by Michael Winters
We’ve got a new exhibit going up here in the Sojourn Gallery this week. It’s a series of paintings by Cameron Alexander Lawrence gathered under the title Until I Can See You. I’ve really enjoyed talking and emailing with Cameron while the work has been developing. Recently he wrote:
“…I can't really explain it—there's this momentum behind the work that feels very, very right, but it's different from what I've done before. In a way, it almost feels like what I paint is out of my hands and some other force (the Spirit??) is leading.”
“The Distance Between Two Fires” by Cameron A. Lawrence. Acrylic on canvas. 48 x 48 inches
I’m wondering how many others have had a similar experience. Over the years I’ve heard many people express a similar feeling. Very rarely I think I’ve felt it myself. You get to a stopping point and look at what you’ve made. You know you made it and yet it feels like it wasn’t totally you that made it.
Cameron wondered with question marks whether it could be the Holy Spirit and others have suggested the same with more or less certainty. For example, our current intern McKenna O’Hare’s website homepage quotes André Gide: “Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”
Or, for another example, on the Cultivated podcast’s excellent recent episode with Makoto Fujimura, Mako says, “If there’s one thing I know for sure, God creates through us.”
How can he be so certain? Our co-creation with God can’t be proven, but by faith, we can lean into it. In our lives and in our work, we can pray and hope to live our lives in tune with the Spirit. Maybe our artistic practice can even be time to practice listening for the voice of the Spirit. It’s incredibly mysterious. Jesus himself seems to admit the mysterious nature of the Spirit. In John 3, after blowing the mind of Nicodemus by telling him no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again, he elaborates:
“Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
May this be true of your life. May you be like one born again and like one blown to and fro, not by waves of uncertainty, but by gusts of the Spirit.