Angel Esther

Today, Esther and I decided to have a portrait session. The last time she and I did this, she was modelling as an Angel for the benefit of a certain public art project, and for a couple of years now has been standing on the walls of our city, in a praying pose. We walked down to see the mosaics together soon after they were installed, and I asked her how she felt seeing herself on the wall. 

"It's such a privilege, praying for the city," she said.

In January, Esther was diagnosed with cancer. For six months, she had to sit through many gruesome rounds of chemotherapy, but she didn't stop praying, and neither did all the people around her. After the first two treatments, her hair started falling out, she began losing weight, and would be asleep for days at a time on heavy duty anti-sickness pills because the chemo drugs made her feel so foul. She kept praying, even when she shivered her way through summer having no hair or body fat left. After she first received the diagnosis, she wanted it announced at church so people knew, but wouldn't ask too many questions when her appearance started changing. While friends went over and said some prayers, I had to lead the congregation singing songs with my guitar. I watched Esther sit quietly, being prayed for, tears falling out of her eyes. It was about all any of us could do to hold it together and keep singing.

And then a few weeks ago, Esther was given the all clear – no remission, nothing, just clear. She's completely healed of cancer in 6 months flat. And because her hair is growing back ridiculously fast, we fixed a date as quickly as we could for these pictures, because we want to mark this.

This is a remarkably strong, generous, faith-filled woman. She knows what it means to shelter under the heavenly wing. She really knows, and looking at these images, something has changed. A new serenity has settled in. Just being around her, you feel it.

This is the day we chose to make pictures which say 'thanks' that our Angel Esther is healed. 

"Thanks."

{Another Soundtrack for Today: The Delays - Find A Home}

Honesty, Honestly

For the sake of transparency, let's just get one thing straight. Sorry if banging on about projects I'm doing is ever annoying and comes across as self-righteous. It's not meant to, and if it does it's only because it's taken a lot of years to stop being lazy and apathetic about things outside my own navel and get involved. It will always seems like a miracle if anything good ever happens, so being part of that feels pretty exciting, and it's something I want my friends to feel too.

If 'first person' is your clearest perspective, if your story-telling is about your own experience, then some chapters will describe being pummelled to the ground, or there will be silence because of that pummelling. Sometimes, when the redemption kicks in, a chapter or two about the buzz seems reasonable. But sometimes, in at last letting off steam, it may sound more like a rant than a celebration*. And sometimes, when it points more to yourself than the thing you're excited by, it can appear that you're more excited by yourself than it!

Truly, I'm sorry if that has happened. I'm just constantly amazed if anything I ever touch can come to good. That is redemption. And drawing trees for a little girl in China? It's really easy, costs nothing practically, and isn't about me. And doing it made me cry, again, because it matters and I wanted you to be involved too.

The left hand is not meant to know what the right hand is doing, apparently, meaning just get on with loving but don't broadcast it. It's easy to forget that the messy side of life isn't the part we generally publish online, so the buzz can appear self-centred. If it does, it's only in amazement it happens at all.

It's because the mess exists that the good parts seem so worth talking about.

Honestly? This wouldn't exist without there being mess, honest to God.


* A friend of mine affectionately refers to these kind of words as 'the little darlings', with a gracious 'everything belongs' kind of humility, as Fr Richard Rohr teaches.


{Today's Soundtrack: Embrace - Gravity}

Rules of Attraction

"Arf!"

*

Are you happy now,

Can you breathe again?

Did you toss away your demons

And lighten up?

Did you close your eyes,

Did you see my face?

Did you walk along that beach

You've been dreaming of?

{Today's soundtrack: Dylan LeBlanc - Emma Hartley}

what do you want me to say?

{Today's Soundtrack: Voice Of The Beehive - I Say Nothing}

Places

How do you find anchor when your words have become a sea?

Pondering these images helps me think on this as they show the place where my current writing project began. Here, some words came, and were recorded with a pencil on paper, by oil lamp. There was a simplicity here which allowed something to start happening, and particular words came into sharp focus. Place seems important.

Today, listening to Josh Garrells, I feel stirred about this sense of place again, feel connected to three specific places around the planet, and three clear, simple things come onto focus: the start of things, the essence in things, and the fruit from things. The oil lamp place signifies all three, but separate, they go like this:

Bristol, where I was when this music discovered me. The start of things in many ways, as Bristol is a constant, and the place where I return to again and again. In the time I have lived here, it has been a home of continual renewal and redemption. It remains the same, and repeats its themes. After all this time, it is still a symbol of new beginnings. The start of things.

North Island, New Zealand with my friend Shirl, where we listened to this music on a road trip and talked through the essence of expression and how to walk out your own with integrity. We talked about fruit, and seemed to be referring to fruit yet to grow, but which we hoped for. Josh provided a catalyst for this conversation as we wound down into Raglan. As Shirl and I live on opposite sides of the planet, wherever we are on our spiritual journeys, these rare times of being physically together necessarily entail talk which goes straight to the middle of things. The essence in things.

And Portland, Oregon, where this music comes from, and where I spent some time a couple of years ago. Portland, more than most other places I have been, exists with a spaciousness entirely comfortable with the progression of things. It is a place which homes people happy to ask questions, and for that reason it was a precious place for me to go with mine. It has a gentleness about it, and if you are not letting your heart run free a little with possibility, you can get the sense that you're missing something brilliant. Portland is full of things growing, and I treasure it deeply as a place – a nourishing harbour. During my stay there, some tiny, tiny shoots appeared. They bear fruit today. The fruit from things.

Today's soundtrack connects me to important places, and the physical, solid ground truth of those places describes the start of things, the essence in those things, and the fruit from things. This, today, is how I find anchor when I have started to go adrift in a sea of words.

{Today's Soundtrack: Josh Garrells}

Some Advice for SPL from The Girls

"SPL honey, the girls have been talking. You need to get out of that garden. Those frogs ain't been treatin' you right, and your pretty little head's a mess. We know it's fun to go staring into space at big ol' rockstar lizards to take your mind off things, but so long as you know that those fancy lookin' boys don't solve all your problems. Sure as anything they may create a few! That handsome Duke's still just a lizard, and you aint to go puttin' heavy expectation on him. You have to seize the here and now, or you might just miss what's right under your cute nose. You're coming with us tonight, and no arguing. We have just the place. It looks like a dump, but the boys are nice, not showy, and they don't mind making a fool of themselves to tell a honey she's a honey. Straightforward fellas, and that makes it so much more real because they have nothing to hide behind. Mimosa on tap. Grab your purse."

{Today's Soundtrack: Best Coast - Wish He Was My Boyfriend}

A Little Allegory

- this is a story for all the friends of #frogwatch

There once was a creature known to her friends as Small Plastic Lizard. She lived in a hidden garden, full of beautiful flowers and interesting little corners, and occasional visitors and plenty of big dreams.

One summer, out of nowhere, another figure appeared hiding under the busy lizzies in SPL's garden. He had bulging, golden eyes, and a shiny skin with fantastic shades of gold and chocolate brown.

"Yum," thought SPL, but as she was shy, she stayed hidden behind a flowerpot and didn't move.

The little froggie visitor had a thoughtful air about him, and SPL admired this. His quietness had a mystery that appealed to her, and made her like him more. She liked his name too – Yoda. She rolled it around on her tongue, but before she could pluck up courage to say hello, he had vanished. This became the hallmark of all their encounters. He kept disappearing before she could pluck up courage to make friends.

Meanwhile, another frog had found his way to SPL's garden. Hercules, his name was. He was massive, and moved in to the biggest hanging basket in the garden. Flipping impressive, legs like an Olympian, up and down the rockery all day, but it turns out he was too busy working out to ever notice Small Plastic Lizard. He went off to break a world record or something, and she never heard from him again.

The Frog With No Name quietly hopped in and out of frame a few times throughout that summer, although SPL knew nothing significant would ever happen between them. Nevertheless, they occasionally brushed shoulders in the barmy evenings, and this gave her something to daydream while she sunbathed in the long days.

Then, one day, a frog leapt into the garden and made a beeline straight for Small Plastic Lizard.

"Hi, Jeff. Name's Jeff. You can call me, er, Jeffo." She didn't know that his nonsensical chat was due to his totally fancying her. He made a bit of an idiot of himself. But Small Plastic Lizard really didn't mind, because he was so handsome, and famous too—a well known actor—and his bumbling ways just made her feel slightly less intimidated by his handsomeness. However, before she could reply to him, Jeff was bouncing off the walls and getting into 'method' for his upcoming role.

They did get it together. He and SPL had a thing going for a while, but it was rocky. He was a troubled and insecure frog, and played with SPL's heart, leaving her terribly sad and forlorn most of the time. In the end, Jeff's reckless ways killed him. He insisted on doing his own stunts, and one day leaped out of the hanging basket, fatally breaking his back.

Small Plastic Lizard sits alone in the garden now, wondering if she did something wrong. She wonders how many frogs she will have to kiss before she finds her prince.

Then out of the blue, amidst this reverie, an absolutely enormous lizard, Duke Gecko of Ripstop from the Bristol Kite Festival appears floating high in the sky above the garden.

What a beautiful lizard! She's heard of him, an outstanding specimen. Oh, my. Despite herself, SPL has now gone weak at her plastic knees, and her daydream has begun all over again. Can she really love again after Jeff?

Summer draws to an end, and each morning Small Plastic Lizard finds herself checking the mailbox to see if the Duke has written her any love letters yet. He's definitely that type of reptile. When she finds nothing there, she wonders if it may ever happen. Next day, one more look.

"Nothing yet," she says, and snuggles in again amongst the pansies.

{Today's Soundtrack: Sarah Vaughan - Someone to Watch Over Me}

Waterfalls

Standing at the edge of a waterfall, it is quite hard not to feel drawn over into its flow, in the same way as when you watch film of a roller coaster. Compelling, relentless, physical. It can be the same whenever you stand near people who have this sort of life force running through them. They just draw you along with them, because their colour stands out from grey crowds, and you just want to be where they are (as Lee Stringer describes).

These falls are Huka Falls in New Zealand. 160 cubic metres of water fall over this narrow lip every second, funnelled down a long, shallow gorge from Lake Taupo. I never remember statistics, but this always stayed, maybe because it made me think about the quantity of tears in the world (I was in NZ staying with friends working on the street kids book at the time). Maybe, though, because it also made me thankful for determined persistance, and hope. It made me think about being helpless, and about constant renewal, new life, fresh starts, and that life never, ever stops for a second. Watching this—and being around people who have relentless, infectious energy—makes it impossible to stand still. We need more waterfalls in our lives.

{Today's Soundtrack: Foals - Total Life Forever}

Courage

I'm writing a book. At times all I can think is 'what on earth am I thinking?'

It sometimes feels ridiculous, far-fetched and ambitious, but a grown-up friend this week asserted how brave the project is. She looked me in the eye and said in a way that you don't argue with just one word: 'courage'. I have not been feeling at all courageous lately, so tried to think of times when I've been brave in the past, and remembered a trip to Lundy Island almost exactly a year ago. Climbing a sheer sea-cliff is a different type of brave, of physical extremes, but it's still me – the same mind and heart in the middle of it.

These shots remind me too, every situation can be looked at from different angles. Being intimidated will not move you in any direction. All it takes to keep going is right here – it has to be!

I haven't climbed since that trip, after catching the novo-virus and spending a week on the moon, but maybe it's time to dust down the harness and fill up my chalk bag. Physical endurance always helps polish long-haul tenacity.

Right then, best foot forward...

{Today's Soundtrack: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!}

Pin Up

This young man is continually staring me out. His portrait is pinned onto the wall in front of my desk, pulled from the front page of a synopsis for my South Africa street kids project, 'I Am, Because You Are'.

Amos Trust—who facilitated my visit to South Africa—celebrate their 25th anniversary this weekend, and various friends from around the globe will be getting together in London to tell stories, share visions and celebrate what we are all having a go at in the name of this justice thing.

"Let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream."

The longer it takes this project to move along, the more I realise I have to let go of my own agenda, to an extent. Each year that passes, I'm glad of having the chance to learn, have my perspective broadened and sort out a few more of the petty, fear-driven solutions I initially cling to. Tough call. This weekend is a great moment to hook up with friends at Amos and discern a few more steps on the journey, be it this project, or with Dalits in India, or schoolkids in Nicaragua. (A few hundred of those kids praying for us was one of the most moving sounds I have ever heard - but that's a story for another time.)

Slightly unnerving, but I'm glad of this lad keeping an eye on me. Accountability is a valuable thing.

What do you pin up on your walls?

*

A soundtrack today which I think is the sound of someone waking up and seeing things fresh, for the first time. Mark E Everett has a great beard too currently. Hair theory strong with this one.

{Today's Soundtrack: Eels - Tomorrow Morning}

It's Not Process

The creative process is not really a process. As John O'Donohue observed when talking about the mind and thought, to describe the way we go as a process reduces our journey and its destination to something very cold and mechanical. Process requires a nuts and bolts approach, a kit of parts utilised for a desired outcome. Creativity by definition is never sure what its outcome is going to be, and therefore cannot assume the luxury of a process to fall back on.

But what do we have, then? 

We have practice – practical things like sketchbooks, cameras, notebooks, and a habit of using them.

We have encounters – the things that will be recorded with those tools and resources. Be fully engaged with those.

We have discipline – knowing that lessons are learned in a cyclical pattern of experience, reflection, and practical application.

We have craft – earned through diligent, habitual behaviour which us helps refine our language.

We have courage – a brave ability to engage with risk, knowing that if we don't risk we don't discover, or have anything new to contribute.

We have experience — a knowing that tough days are equalled by triumphs. If you cannot see it today, don't worry, it will not always be like that. Keep going. 

And within the high and low of experience, we have mystery. 

Living with mystery is the most heroic place a creative person can exist, because it requires that you do not rush towards an outcome out of fear. This rushing reduces you to a process again, because you will only cling to solutions you have already discovered. Living in mystery allows ideas, thoughts and encounters to travel somewhere new together, but these road trips take time. Whilst the conversation is unfolding, hold your nerve, it's still happening although perhaps in secret. 

It is not process, it is patience. I think it is the art of being as much as the art of doing.

Do not worry if you are not feeling a process. You're still cool.

{Today's Soudntrack: Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now}

Composition : iii

Wrought wires ringing with signals of life. Barred windows and crumbling, white-noise walls. Bricks, brackets and fuses – old weathered things.

I got to thinking about these surface compositions, how the outside works even better if it bears some reflection of the inside – meaning, simply, content is important. It reminds me of a question that Eugene (Street Kids father figure in Durban, South Africa) asked to no one as we drove around together one day in a smart neighbourhood, looking at all the big houses with high walls keeping wealthy South Africans safe. It is his experience that people show very different courtesies in their giving, depending on who stands to receive. He was reflecting on an encounter with some people we had just met. They treated him one way until they saw my white skin and became nice. I suppose his reflection was about transparency. He simply asked:

'Does the outside of your heart look like the inside?'

Does my surface stay true to what is underneath it? Do my compositions merely look pleasing on the surface, or are there layers within them that back up the original impression? It may sound like an obvious question, but it's a good one.

{Todays' Soundtrack: Bonobo - Black Sands}