When You Can't Make Art... Make Art.

Saturday morning I found myself waking up at the leisurely hour of 10am (not a good sign for a working girl who needs to get up at 6:30am tomorrow morning to go back to work!), and wanting to make a dent in my self-assigned sketches and writing. I brought a Moleskin journal that my friend Jess gave me for Christmas last year, fully determined to fill it with reflections, sketches, poetry... and so far, I have a long list of assignments and lots of blank pages.

For example, I asked myself, to "Write about the food culture in DC." Haven't done that. I asked myself to draw at the National Portrait Gallery (haven't done that either). And my favorite, I asked myself to freewrite for at least 20 minutes about my love for the liberal arts. And I haven't even managed to do that! I have been lazy with the journal and now as I enter my second to last week in this marvelous city, I find myself itching to carry it around everywhere just in case I need to scribble down a moment or write something or both.

And so Saturday, with the cold November sun beaming down on my reddish hair, and my now well worn Peruvian over the shoulder bag slung across my back, I set off for Port City Java, my favorite Eastern Market coffee shop.

I settled down in a corner with a cinnamon scone and a small skim vanilla latte. I pulled out my mechanical pencil and searched for a suitable inanimate thing to draw. The window view was out - too many lines and angles and shading. But the back of the couch in front of me might work nicely! It doesn't move - it has fairly clean lines and I might even look like I'm drawing something semi-realistic.

Alas, no. The sketch lacks vision, clarity and beauty. It is the back of a couch, drawn poorly at that. I get discouraged, and want to throw down my pencil in complete frustration. WHY IN THE WORLD AM I EVEN BOTHERING TO PRETEND I CAN DRAW????

It turns out, the sketching isn't really what the morning is about. To my surprise and delight, across from me and my poor rendition of a back of a couch, sit two boys and their father, munching on bagels and butter and looking very pleased with themselves. I gather from their soggy hair and big grins that they had just been swimming, and smile knowingly at the father as if to say, "Ah, yes, I understand your children and their joy!" The father smiles back, and just as I am turning back to my drawing, the little boy closest to me asks, "What is she doing?"

What indeed. I want to congratulate him on his brilliant question, but his father merely observes, "She's drawing, Malcolm." Well, I think to myself, that's a very kind way of putting it. I would say, she is scribbling furiously in a notebook and attempting to make it look like she is drawing. Malcolm is fascinated by the movement of my pencil and he watches me, his eyes glued to my table. I smile, "Hi there!" I say in my most friendly, I'm good with kids! voice. "Did you just go swimming?" The boys smile shyly, and hide their faces in their fuzzy coats. The dad looks over at me, "Yes, they just finished their swimming lessons at the pool over there." The boys sneak a peek at me from beneath their coat sleeves, their eyes filled with mirth. A few minutes go by, and I go through a frenzy of erasing as my couch starts to look more and more like a couch... potato. I see the boys stand up to leave out of the corner of my eye. But there is a more joyful moment of surprise in store for me at PCJ. 

The youngest, Malcolm, approaches my table and rests his sticky chin on the clean orange surface, inches from my sketchbook. "Well hi there," I say. "What are you drawin?" he asks. There is no guile, no irony, and no mocking in his voice. "I'm drawing that couch right there." I point. His eyes follow my pencil to the green leather and back to my face, alight with curiosity. "Can I see?" I push my sketchbook towards him and suddenly his brother is there as well, his glasses pushed crookedly over his ears as he peers over his younger brother's shoulder to see my drawing. I suddenly have a brilliant idea. "Would you like to draw?" Malcolm nods, looks fleetingly at his father and then nods again. I hand over the pencil and he is off, scribbling furiously and concentrating only on that creamy blank page. His brother wants a turn, and the two of them offer their input into my sketchbook, offer their vision to me, and in one exceptional moment, remind me that when you can't make art... make art. When you can't draw, draw. When you can't sing, belt it out. When you can't play soccer, kick the ball with all your might. 

For what is more joyful, more beautiful, more alive than doing those things you love even if you're bad at them? And what is better than watching the utter joy that your sorry attempts at drawing the back of the couch in front of you brings to another person (or in my case, two very cute little people)? 

Malcolm and his brother are the reason that I will keep drawing. The reason that I will keep singing even if my singing isn't great. The reason I will give my whole heart to the things I love even if I am no longer any good at them... because it is life-giving, it is truest life, and because sticky fingers and laughing eyes are worth more than any special mention in sketching contests. 

Love,

Hilary

The (First/Second) Coming: Reflections on the First Sunday in Advent

Disclaimer: I am not a theologian. I am not a candidate for a bachelor's degree in Biblical and Theological Studies. I am not, despite my high hopes, an intellectual prodigy in the realm of living faithfully. But this year, on this blog, and perhaps for years to come on this blog, I would like to offer you a few thoughts for each week of Advent, the time of preparation and waiting before the celebration of Christ's birth. 

The first Sunday in Advent is focused on the coming we are all much more familiar with: Christ's second coming. We are familiar with this coming because it is the one Christians have spent much of their time discussing over the past 2,000 years. We have done our fair share of miscalculating (during the Protestant Reformation an entire city burned because of it) the date and time of His arrival, and we've also written tomes and tomes about how Christians should act "in light of the Second Coming." We are a hopeful people - pushing forward to the next horizon and pushing beyond the boundaries of our conventional imaginations. Yes, we say to ourselves and our churchly neighbors while sipping cups of chocolate and admiring one another's tasteful pine cone Christmas wreathes, God is going to come back and we are going to see things put right. 

It takes a great deal of faith in God to make this statement. After all, our belief that Christ is coming again hinges on our belief that Christ can come again - that is, that Christ is not disintegrated into the earth, not dead, but alive, and not merely alive but ascended. We cannot believe that Jesus was born, died, did not rise, and is coming again. The Second Coming is about the Ascension. And the Ascension is about the Descending, the Birth. 

I have often wondered why we talked about the Second Coming during Advent. I was spending most of my childhood mind wondering where Mom hid the plastic baby Jesus so that I couldn't put him in the Nativity scene until Christmas Eve, or wondering if we would EVER get one of those Advent calendars with the chocolates inside them like my friend Ashley down the street always got. And I still don't know, as a 20 year old, what the Second Coming is all about. This year, though, I have found myself marveling at how the Second Coming grounds itself in the events of the First Coming, how the two are connected, how God has designed the story with more elegance and more ingenuity than any human mind can contrive. Marvel with me: God descends to Earth, lives among us, and because He lives among us, He dies for us, and because He dies, He destroys death, and because He destroys death He rises, and in His rising gives us the promise of His return. 

So perhaps we talk about the Second Coming during the First Sunday of Advent because its promise is grounded on what we know has already happened: that First Coming, the Birth, the Incarnation. And perhaps we would do well to remember that grounding when we are tempted to think of the Second Coming as some kind of "do-over" where God finally gives us the things we want, or where God says, "all right, this one's for real!" or even the time when God is going to show us His cards and separate wheat from chaff, play by the rules and get some to Heaven and others to... well, the other place. No. The Second Coming is hidden in the promises and events of the First Coming, and the story is grounded in the reality we experience every day on Earth: the creation of families through the arrival of children, the difficulties of being accepted by groups of people who don't seem to understand us, the temptations of power, lust and influence, poverty, war, hunger, doubt. These realities should not evaporate when we think of the Second Coming, rather, these realities should usher it in, welcome it with open arms. It is the world broken and yet beautiful to which Christ came, and it is the same world broken and yet beautiful that yearns for His return. 

First Coming, Second Coming. Second Coming, First Coming. The order seems less important than it did at the beginning of this blog post. It is my hope for you this week, readers, that you look for the places in your life that are crying out for the Arrival of Christ. Look for the places that would usher Him in, remembering that He is being Incarnate already in your heart, that He is already arriving. And hope, hope wildly and freely and with abandon, in His Second Coming, that this first Sunday of Advent calls us to remember. 

Love,

Hilary

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the 
works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now 
in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ 
came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when 
he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the 
quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through 
him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, 
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(From the Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Tradition, 1979 edition)

Thanksgiving: Why It's Okay to Bake from the Box

Ah, Turkey Day... the giving of thanks day, the football and overeating day, the Weight Watcher's version of Black Friday... that holiday we do not always understand, but we celebrate nonetheless.

And today, as I wait for my Thanksgiving meal with the other students who stayed behind for our small break, I am baking from the box.

This prompts some shock and horror from the optimistic section of my brain that thinks I am good at cooking, and that I could follow a "from scratch" recipe and present a beautifully arranged, homemade lemon squares to the group. A BOX???? On THANKSGIVING???? Hilary, you ought to be ashamed. You don't even have an apron on! You aren't playing a little concerto on your pots and pans as you add a little rosemary and thyme to this dish and a dash of salt to that pan. You are sitting at your kitchen table, blogging of all things! Isn't the point of Thanksgiving to show off your cooking prowess? 


Alas, I am not a good cook. There have been a few moments when I have cooked well, usually in the presence of my friend's kitchen, where I am given relatively easy tasks such as peeling peaches or mixing cinnamon and sugar (and yes, you can mess that up if you spill it all over the floor). But in general, my cooking skills amount to boiling water, opening cardboard boxes, and mixing ingredients together in a bowl. Not exactly an application to Le Cordon Bleu. And certainly nothing I am proud of. And certainly nothing that I can write home about. 


But sometimes it is okay to bake from the box. Sometimes what we offer to our thanksgiving meal is humbler than we'd like. Sometimes what we offer from our messy hearts and lives is just that... messy, less than perfect, less than what we expect ourselves to be able to offer. And now, returning to this blog post after a wonderful meal and wonderful company, after a brisk 5 mile walk to and from the World War II Memorial (thank you, Hannah, for the wonderful vanilla chai and the company)... I know that it is okay to bake from a box sometimes. It is okay to be less than the perfection we imagine. It is even, in this day, something to be thankful for. 


So give thanks, whoever you are, wherever you are - give thanks as wholeheartedly and messily as you can. Bake from a box. Sing a song off-key. Write a letter and smudge the ink on the envelope. Drink tea and read a good book, call a friend. Give thanks for the mess, for the growing. 


(and if you are ever in this beautiful city, walk down Constitution Ave, by the Capitol building, past the Smithsonian castle with its watchful eyes, up around the Washington Monument and its flickering flags, down the grassy slope and across the street, and into the World War II memorial. The water rushes, the lights beam, and you will never forget that remembering is sacred.)

Love,
Hilary