So…Can colored dots be prayer? By Kate Young Wilder

Deb and I launched our website this past Monday afternoon. We’d been working on it for months, trying to craft words and images to represent the spiritual practices of contemplative art we have committed to these past two years.

Almost immediately after I hit, “publish” and “post,” I received text messages from my daughter and daughter-in law, who happened to be online. I responded to their supportive words with, “I am so nervous right now I could almost throw up! I am going for a walk. More later.”

I mean…what was I thinking? My response to the sorrows I’ve seen in the past two years is this: it might help if you painted some colored dots. Seriously?

Colored dots as praying??? This is my theological contribution to our world in need?

I went for the walk. And of course, the walk helped. As it always does.

It also helped that when I got back I had a text, from my Joyful Gathering partner Deb, that read, “Bravest thing I can remember doing since giving birth!”

Her honesty gave my body the release of laughter I needed. This from a woman who had hundreds of employees reporting to her, who ran an important training program at a very well-respected university, and who has won real art prizes in real galleries! Deb is nervous about this?

Early the next morning, I climbed into our sensible car, while my husband climbed (happy as a 17 year-old boy) into his retirement convertible. We headed out for the two-day drive to our home in New Hampshire.

As I drove, of course my mind was absorbed with putting myself out there with a website that promotes praying with colors. That suggests becoming more comfortable with mystery than with sure answers. That suggests intentional silence over the pretty devotionals of our younger years.

Is it ridiculous to put ourselves out there with our ministry of colored dots? What are we thinking???

At my first stop for gas, I uploaded Brene Brown so I could listen to “Daring Greatly.” Brené Brown’s wisdom spoke to me in my uncertainty: “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” Yes, I thought. That’s right. Courage is important to me. The best parts of my life have come from the most courageous steps I have taken. Might this new venture be one of those steps?

And because it’s a loooonnnnng drive from Michigan to New Hampshire, the next day I also downloaded her book, “The Gifts of Imperfection” to listen again to what Dr. Brown has to say about creativity. She writes, “There is nothing more vulnerable than creativity…It’s not about winning, it’s not about losing, it’s about showing up and being seen.”

And these words—that I am claiming for my motto as I stride forth in my sixties, determined to take my place as a teacher of the spiritual practices that have most informed this life of mine, “The only unique contribution that we will every make in this world will be born of our creativity.”

Now, here’s the thing. I love Brené Brown’s work. The validation of her research and analysis is just plain brilliant for millions of people. I am one of those people. I also realize, though, that I need to claim what I have experienced myself. I want to say, research or no research, “This is what I know.”

I have come to accept that not everyone will be stirred by my practices. Some will call it born of ridiculous privilege. Some will question my openness to how much room I find at my table for all sorts of spiritual ideas and religious traditions. Simply put—I won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

And what happened to me this week as I drove and thought and prayed and pondered is that I am really, really, really okay with that. In fact, I think this new venture is proof that I no longer even want to be everyone’s cup of tea! I am no longer trying to please every darn person in my life.

And to me, that feels like hard won growth. It has taken me many, many years to claim the authentic self I had hidden for too many years. From this place of greater spiritual maturity, I have been able to reach out, more meaningfully, to others.

In the past two years, as Deb and I have been developing (in the words of St. Benedict) our rule of life, I have witnessed sorrow that was unbearable to those who were forced to walk it. These people I allude to (obliquely, out of respect for their privacy) are essential to me. They are my dear ones. And so, I felt their anguish deeply. Their pain affected my daily life. What I found was that the approaches I might have relied on earlier in my life did not help me as I needed to be helped now.

It did not help to try to be in control and organize stuff. (My go-to response to pain.) I so clearly was not in control that it was useless to even try to busily come up with solutions. The solutions were not, actually, mine to find. The best I could offer was to simply be present.

I was afraid. And that fear seemed to become something to pay attention to. Not to avoid. My fear felt like a kind of holy carrying. An important accompaniment. It seemed to me that there was a beautiful vigilance in waiting and watching through a way of new prayer that I needed to learn to trust.

And as I waited out the frightening hours and months, I found great solace in entering into the presence of God’s divine peace through the gift of contemplative painting. And, surprisingly to me, my people were often moved by the prayers I could articulate only through color. Here’s a secret: color is one of my most favorite things that God came up with. And here’s what I no longer want to be a secret: art making has become one of my most meaningful prayer practices.

The hours I spend with paint and paper and pen provide a direct connection for me with our Creator God, the source of all beauty and love. That holy rumination—with the placing of color and also with the allowing of empty spaces—focuses and calms my soul as nothing ever has. I use watercolor because, like life, it is unpredictable. I use pen because I have a need to write out sacred texts, poetry, and bits of conversations with my life’s companions.

Art making is a prayer language that speaks deeply to me: I am beginning to understand that I am most truly and contentedly myself when I listen to its rhythms and its intimacies.

So here I am. Me and my colored prayer dots. Me and my peculiar creativity. Me and my kinda wacky ideas about knowing God in both new and ancient ways.

Here I am, inviting you to meet the wonderful Deb Kennedy and me at www.AJoyfulGathering.net. If this venture interests you, please sign up to receive updates from our art and writing journals.  Join us for one of our Joyful Gathering Workshops. Come explore some of the beauty Deb and I have found in a commitment to the spiritual practices of creativity. We welcome you--with gratitude and hope. And yes, with hard-won courage. And, especially, with a lot of joy for these spiritual practices we have found.