Sunday was beautiful. Finally after weeks of flu, pneumonia and other inhibitors, we made it back to father Andrew’s church. I felt like a child with such excitement to go—sometimes I wonder about my building desire and longing to be there. Is it out of proportion with reality in my present life with the drive and children and the austere commitment which goes so much further…? But it has been persistant and thoughts of this spin perpetually in my daily existence. Making me ask questions. Making me confront myself. Taking pause.
I had a bit of an epiphany at my icon table before. Here I am, finally gearing up for wholeheartedly working with father Andrew, as all of the previous icons (except for my large Resurrection piece and a small portrait of St. George) are oiled, sealed and currently on a missionary sojourn in Vermont. And so I proceed with drawing several icons. Taking the prototype as inspiration, and it was there in that process that I was most significantly moved. So interesting when all of a sudden things start to make sense—connection of lines in the iconographic space, the greater connection of life laid forth like a map. It’s as if the aperture has opened on a camera and light has flooded my vision. But it wasn’t just a singular understanding, it was the culmination of many things pointed to and landing in this moment.
First, gratefulness. I couldn’t sleep last night, being woken with this overwhelming sense of Love. And how to respond to “how can I be Loved so much?” when I in my earthly self am so small and sinful and far from resting at the Eternal door? But it was Love. Big Love. The kind of Love where the incarnation fleshes out and sits beside you. My innermost desires and prayers heard? My flashes of seeing the future perhaps not just my solitary musings but of a bigger pool of collective possibilities that definitively were glimpsed. And what does this mean this Love? This means that we need not ever worry about the future. We need not linger in a place of doubt when anything and everything is possible. Time opens up, Eternity opens up and we too can be there, making a significant difference in the hand of Heaven. All things appointed in its right time—each moment a calling to fulfill. I know the Spirit is moving in significant ways in our lives--even in the stillness. And this is what is markedly different for me in the here and now. Perhaps it is a basket of patience given, but in the basket were the most beautiful ripe fruits. Ones that must be eaten now, or at least the time is coming soon. My small prayers are heard. This makes me loved. And this reality of this is overwhelming me in joy.
Joy that indeed one day, both on and off the icon table, perhaps I will be able to imprint all these prototypes of icons on my heart and truly live the Love proclaimed in my day-to-day workings. That my gifts may truly be used. Even in my unworthiness. Even in the mountains yet to climb to get there. That souls will repent and see the glory of God. I know sitting with the icons and writing them has profound influence in my inner stirrings. I know that I can be a better person for it, if I die to self and doubt. If I allow myself to be used in the gentle hand of the Spirit. And in all this was another aspect of this Love that came to me.
That of Aaron. His appointed calling. In his steering of our ship, the navigation of waters unknown to places unseen but known, I can totally rest on God’s hand and Spirit upon him to give him guide. Even in my bouts of impatience, when I feel stagnant, or unmoving, or walking in slow motion, or ineffectual, or too small to matter--as if I am not making a difference, or impatient with not seeing around the next bend in our lives, or not feeling connected, that God indeed is working-- making our breath worthy, our place in this world and our lives full of hope. How can one’s faith oft be so lacking in trust unless we SEE? I have centered myself back into the miracle of the unseen hand—and then it played out in my sketching of Elijah in the desert. A prototype of the Novgorodian school again, from the 15th century (although unfound to share on this page).
Elijah (in Hebrew, meaning “strength of the Lord”), was a worthy prophet, in this icon depicted hiding in the desert, being fed by ravens, calmly reaching out his right hand to accept heavenly gifts to sustain him so he did not die of hunger. The very laws of nature can change according to the will of God. So quiet and most like a birthing from the cave, the lines move with my hand in a beautiful lyric play of form and shape, allowing one to enter in. Was it that I asked for guidance more? Was it that I, in gratefulness, felt the Love and allowed the opening up of Elijah in the act of drawing?
I don’t know. I don’t need to know. I need to do. I will be obedient. I will be grateful. I will be hopeful in the unseen promises of the moment. And of the past which will catapult us to the future—to the fullness of time.
And if you read this, pray for my hands that they may carry out the will of the Father. I want to draw and draw and draw making lines that dance and ignite with holy fire, lines that speak as with prophet Elijah on Mt. Horeb:
“Behold, the Lord will pass by. And, behold, a great and strong wind rending the mountains, and crushing the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake, fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire the voice of a gentle breeze, and the Lord was there.” (1Kings 19, 11-12).
May we be attentive to The Voice. The manifestation of God in the world.
Elijah was able to open and close the heavens—filled with inner fire for the zeal of God. Elijah was a daring preacher. And I pray this too for my husband: a reminder that in answer to the burning love of God the natural order of things is changed by the Divine Will. St. Basil knows how to answer this. Are we not also in a desert of sorts? The prophet needs to be alone and pray in his new cave on the third floor of a building. To ponder, to discern, to act with inner fire.
And to remember that provision of this life’s journey is abiding hope in God.
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