Books are fun!

Star Tunnel Book on Olives

I feel like I'm in college again. I have come "home" to Bill and Bobbie's house with all my dirty laundry from my week of classes at Campbell Folk School. The class on bookmaking was excellent. The Olive Book above needs some text to finish it out - I learned so much as I made it. Our teacher, Annie Cicale (http://www.cicaleletteringdesign.com/), was wonderful at helping each person in the class find what we needed. She allowed us to try new things and she helped us turn our mistakes into design elements. I like thinking about mistakes as "design elements." My theologically trained mind moves in the direction of God's own design for our lives and how our mistakes become elements of strength and opportunity for us.

Our class was very fun as you can see from the picture below. This is Emily Ellingsworth who is also from Asheville. Emily teaches art at Asheville-Buncombe Tech, and she is also working on her MFA.

Emily showing her "Timeline" book called "The Journey of a Heart"

I don't know when I have had so much fun with paint, paste made from flour, water and paper! We made paste paper to "upholster" the boards which become the covers for our books. It brought out the child in each of us. I think one of the most important things about the week and Annie's instruction is that each of us felt valued. Each person's work was important to the whole group and we learned from each other.

So I go back to school again on Sunday evening; this time to make a doll and learn about doll making. I anticipate another wonderful week of rich conversations over meals shared with a variety of "folk" and artisans. I am learning a lot about myself as I work. Reflecting on these learnings is a wonderful process for me.

I continue to pray for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East. One of my fellow students this past week asked me how reconciliation happens. I think I am beginning to see some of the elements of that process and seems somewhat upside down at this point. Richard Lischer at the end of his book, The End of Words, the necessary "stuff" of reconciliation. Reconciliation comes "...from a reservoir of forgiveness that, had we not received it and shared it among ourselves we could not speak of it. We now participate in something larger and better than our inherently violent disposition toward enemies." This is the upside down nature of reconciliation that forgiveness comes first - not at the end as we might expect. First, we acknowledge God's forgiveness in our own lives and the lives of those we separate ourselves from and then we begin to participate in the process of reconciliation. So, I think perhaps this is the first step in reconciliation. Then comes the hard work of listening with the compassionate heart of one who has been forgiven. It involves hearing the story of hurt and responding to that story in the best way we can at the moment. And lastly it involves moving forward with careful intentionality and prayer. I don't think any reconciliation is possible without prayer.

In her article in The Christian Century, (December 16, 2008) Lauren Winner, talks about praying the Nunc Dimittis:

Lord, you now have set your servant free

to go in peace as you have promised;

For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,

whom you have prepared for all the world to see:

A light to enlighten the nations,

and the glory of your people Israel.

These words from Luke 2:29-32 are words which many of us say quite without thinking each night. But Winner points to the rich ground of prayer which is laid before us in the first two chapters of Luke. "God's faithful people respond to God by praying." This prayer is "the channel through which we participate in God's breaking into the world." This kind of prayer is not hard work, but rather it is a response to what God is already doing. This kind of prayer weaves a rich and strong fiber of God entering into our lives as we enter into God's life in prayer. This interaction, this garment of grace, is found over and over in scripture as God's people cry out for help, give thanks, and struggle with life. This is the essential response and action in our lives as we face new possibilities and struggle together for peace and reconciliation.