Challenged to See the World Differently

"Labor with Love" by CCayon
2010
30" x 40" Acrylic on Canvas

As a Catholic and as a designer, I am challenged to see and experience the world radically differently.  In my daily life I am tethered to the routines and demands of being a wife and a mother, as well as to my responsibilities as a citizen of my town, a colleague in my work, a neighbor in my community.  The more time I reflect and seek  God, and the more time I absorb myself in my creative work,  the more I realize that “being religious” is a very positive phrase that means  experiencing my reality with an awareness  that there is more to life and to my inspired work than what I am able to understand.    The great Jewish philosopher, Abraham Joshua Herchel said, “In our religious situation we do not comprehend the transcendent; we are present at it, we witness it. Whatever we know is inadequate; whatever we say is an understatement…Concepts, words must not become screens; they must be regarded as windows.”

It is easy for an artistic or an inventive person to understand the religious experience. For the imaginative person, religious moments are like those times  one is so absorbed in one’s  imagination that we “lose” our awareness of place and time; we become absorbed into our work and our work becomes absorbed into our being.   I love it when I close myself off inside my  room, away from all other distractions,  knowing that I am going to work on some project and then be surprised by the fact that what seemed like ½ hour was really 3 hours. Sometimes this experience of creativity and productivity cannot be described adequately, only those who allow themselves to go through it understand the awesomeness of this kind of “losing oneself”. 

In my Catholic experience, when this happens it is an encounter with the Mystery of God, not a psychological occurrence, but a real “losing of oneself” to a within and beyond experience of the divine; meaning that I became aware that God is within me and beyond me.  It inspires in me a sense of reverence and wonder. The more deeply I become aware of this, the more I am motivated to transforming myself. In our celebration of Eucharist, our Catholic community expresses what we believe and what we think, and we are challenged to transform ourselves;  to act out what we believe and think in our world. Actually, more than just acting it out, we are to become the action, to “lose our self” in the work of becoming holy.  This kind of work becomes creative and holy work, meaning that we become partners with God in his creation of our world. Lumen Gentium notes, “The eternal Father, by a free and hidden plan of His own wisdom and goodness, created the whole world. His plan was to raise men to a participation of the divine life.” (LG2) We are all called, we were born,  to take part in God’s holy work.

Those religious and artistic experiences inspire me to be more Catholic, to be more holy, and in doing so, my deeds become holy deeds.  Heschel notes, “He is asked to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does.” 

Every time Catholics celebrate Mass, we are getting away from those distractions of our week, we are to become open and  to prepare ourselves to encounter this mystery through hearing God’s word and through the mystery of the sharing of a Eucharist meal.  Lumen Gentium continues “Really partaking of the body of the Lord in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, we are taken up into communion with Him and with one another. "Because the bread is one, we though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread".  In this way all of us are made members of His Body, "but severally members one of another".(LG 7) The challenge is to take this mystery and become and live this mystery in everything I do and with everyone I meet.

Recommended reading:

Lumen Gentium- The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html