“Endurance is not a desperate hanging on but a traveling from strength to strength.” Eugene Peterson
Why am I less moved by the sky, the clouds fluffed or swept like a feather?
Out walking yesterday, I wondered.
Just a few years ago I was moved by gnarly branches on an old pecan tree, scattered white blooms on the asphalt trail or maybe a solitary leaf dried so completely by the sun it glistened metallic.
Noticing God, I called this.
Why so hurried in an irritable way now?
A daily habit that over time seems to be sort of furious?
Walking too fast, too angrily hurry, hurry, hurrying to some better destination.
Better days?
The place with no remnants of pandemic.
The better place, the place with no residue or remembrance of what happened or who or what didn’t come through.
Couldn’t be counted on.
On Wednesday, my path crossed a Target shopper leaving. Her phone on her cheek, she passed me, quick as a rabbit and I overheard her tell somebody “what the Republicans did today!”
And I wondered, when did we ever in our lives finish up a midweek shopping trip and urgently report to someone what a Republican did today?
A woman, about my age, distressed on a pretty day about the government.
We are different now.
I am learning.
Learning still. I can embrace a thought that now makes my response to trauma make more sense.
I can befriend these surprising revelations.
I can toss them over in my mind and see the value in finally beginning to understand my own tender heart and behaviors.
I can allow truth to make sense.
Today, the sky was striated pink and to the right rested the remnant of moon, a crescent.
I couldn’t look away.
It kept getting better.
Too splendid to capture in a photo, I stood solid footed and I watched.
Unhurried, only noticing.
Noticing God again.
Maybe that’s what obedience is and not some frenetic race to keep on, keep on, keep on.
Maybe obedience is noticing splendor, noticing God.
Knowing that where you are in this very never to be repeated moment.
You are loved.
Continue and believe.
Pass it on, this slow walk called noticing.
“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” Isaiah 30:21 ESV
I stared out the window, the tops of pines golden in the early light. A mysterious sight, a dab of different color caused me to stare.
A pine branch must’ve splintered and the light color must be the underbelly of the bark. Then, I looked again. The object was gone.
I concluded it had to have been an owl or a hawk and naturally, that led to even more romanticizing this enigma in the trees.
Mid-morning, I looked again. With a baby on my chest, I discovered the object was a balloon that had gotten tangled and deflated and the wind had it dancing in and out of my sight.
Then, I began to get excited.
My granddaughter’s butterfly balloon had escaped her grip and “gone up to heaven” never to be seen again.
She arrived home with her mama and before I could tell her, her mama spotted it.
A hurried gathering of jackets began and I listened as she asked, “I gotta show you something, remember us asking God to help us find your balloon?”
She nodded with a smile that said she knew the surprise already.
Then baby boy and I watched from the window as they struck out through the hay field to the very back corner, a valley.
From a distance, I saw my daughter grab a broken limb and somehow dislodge the tangled ribbon and the flattened balloon.
Then, they took the long way back around the field, the walk I call “around the block”.
I asked my daughter, “Was it the butterfly?” anxious to join them in the mystery, the answered prayer.
“No, it was a Valentine’s one from who knows where.”
I watched my granddaughter, ever the listener as she quickly announced that it was hers anyway, just not the butterfly, it was her Valentine balloon (imagined).
She decided it was worth celebrating, special and unexpected even if wasn’t exactly the miracle we thought.
And then she moved on to something else, balloon adventure forgotten.
This morning, I discovered a pretty word I love and had big plans for I may have misused or slightly made wrongly “mine”. (I do this.)
Resonance.
I suppose it has nothing to do with feelings and mostly with science.
Like my granddaughter, I think I’m gonna think differently and decide on my own.
I don’t know why this happens. I decide to pull out the beginning pages of my long ago decided memoir and I go to the library and I run my fingers across the familiar words and the tenderness is so tender, I begin to cry.
I’m not sure what this means.
I’m not jumping to any conclusions as to whether it means close that door or throw every window and door back open. Step back in and don’t ever pack it away or fold it like a letter and seal the envelope forever.
It’s just an observation.
Library, window view towards the blue sky, laptop open, pages ready for pen and then…
Soft, never harsh tears.
I’m in the library, a place I love for two reasons though. My husband is painting cabinets and needed me not to hover.
More importantly, someone I know only through blogging is publishing her memoir and sent the manuscript to me. She asked me to read and endorse her book.
We’ve never met. I know her story and she knows mine through our blogs.
I’m forty pages in to her memoir which begins with a note to the reader, to women like me who’ve had their lives complicated by uninvited trauma.
Resonance.
An inaudible echo in my soul as I read her story, pause to be amazed by her knowing my feelings.
Resonance, a pretty word I love to decide is mine to choose sort of like the mystery balloon not being completely true and yet, choosing to believe.
Sort of beautiful really, the license love affords us to use when we decide life is and can be full and we fully immerse ourselves in the good, the bad, to the no way it’s true…we can choose.
I hope this is a soft echo for you.
Life lived fully known and open to the enigma of you and others who privately or not say “me too” adding to the resonance in ripples.
On either side, grey with spattering of a heavier shade of green. Illuminated by headlights switched courteously to dim, the asphalt blended in and danced with shining specks.
The colors of the morning like a softly blended oil painting evoking thought, allowing questions.
I slowed to press the Audio button to resume my walking podcast, again, again. It didn’t work. Thought to find the charger wire and took the second or two struggle with the plug. Then, made the decision to travel quietly.
To have the only noise be the noise of my thoughts being easier to address, more approachable as emotions, less of a hurry to stuff them down, keep them hidden.
Have them buffered by chatty voices or lamenting songs.
In the early morning hours, I woke without alarm, lyrics waltzing.
“We will never the see the end of your goodness.”
I wrote in my journal, “Don’t lose heart.”
On the first day in February, I had a thought about emotions.
The emotions we wish were not ours, the ones that come back pounding on the door like an official bent on taking us away.
I thought wrongly at first.
Emotions must not go unaddressed, I thought and
then thought to be more truthful,
emotions will not go unexpressed.
They won’t allow being held back. They’re bullies that way.
Because we cannot choose emotion, only our behaviors that tend them, embrace them, coax them gently to go away.
What are those behaviors? I’m sure I can’t accurately say for everyone.
We can choose behaviors that allow the beneficial expression of emotions.
Walking (without advice or music)
Praying (unashamedly allowing your anxiety to be exposed privately to God)
Sitting quietly (unhurried for evidence of His attentiveness)
Drawing (pencil on paper, no skill necessary and no ideas for precision or perfection)
Here it is February 2nd and I have already forgotten how to prevent that squeeze in my chest over my not yet enoughness.
Then I remember the words of David that woke me.
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” Psalm 51:12 ESV
I’m participating (at least for today) in a creative challenge called Artfull February. It’s a way to acquaint myself with other artists, to engage. Yesterday, I introduced myself, told my artist story.
Today’s prompt suggests we share our “studio”. This space in my home is called “my art room” by my husband. It’s an add on room that was built for my daughter when our family became “blended”.
It’s tiny. It’s deficient in natural light and the floor is covered in old rugs. The corners are filled and growing higher with works on paper and the walls all have paintings completed and not purchased leaning against them.
I catch my paint thickened apron hung sweetly on the easel and I see a recent piece newly edited, “Pursuit”.
I snap a photo of the beauty to me in the midst of the mess.
David penned this prayer after a big mess he made. He’d slept with another man’s wife and that secret he tried to keep was only a tiny part of his descent into remorse.
He asked God to give him a willing spirit. I suppose he could’ve justifiably given up, hidden, quit living altogether or decide there’s nothing in my future.
Nothing I’m worthy of pursuing or participating in.
Instead he was honest.
With himself and God. The anxiety that tried to catch me as I surveyed the place others call “studio” and added to it the pending works of art I’ve promised but can’t seem to start was unpleasant and stifling.
But, not for long. I acknowledged it. Decided to realize today I may not paint.
That won’t be disastrous.
I asked God to give me ten more years of the “late to the game” pastime that’s becoming vocation.
Still, today is just one day.
Restoration, Refinement and Redemption aren’t instantaneous.
Emotions stem from destruction deeply imbedded. Be hopeful that you have the guts to address them.
Listen to what they’re telling you and then bravely reply
“This is not that.”
It just feels like it.
Then embrace the restoration you know, hold it like a treasure, press its cheek against your soul.
You’re not fully grown; but oh how you’ve grown.
Believe. Continue and believe.
Choose loving kindness for yourself.
Remember to be willing to do what is your heart’s desire as well as your obligations.
Maybe remember the old sayin’
“Lord willing and the creek don’t rise…”
Then exchange your grappling with graciousness, your tentative tasks with tenderness and your insufficient mindset with the certainty that we’re not the ones in control.
I had to slow my steps, intent on only art canvases, make the beeline to the back and hurry on. No eye contact, small talk time, just me and my fast walking.
I needed to halt or bump into a woman with her son. She had a shuffle step that was familiar, I remembered a mama long ago who had an injury leaving one hip higher than the other. So, I thought this might be her and I’d be able to ask how she’s doing along with her now adult son.
Strangely, it wasn’t her, instead a younger version.
Still, our eyes met and she exhaled a big sigh. I asked “Been shopping all day?” And she replied that they’d been in the street since eight o’clock and she’d been takin’ her mama to all her doctors.
I saw her then, saw her loyalty and I added as I walked beside and then ahead of her,
“I remember those days. They are so hard. Get home and find some rest.”
She nodded, thanked me.
I bought eight 8×10 canvases and carried on.
I noticed the line was short at Chick Fil A and I was thirsty. I ordered my little indulgence, kids meal, fruit not fries and tea and answered “Lisa” as the young man calculated my change.
He asked how my day was going and I said “good” as I sensed the awkward in between, the task of giving me change and so I asked “Are you having a good day?”
His deep dark eyes met mine and the rising up of his chunky cheeks in a smile beamed as he happily answered, “Yes, I am.”
I rounded the drive thru line and watched a couple of boys/young men play “rock, paper, scissors” to determine who’d bring my order.
The one who lost sauntered over to my car and chuckled, “I just took your order!”
I smiled back and said that’s so funny because I was about to ask if you had a brother.
Serendipity, sort of, the chance to share kindness again.
Last stop, Publix for collards for tomorrow. Intentional here too, I have a short mental list and on a mission. The soup aisle is running low on chicken broth and my path intersects with a shopper who doesn’t hesitate to look up and say “Hey! How ya’ doing?”
I smile, realizing I don’t know her and she keeps talking and adds “I’m about to cook a big pot of soup for my family!”
“Sounds good!” I go my way and she goes hers until we’re both in the parking lot, cars loaded and I hear “toot toot” from her little SUV and my eyes meet her excitement in getting to wave goodbye to me, someone she doesn’t know.
I’d say it’s just accidental, this thrice encountering kindness from strangers and reciprocating.
But, since I have a thing for things in 3’s, I know it was heavenly, this afternoon of kind conversation and willingness to be seen.
Unknowingly, three people changed the course of my day from sullen to seeking, from deficient in hope to hoping.
Three people, working in community with my Good Father yesterday.
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Hebrews 13:2 ESV
I lean towards the serious, it’s the design of me. Someone asked, “Why do you always look so sad?” I answered, “Not sad, just thinking.”
But, I sure did think about the candid observation.
sometimes serious one
Yesterday I positioned myself on a piece of cardboard alongside a three year old. We’d played Cracker Barrel tic tac toe over lunch and annoyed the other shoppers by giggling over a plastic toy chicken.
Last week, I sat on the driveway and played “marbles”.
Together, we slid down a high slope of a backyard hill moist from humidity.
Our faces glistened with the warmth of a Sunday in November. We giggled over choosing which puppy we loved best and we decided on the brown one, the one that nuzzled most.
Not so serious me later (on purpose) fell off the yoga ball repeatedly while being serenaded by Elizabeth’s uncontrollable cackling.
Laughter prompted by toddlers, puppies and Sundays.
I’m not so serious, thought you readers should know.
I woke with the thought, “Yet, not I, but Christ in me.” and began searching for the scripture. This is typical, it’s either a song or verse. This time a song by CityAlight. My friend texted me early another song by them. So my day started with the gift of worship.
I’ve been resting, revisiting and relishing Psalm 23 for going on three years. I could live and be led by the six verses.
Last week, as it often happens, I read verse 3 with a new clarity. I’ve been thinking/saying “God kept me for this time.” as an acknowledgment of the gift of being an artist and sharer of words.
Like most people, I can get tripped up on my own steps and I pray, less Lisa, more Jesus and little phrases like God, not glory. I gotta keep my steps in step.
Because when David wrote about restoration, he also praised the Lord for guidance and he remembered the most important truth:
This path of restoration and righteousness I am walking is for the making known the Lord’s name, not his, not mine, not yours.
Today has been the first day this week I’ve been able not to rush from my Bible to my to do list. Now, when I rise to do some things, prepare myself for obligations and the weekend, I rise lighter. I rise with a lifted spirit and a steadiness in my heart and steps.
A few months ago, I discovered an online publication, “Collected Magazine”. I connected and they connected in reply. The result includes some of my artwork and an interview about my Psalm 23 series. Here’s the link:
Mid-September mornings are striated light on the thick green floor. The mysterious vine spills over, bent branches scattered with once purple blooms now fading to lavender.
The season is changing, the blooms done with their blooming and I’m torn between acceptance and longing for longer.
Does hope have a season? Will we need to wait for it to make sense again? Will I embrace the soul of hope and not pack it away like a summer dress, move it to the back of the closet, knowing it’s there and yet wondering if it makes sense?
I greeted someone this morning to ask a favor and I began with, “Good morning.” Ready to send the message, I paused and rewrote it
Adding, “I hope you’re feeling hopeful this morning.”
Hope is important to my friend and I.
Weeks ago, I typed a message more like an essay telling someone jolted by bad news that we don’t stop hoping, we don’t give up on hope.
We don’t “put off our hope”, don’t defer it like asking for more time to make good on a debt or commitment.
We don’t procrastinate hoping, I told her because that makes our hearts even more broken.
Instead, we keep hoping and we see the beautiful bloom, the tree of life.
Fulfillment.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12 NIV
I hope you’re feeling hopeful this morning.
“But may all who search for you be filled with joy and gladness in you. May those who love your salvation repeatedly shout, “God is great!” Psalms 70:4 NLT
I hope you remember all the times you’ve seen hoping bring fulfillment and I hope you will believe, believe again or simply start hoping it may just be true.
Months ago, we reintroduced ourselves in the parking lot. They were a family. She had a baby in her arms and another on her hip. The oldest, a boy was clinging to her legs, locked arms holding with all his little might.
A man stood by. He allowed our brief catching up, listened as she answered timidly, not meeting my eye, that she was okay. I watched all of them pile into a tiny car and slowly drive away.
She was a tough one, struggled to make up her mind that life could be better. She didn’t stay long, only enough time to bring her tiny firstborn into the world.
Then, she left the shelter, starry-eyed over her aims to try to have a “family”.
The next time I saw her, she was running the register and she saw me before I saw her. Face down and eyes of a child who’d been discovered in the wrong, she tentatively said hello.
Again, “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“I’m working here now and I like it and the babies are okay.”
Smiles and see you soons were exchanged.
Yesterday, she sat on a pale pink bicycle, its basket loaded with groceries. I hurried up to see her. We talked about her bike, how much I loved it, old fashioned cruiser, no gears, simple and sort of cool.
She told me she needed it for work and how she’s not too far away but had been missing work, just came back after her daddy passed away.
Her face was stoic. He had been in a bad car accident and he never got better. I told her I was sorry.
I noticed the box of “Nutty Buddies” and thought she better get home, but she kept talking and the resolve despite her grief and trials was in her eyes, meeting mine and wide opening up with determination.
She told me she’d seen another of the shelter’s residents, this woman I thought had successfully moved on in work and raising her daughter.
She told me, “No, I don’t know what happened.”
“Well, I hope I see her too.” I said as I thought of how I wished she’d been able to stay stable, to stay in the “better than before”.
We said goodbye and I watched her cross four lanes of traffic towards her home.
I wondered about the man/father of the babies. I wondered about the other woman who has fallen back into hardship. I wondered if I should have driven her home.
For a second, I thought about the one I thought would make it, the old language of programmatic inputs and outcomes and for another second, I felt I’d failed her.
Then thought of a word God woke me with a few days ago, “shifting” and how everyone grows and then maybe dries up, withers and then along comes a little grace and rain and look it’s breaking through the hard earth, the left alone to rest soil.
Growth.
We shift to better in a moment, an hour, a day or sometimes after a long hard season of barrenness or mistakes of our making.
Acquiescence, a beautiful (even if reluctant) acceptance that may not make sense to others, but brings light and peace, resilience to our faces.
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7 ESV
“Blue Ribbon Girl” was painted a few years ago to remember the college girl who left art and after a bit of life and shifts, is finally home.”
I did the most silly, most powerful thing the other day. I changed the description in my Pinterest profile back to what it was originally.
Powerful? Silly? Yes, both. I edited the words characterizing me as an author and artist and I went back to the grander aspiration.
Hope.
Works on Paper
Lisa Anne Tindal, artist returned to “Artist and writer longing for a little white house near the ocean.”
Longings leading my heart back to me.
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11 ESV
“Come back, daughter.” my Heavenly Father keeps saying to me.
My Notes app became my diary at the beach, a call to smaller, more lasting things.
Nothing aspirational only thoughts of those around me, my line of thinking, line of prayer meandered from galleries, Italian art tours, and pricing my art in a way that measures its worth not just a sale.
We walked down the quiet street and discovered a white heron, gracious in its stance. The creek was quiet, the bird shaded and shielded by old overgrown cedar limbs as I knelt with a three year old resting against my chest.
I told her I was so happy for this gift, this peace today in a white elegant bird.
So, my prayer because God hears them. If possible and good for us, I’d love to have a seaside house for those I love to gather.
To gather again.
To search for the white bird daily.
White Bird
To paint on paper bags, be surprised by God again, to be visited by birds and song.
Aspirations so small and mighty.
So settled, not seeking.
So confident of my heart’s desires being known by my very kind Father.
Last weekend, I responded to the question of when I became an artist with the truth of flunking out of college, losing my art scholarship because of hard things and harm and then working hard as a helper of families before, in my 50’s, coming back to art.
There’s truth there, but even more in the realization,
I’ve always been an artist in the very same way I was told “You’ve always been brave.”
Paper Bag Works
I did a powerful silly thing. I changed my Pinterest bio back to the true, although dreamy thing.
To be an artist with a little white house near the ocean.
To gather. To paint.
To search for the white bird with my family.
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30:15 ESV
2 Timothy 1:7-8 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. This blog is about my Christian walk. Join me for the adventure.
Lisa Anne Tindal 