An excerpt from Henri Nouwen's Show Me The Way: Readings for each day of Lent. This passage is from last Thursday, but I still want to share it:

I, Yahweh, search the heart,

test the motives,

to give each person what his conduct

and his actions deserve.

- Jer. 17:10

It is not so difficult to see that, in our particular world, we all have a strong desire to accomplish something. Some of us think in terms of great dramatic changes in the structure of our society. Others want at least to build a house, write a book, invent a machine, or win a trophy. And some of us seem to be content when we just do something worthwhile for someone. But practically all of us think about ourselves in terms of our contribution to life. And when we have become old, much of our feelings of happiness or sadness depends on our evaluation of this part we played in giving shape ot our world and its history...

When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes.

To live a Christian life means to live in the world without being of it. It is in solitude that this inner freedom can grow...

A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.

In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of him who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could give love to anyone. It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared. It's there we recognize that the healing words we speak are not just our own, but are given to us; that the love we can express is part of a greater love; and that the new life we bring forth is not a property to cling to, but a gift to be received.

In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.

Clinging to Faithfulness

The phone felt large and awkward in my hand. I could see his lips moving as he talked to match the words coming through the line, and yet the glass created such a tangible barrier. Even though he sat right before me I would forget that we could make eye contact...or maybe it was just too awkward for us. We only met ten minutes ago.

“...¿Tu familia nació en los Estados?” (Your family was born in the U.S.?)
“Sí.” (Yes)
“Ah, puedes vivir tranquila, entonces. Qué bueno.” (Ah, you can live at ease, then. How good.)

Qué bueno. How good. The more he said that, the more uncomfortable I felt. Everything I shared seemed to reflect my privileged life. A life of freedom and security (or at least the illusion thereof). Gifts this young man was longing for. Only 22, snatched at the border and whisked far away to southern Georgia, where even fewer people spoke his native tongue, and he has no idea if or when he will be released. Welcome to America, my friend.

There was a mixture of sorrow and gratitude in his expression as we talked, a sense of quiet shame and defeat and the fatigue from wondering how much longer. But there was also a spark of pleasant surprise at my presence, this young visitor who showed up out of the blue, even if my life looks quite different from his. Though conversation was slow, he seemed eager to make the most of this unexpected visit.

I don't know the details of how he ended up here. We're not permitted to ask, and he wasn't very forth-coming with info about his life in general. He seemed more interested in hearing about life in Georgia outside the walls of this prison – I mean, detention center.

The Stewart Detention Center was not intended to be a place of punishment. But looking at the place, how would one know the difference? The building is surrounded by barbed wire, and it's as hard to get in as it is to get out.

The moments I feel dirty with privilege are the moments when I'm most likely to doubt what I have to offer the world, as a person and as an artist. The same day we visited SDC we viewed a documentary at Cafe Campesino on the artist Winfred Rembert. Here's an artist who has something to say to the world, a man who has faced unspeakable treatment because of the color of his skin and now uses art as a way of telling his story. Me? I paint trees and flowers. The thought strikes me that mine may not be the art the world needs to see, like Rembert's, but that mine is for those in my immediate community, to bring life to them. It's the personal connection that perhaps matters most in my role as an artist.

I continue to run back to my word for this season: faithfulness. Faithfulness means showing up day after day, whether or not I feel like it. Praying, painting, and striving for reconciliation whether or not I see immediate results or growth, or any at all. Practicing presence. Putting one foot in front of the other.

I have the potential “luxury” as it were, to choose to be a full-time artist. But my art must be “fed” by something. If I am fed by being in touch with the earth, should my art not grow out of that? If I am fed by life in community, should my art not grow out of that? I must find what feeds and sustains my spirit, and my art will grow accordingly. Art cannot survive on its own any more than raw talent can. It must be driven by something, and sustained by effort and persistent work.

As an artist, Madeleine L'Engle's words encourage me: “It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me, ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.” (A Circle of Quiet)

As someone striving to follow Christ, Clarence Jordan's words encourage me: “Faithfulness is of greater worth than success...Let us cling to faithfulness as the one and only responsibility of Jesus – not to save the world, not to save the church, not to usher in the Kingdom, but to be faithful, as Jesus himself had been in the face of what seemed to be absolute failure.” (Cotton Patch Evidence)

Shortly after my visit to SDC, I stumbled upon an article by a German artist that brought me hope. He was given the opportunity to paint the walls of a prison, which has served to uplift those who come to visit incarcerated friends and relatives. If I could I would paint murals all over SDC, to cover the walls of my lonely friend's cell, in hope that my physical mark might somehow remind him of his humanity. At the very least I can continue visiting, faithfully making contact with those our society has rejected. And I can continue advocating, through prayer and contact with my Congressmen, whether I see results or not, because I believe that this in itself is an act of love.

I pray that my detained friend finds hope and the support he needs, that this time will at least give him space for valuable contemplation. And I pray that privilege will not stand in the way of me doing something, even though I cannot do everything.