Holden Village, Washington
Article For Holden Village Voice, Written While The Executive Directors
As we begin to set the table of conversation about what 'home' means for us at this moment in time, we reflect on what draws us together as a human community rather than what divides us. With the thought that we will find what we seek, what we seek is that which connects us and celebrates the uniqueness each of us brings to the world.
We are writing this article in parallel with the U.S. elections. Disturbing and all too familiar news is coming out of the cities of Orlando, Dallas, Baton Rouge, Baghdad, Nice and Berlin. The common thread between them is the taking of precious lives. Our world seems filled with words and images of violence and anger, power in the worst sense of its meaning, and venomous attacks by people in power. All are ingredients that have been stirred into an unhealthy pot of hatred. Harsh words filled with fear are creating a very narrow and hard-edged world.
How might we soften our stance and invite all people to come and sit at a table of hope? Why does a community such as Holden think we can actually make a difference in the world? Even in our foolishness, we would like to set a table that can nourish and sustain
us. We imagine home as a place of laughter, forgiveness, understanding and welcomed celebration of our differences. We think it is timely to be reflecting on home as a place of healing and hope.
Our reflections about a home where healing engulfs the heart are delicate and spiritual at best, perhaps like hope itself. Home also implies a gathering of family, of people both friends and strangers. Proverbs tells us that it requires wisdom and understanding to establish a home. From the writer of John, “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” Preparing a place for others to gather around can bring understanding of one another.
One of the fundamental recognitions at the heart of all experience is the moment you realize that you are an individual, that there is no other in the cosmos quite like you. It is ontologically and spiritually true that each person is privileged and burdened with the gift of uniqueness. There is no escape from this. No one else sees the world the way that you do. No one else feels life in the way that you do. Neither can any other stand on the same ground as you; destiny has decreed this. You are the unique inhabitant of your own reality in how you interpret the world around you. How might we celebrate our uniqueness while not fearing the differences between us? How do we allow the Holy Spirit to help hold the tension between us?
For us, God is home, the only place that can unite all of us. This home brings us all to
a higher way of living — keeping us turned toward one another and rising above the boxes that we create. We yearn for stability, the center of peace, even in the midst of chaos. Home is a place of togetherness that unites us in our human experience. It is a place where love stabilizes our world home, not fear and hatred. Perhaps it is not in creating bridges but living on the bridge that we set a community, table. We don’t need to convert the world to our thinking, but rather participate and commune with God who dwells in the place of community.
As artists, our process of painting together gives us a feeling that life is being generated when we turn toward one another. Drawing close to the center gives us life, while separating isolates and stirs more despair and destruction. Creation is happening and is constantly evolving. As one friend states, it’s a verb.
We imagine home as a place of laughter, forgiveness, understanding and welcomed celebration of our differences.
Creativity and the act of creating, open a space where the possibility for a transcendent experience can take place. This is what creativity does. It is a circle, a circle of creativity and wholeness that opens a dialogue and relationship between the divine, the viewer and us. And many of you know, from your experience either in giving birth to the creativity in you or to receiving it from others, that these become some of our most profound mystical experiences. When we are open to one another and connect our relationship to our creator, we will travel the rapids of creativity together on a raft over which we have no control. We’re being borne along by the power of the Spirit, trusting in this process of renewal.
We came across a Frederick Buechner quote in our journal pages from long ago and still find his words rich with meaning. “I believe that what Genesis suggests is that this original self, with the print of God’s thumb still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are and is buried deep in all of us as a source of wisdom and strength and healing which we can draw upon or, with our terrible freedom, not draw upon as we choose. I think that among other things all real art comes from that deepest self — painting, writing music, dance, all of it that in some way nourishes the spirit.” In the thirteenth century, St. Thomas Aquinas said, that the same spirit that hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation hovers over the mind of the artist at work. The work of creation is still going on today. Creation is continuous and we, as humans gifted with creativity, have a role in carrying this great work forward. We recognize that creativity also can be used in radically dangerous ways, but when we imagine healing between us, and between nations, we see art as a visual language that helps transform divergence into dialogue. Art and creativity can empower us so that what was separate becomes whole, what was severed becomes healed, and what was difference can become welcomed diversity. Perhaps moving us closer to the healing of nations and home for all of humankind.
Thomas Merton discovered that our true self is found only in relation to the whole, which is the mercy of God. With the awakening of oneness, the point vierge, as Merton calls it, “is not a private seat of individuality, a refuge from the darkness and cruelty of the world,
it is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish altogether.” Let your light of love shine.
With good courage, Chuck + Peg
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