Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When our creative balance is in flow, artists practice life in a continual state of self-daring. We arrive at the moments where vision and technical execution consummate the idea. We step back and say, “Cool... if I can do that, what if I change...maybe add...subtract...turn it upside-down...inside-out” And off we go, beginning afresh, our dance with our beloved seductress, Uncertainty. It is the artist’s life rhythm.
But wait, don’t we all habitually dance with uncertainty the same way? Yes, we all harbor some level of contempt for routine. However, artists answer the siren call to uncertainty at a level that borders on dangerous. We have our own vocabulary and practices to invite trial-and-error and even outright failure: Sketching, squinting, artist’s proof, maquette (small model of a sculpture), Wabi-sabi (venerating the accidents of process), contour drawing, crafting with the non-dominant hand. They all invite error and surprise, exploration, and renewal.
For the past three Saturdays we have approached Lent as a stand-alone work of art, a plein air landscape painting of the wilderness of our own naming. In the process of Lenten trial and error and even outright failure, we have endeavored to encounter our most humble self in preparation to encounter a frank-speaking Jesus at the well of our forebears. We have viewed this reach into the wilderness as a choice, like the choice between being shackled to sin, on one hand, and choosing to bind ourselves to Christ by faith, on the other. It’s our choice. That’s what changed at the empty tomb.
But what about the deserts that are thrust upon us by parents or spouses? What about the emotional and spiritual wilderness of terminal illness, family dissolution. Consider the loss of shelter and livelihood by fire and storm, along with the loss life’s artifacts. What about the nether-void left in the wake of the march of cognitive and memory impairment? These are the seemingly empty places of life that are part of the deal, part of our breathing, loving time together. It is all about what we do, together, with the seeming emptiness of our wilderness time.
Lent is the maquette on which we practice the discovery of our true, humble selves. Lent prepares us to recognize the Messiah when He stands before us in life’s shadow lands and says, “Fear not; I am with you; I hear you, my darling!”
Musical Reflection - When Memory Fades, Eric Nelson
Sweet Savior, lift my fear when the night is dark and scary. Embolden my reach for the water you offer; the water from which thirst will not follow. When words fail the lips of our beloved wilderness dwellers, grant us acceptance that there are conversations with You, we cannot hear. Amen
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