Terrible Beauty...

Barlow Girl has this song... it's called "Let Go".
The chorus is printed on the overlay to the right:
'Cause I'm about to let go
and live what I believe
I can't do a thing now
but trust that You'll catch me
When I let go
When I let go

I drew this picture in three hours. First a pencil sketch, in a sketch pad. Then tracing paper for the black ink work on the left. Then another piece of tracing paper for the blue ink work on the right.

*****

There is a terrible beauty in the descent of depression. As Parker J. Palmer writes in Let Your Life Speak, we learn ourselves during that journey, and we meet God - or perhaps He meets us - when we crash at the end of that fall.

Painfully beautiful poetry and prose is borne out of the suffering of depression. Much of the world's great art was grown - created - seeded - in the ground at the bottom of that well. I find it ironic that not only is God nearest us when we feel farthest from Him, it is at these times that we often find ourselves creating as He creates.

I don't know if this has been obvious to any besides myself, but my writing style has changed. Here, at least, in this blog, the language I use, the style in which I narrate my soul's journey - my soul's becoming - my becoming - is different from the language I use in my other blogs, in my other writing, in my everyday life and speech. This is one of my prayer-languages, I think, this formal style of communication that uses metaphor and philosophy to express devotion - desire - desperation - divinity. Of course, music is another of my prayer-languages, and visual art is another still.

Words sometimes rise up within me, and I am unable to stem the flow - they erupt within me, they become who I am; I have to get them out, type them, write them, sing them. And pictures are sometimes so clear in my mind's eye that they have to be drawn or painted, because if I do not do this thing - get down on paper these messages God wants to express - then I am not being true to my self, for it is a Gifting He has given me, this ability to see and reproduce His messages for both myself and others.

The descent into darkness is, I believe, necessary for personal growth and for recognition of potentials and limitations.

Had I not spent time in that pit - that hole - that well of darkness - I could neither know nor properly appreciate my time in the Light. It is the very duality of darkness and light (for one cannot truly exist without the other) that is brougth to the fore during the valley-times.

Pit, Fall 2001

Mover, Maker, Changer,
unbreak me once again.
Beautify me...
I want to be fully Yours.

Words are too finite.

I love, I love...
I love Your presence.
I love, I love...
I love Your presence...

(I Love Your Presence - Darren Clarke, Jesse Lane/Vineyard Music)

Comfort, May 2005

I have been through much in my 29 years of life here on earth. Depression, undiagnosed ADHD, suicidal ideation, anxiety, other tragedy... I have made friends, lost friends... I have been in love and later come to wonder why I ever thought that was meant to be.

I think that is where a lot of my ability to relate to others comes from. And I think it would be impossible for me to recognize God had I never travelled this path.

Sitting in the corner, wishing for some semblance of meaning to come into her life... firm in the knowledge that there is nothing within her to redeem her from the mistakes she's made in this life.

Yet there is love in the darkness that wells up from below, and there is light coming through to warm her... to bear her through this time.

It is in our brokenness that He is nearest to us - in the seeming loss of self and loss of faith that
Reconciliation, May 2005
we are able to reach out and touch Him and be touched, in turn.

Healing is ours for the taking - we need simply to receive it.

She is alone, once more, in darkness. It is overwhelming, this inky black that threatens to overwhelm her.

But in the death of self she is raised to new life.

In the death of self she finds her self, and God reaches out to her in the glory of that resurrection.

He restores her, renews her, regenerates her soul, and she becomes more her self each time this occurs.
He Touches Our Hearts, October 2005

To be...
To exist completely within You,
within Your Will.
To live...
To act completely within You,
within Your Will.
Burn this shell
that I may rise whole and new.

There are many more things to write of. But I will wait until tomorrow. It is late, and I need to sleep.