden space where chairs awaited participants.

A Small Group and a Large Question

There were four Jack-In-The-Boxes present, and if we count them as attendees, 10 of us in all. We were small in number, but willing to tackle the very large question that began our evening together;

Who do you distance yourself from?

It's a question too big and too important–too revealing–to answer honestly without time for reflection, and perhaps to prep and preface one's answer. So we didn't answer the question right away, leaving the pregnant promise of a difficult discussion later on. The night continued as follows.

What Do You See?

We took 10 minutes to draw ourselves. First right side up and then, to take a page from Betty Edwards' Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain, upside down. We chose from a variety or art materials to better or chances at a decent likeness. I can't be the only one who gets inspired by new crayons, pastels and pencils? We scattered to private floor spaces, tables and chairs, and tried to draw. Most of us found this challenging. I was pleased with my moderate skill, but disturbed by the fact that I cannot remember the exact look of my own nose. It tilts up, I think. but how much? How big is it? How high above my lips?

When I cannot even recall my own face, do I even know myself that well? And how, then, can I correctly perceive those around me? Perhaps they are full of surprises? Epiphanies?

Grab Bag

We were called back together and progressed to the middle movement of the evening which I'll call 'Grab Bag'.

Six readings were referenced on six scraps of paper, scattered at random in a cloth shopping bag. In turn, we each drew a paper, and did what we were told. Thus, the 'order of service' was out of our hands and, well, surprising.

Some papers read, 'scripture'. The participant would then grab a Jack-In-The-Box from somewhere in the room, bring it back and turn the crank. All played 'Pop Goes The Weasel' until, at some surprising moment their lids would pop, springing a stuffed creature. Inside the lid was a scripture reference from the Lectionary (basically a weekly Bible reading plan used by Christians around the world for centuries). The participant would then read that scripture.

1 Corinthians 13 instructed that, above all, we must always love. We cannot see clearly now–cannot understand the details–but we must love anyways. In Luke 4, Jesus proclaims himself the fulfillment of Messianic promise, but not necessarily, or at least not only, for those who were expecting him. He will go to outsiders, to the disdained, despised and discarded. The crowd of listeners, praising him moments ago, attempt to throw him from a cliff. We also read about Jeremiah, whose calling to speak to those even outside his own nation brought a double surprise, for he was only a boy.

Love. Surprise. Dissapointment. Difficulty. Surprise. Love.

A prayer written by Scott (you can read it below) and two stories completed the readings in the grab bag. My story came from the book, Speaking My Mind, by Tony Campolo. It touched on a powerful move of God among the gay community - a move that surprised a preacher. Scott recounted his discovery that an unabashed ultra-conservative colleague was out-loving him.

Flesh and Blood

Soaking in these scriptures and stories, we moved to Communion. Josh introduced the sacrament, and we served one another in turn, Radiohead's 'No Alarms and No Surprises' playing low and distant. While we waited, we could retrieve one more surprise from under our chairs - an excerpt from 1 Corinthians 13 telling us some small and huge thing about love. "Love doesn't strut". "Love doesn't want what it doesn't have" (The Message).

During Communion, two folks wandered in from the street. Drawn in by Glen Ronald's artwork, they wanted to look around. I left to chat with them, and tried to explain what on earth was going on over at the other side of the room. Six people, quiet. Jack-In-The-Boxes. A shared cup and tiny bread. It turns out they were followers of Jesus themselves, and were quite interested in our little experiment. I handed them some materials and hope they'll join us again some evening. It was one more nice surprise.

Let's Talk

I returned to a sharing circle, each person giving their answer to the night's opening question, "Who do you distance yourself from?"

And this is the part I cannot convey well here. This is the part where relationship and proximity and the movement of spirits with Spirit make all the difference. Suffice it to say, the question ran deep. There were some tears. There was much thought. Some revelations.

So, what would you say?

Who do you distance yourself from?

The Scripture's words bouncing off of this question, we left with thoughts of love. Challenging, surprising, upending love.

It's the challenge I hope The Bleeding Heart can rise to in every endeavour. It's the challenge I hope to live, and not just talk about.

There were epiphanies, and there continue to be even as I reflect on that night.

POP!

A BLEEDING HEART EPIPHANY PRAYER

by Scott Drennan

Father of all people,

We ask for your blessing on us.

We confess that:

We are people of the radical routine. We are people of the marginalized in-group. We are people of politically correct possibilities.

We confess that:

We push the boundaries out and implode the interior. We stand at the margins and judge the centre. We seek the new and the new-that-was-old and condem the merely old as "it's been done."

But

You are the God who draws together the whole. You are the God of both the outside and the inside. You are the God of the radical ancient and of the passe. You are the God of the ordinary and the extraordinary. You are the God of radicals and those they reject. You are the God of all possibilties.

Lord Jesus

We ask that you draw us around the edges and through the centre. We ask that you open us to the near neighbour as well as to the far. We ask that you settle us in the familiar and the former as well as the fantastic.

Lord Jesus

Burn our sophisticated selves with the fire of your Holy Spirit. Drown our cynicism in the waters of your baptism. Kill our pride with the feast of your flesh and blood. Jesus, we ask this in your name.

Amen.

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Sacred Space nights are created in community, then enacted in community two weeks later. Each event seeks to wrestle with the scripture readings from the Revised Common Lectionary in a creative, communal way. We pray, read Scripture and take Communion together. Other than that, all bets are off.

We invite you to become part of the process. Find out when our next event is on our calendar.

AdventInArt.org

No more Bleeding Heart events for 2012, but as we approach Christmas Day, we find ourselves now in Advent - a season of waiting and watching.

What are you waiting for? What are you watching for? How sharp is your expectation?

Many of us are waiting for Jesus. Many artists have tackled this waiting throughout the years. You can see some of their work at 'Advent in Art'. Perhaps these images will help you in your own waiting and watching these coming days.

Or, perhaps, a lot of tiny chocolates will help, too?

http://www.adventinart.org/